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by Larry Shuman on Sun Jan 13, 2019 5:28 am
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I have a loaner D850 body (NPS) and I put it on my 200-500 lens. I didn't realize the VR was switched to Sport. The camera could not take a well focused image. In fact most images are out of focus. When I switched the VR to normal all was fine. Sharp images again. What is it about the sport setting that caused the camera to not focus?
 

by E.J. Peiker on Sun Jan 13, 2019 6:38 am
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You sure it wasn't lack of camera stability rather than focus? Sport mode is designed for shooting moving subjects so you can pan with VR on. It basically disables stabilization in the direction that the camera is panning. So if you are in a situation where, for example, the camera and lens are vibrating or being moved around in random directions by wind, only the up down motion will be corrected by VR in Sport mode, not the side to side motion. In my experience, with other Nikon lenses, not with the 200-500, Sport mode almost always produces sharper images than Normal mode except for in the situation I described above.

If that's not it then there might be a problem with the VR unit on the lens.
 

by Larry Shuman on Sun Jan 13, 2019 7:21 am
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I have used the lens on my D800 & D810 and got extremely sharp shots with it. Yesterday I took a test shot of a dumpster label with VR set to Sport. The shot was clearly out of focus. One would think the shutter was way to slow possibly but I reset VR to normal and the shot was tack sharp without doing any shutter speed adjustment. Now with VR set at normal last evening a grab shot out the front door was tack sharp and this morning at snow on a bush again was really sharp. I might add that I was shooting hawks and eagles sitting on branches and power lines. If sport is intended for horizontal movement then the setting is wrong for a stationary bird. Is that right? With my 600mmF:4G VR is set to tripod. So is tripod and sport similar but not the same?
 

by E.J. Peiker on Sun Jan 13, 2019 10:18 am
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You can't equate the two different VR systems, they are totally different. On your 600, tripod mode means that you are enabling tripod sensing which essentially turns off or turns down the strength of the VR as necessary when it detects that the lens is very securely fastened and not moving in any way. I ONLY use Sport on my 500PF because it is WAY sharper than normal, even with static subjects and mounted on a trippd. If my shutter speeds are going to be fast then I'll turn it off altogether. In a totally static situation for both camera/lens and subject, stabilization off is always sharper.

All that said, there may be something wrong with your lens if it truly has FOCUS issues with VR in sport mode.
 

by Doug Brown on Sun Jan 13, 2019 1:14 pm
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I've never had a problem getting a sharp shot with the D850 and the 200-500 in sport mode. I have the lens set to sport mode 100% of the time.
 

by Larry Shuman on Sun Jan 13, 2019 1:31 pm
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I think the problem was low contrast light. Yesterday we had a snow front moving in and there was no sun almost all day. I was shooting a red-tail Hawk. He was sitting on a power line and these hawks will fly as soon as the car stops. So with low clouds, a 5.6 lens was not able to lock focus because of the low contrast. Today the sun is out bright so I stepped out and shot a street sign. First was with VR off, second shot VR set to normal and the third shot VR was set to sport. I cannot tell the difference between those 3 shots. They are all tack sharp. So the problem was with the photographer who was in too much of a hurry.
 

by E.J. Peiker on Sun Jan 13, 2019 2:58 pm
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Larry Shuman wrote:I think the problem was low contrast light. Yesterday we had a snow front moving in and there was no sun almost all day. I was shooting  a red-tail Hawk. He was sitting on a power line and these hawks will fly as soon as the car stops. So with low clouds, a 5.6 lens was not able to lock focus because of the low contrast. Today the sun is out bright so I stepped out and shot a street sign. First was with VR off, second shot VR set to normal and the third shot VR was set to sport. I cannot tell the difference between those 3 shots. They are all tack sharp. So the problem was with the photographer who was in too much of a hurry.
Or if it was actually snowing, it might have focused on snow falling in front of the bird...
 

by Larry Shuman on Sun Jan 13, 2019 3:19 pm
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I think the other problem was I had D25 up instead of single sensor. I just took a test shot of my neighbor's rear car in shade with D25 and they would not lock focus. I changed to single sensor and its locks focus. So two problems low contrast and incorrect selection of focus sensors. Who say's I can't learn something at this advanced age.
 

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