Disabling AF on Nikon 70-300mm VR

Hi all,

Initially I said that my D7100 body with 70-300mm AF-P would re-focus when I depressed the shutter even when the AF selector on the body was set to M. In a later post I indicated that I was unable to reproduce that error. FWIW I re-encountered the original "AF when set to M" "malfunction" a few days ago. The malfunction was observed to occur when in timer mode. I was unable to get the malfunction to occur when in CL and CH (multi-photo low and high speed). Today I noted Ken Rockwell's page says (WRT the D7100 body with 70-300mm AF-P) "These cameras reset focus to infinity as they wake up. This is only a problem if you want to use a remote timer, expecting the camera to stay focused where you left it, otherwise no problem at all."

Sigh. I will keep the 70-300 as it is a good, fast-focussing lens. I only wish that it didn't refocus when I don't want it to.

Michael

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Originally Posted by paintingwithlight

Hi all,

Initially I said that my D7100 body with 70-300mm AF-P would re-focus when I depressed the shutter even when the AF selector on the body was set to M. In a later post I indicated that I was unable to reproduce that error. FWIW I re-encountered the original "AF when set to M" "malfunction" a few days ago. The malfunction was observed to occur when in timer mode. I was unable to get the malfunction to occur when in CL and CH (multi-photo low and high speed). Today I noted Ken Rockwell's page says (WRT the D7100 body with 70-300mm AF-P) "These cameras reset focus to infinity as they wake up. This is only a problem if you want to use a remote timer, expecting the camera to stay focused where you left it, otherwise no problem at all."

Sigh. I will keep the 70-300 as it is a good, fast-focussing lens. I only wish that it didn't refocus when I don't want it to.

Michael

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I still don't know if you've a working VR in combination with your camera. As said in the link to Thom Hogan.

George

Sorry I should have posted that the lens is a Nikon 70-300mm VR AFP f/4.5-6.3 DX ED. There is no AF/MF switch on the lens - I tried to disable AF with the AF/M switch on my D7100 body.

michael

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Originally Posted by paintingwithlight

Sorry I should have posted that the lens is a Nikon 70-300mm VR AFP f/4.5-6.3 DX ED. There is no AF/MF switch on the lens - I tried to disable AF with the AF/M switch on my D7100 body.

michael

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I mean from post 8.

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The following cameras have no way to set VR and may change focus position if the camera’s meter goes inactive (requiring you to re-obtain focus): Df, D5200, D7100, D7200, D750, and D810.

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You've this lens and a D7100. What I read from Thom Hogans review is that you don't have VR. Or does "no way to set VR" mean something else?

George

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Originally Posted by george013

You've this lens and a D7100. What I read from Thom Hogans review is that you don't have VR. Or does "no way to set VR" mean something else?

George

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Ah, I get it now. Sorry for misunderstanding. The lens is available in VR and with no VR so I assumed that you had been mis-reading where I indicated that the lens is a VR lens. The post is suggesting that my VR-capable lens is rendered VR-incapable on the D7100 body. I am surprised by this. I suppose that I can take several shots with VR disabled (in the menu) and see if those differ from the shots I take with VR enabled (insofar as the body is concerned). I now have an experiment to carry out.

Cheers,

Michael

From Thom Hogan's piece, in order of appearance:

"The following cameras have no way to set VR..."
"The D7100 and D7200 can’t turn off VR, which is a shame."

That's about as clear as mud.

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Originally Posted by Mike Buckley

From Thom Hogan's piece, in order of appearance:

"The following cameras have no way to set VR..."
"The D7100 and D7200 can’t turn off VR, which is a shame."

That's about as clear as mud.

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"to set" means something like "to change".

And how will that affect the use of the lens on a tripod?

George

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Originally Posted by Mike Buckley

From Thom Hogan's piece, in order of appearance:

"The following cameras have no way to set VR..."
"The D7100 and D7200 can’t turn off VR, which is a shame."

That's about as clear as mud.

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"**The lens will default to VR on when attached to models released prior to the D3400: D3300, D3200, D3100, D5500, D5300, D5200, D7200, D7100, D7000. These cameras will also require a firmware upgrade to access the menu to turn off the VR."

From: http://www.imaging-resource.com/lenses/nikon/70-300mm-f4.5-6.3g-ed-dx-vr-af-p-nikkor/review/

There you go, Michael, slightly clearer than mud. Does "a firmware upgrade" exist?, you might wonder . . .

That actually really is clear. It's odd, though, that I've never been able to find anything about it at Nikon's USA site.

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Originally Posted by xpatUSA

Does "a firmware upgrade" exist?, you might wonder . . .

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Much to my surprise, there is a firmware upgrade to my D7000 that I've never known about. I remember upgrading soon after I bought the camera in 2010 but don't remember hearing about another one since then and probably never checked for one.

An aside comment on the "P" lens.

I bought a current model D3400 kit as a present for my sister. When it got to showing her the ropes (she has had a point and shoot for many years) things came to a halt on discovering the menu-driven "P" lens. It appears that these are intended to improve performance when shooting video.

I tried out a couple of my AF-S lenses on the body and they worked fine in regard to M/AF functionality but I did not investigate the VR function.

Presumably Nikon's marketing folks think this is a good move to reduce the inroads into the bottom end of their range that is being made by smartphones, but that wouldn't explain why the D7x00 series are listed as compatible bodies.