Inaccurate autofocus on Nikon D5200

<p>Hello<br>

For a while now, I have noticed that many of my pictures taken through the viewfinder are soft. This softness has been evident on a wide range of lenses: Nikon 55-300 (mainly at 300mm), Nikon 35mm f1.8, Nikon 50mm f1.4, 14-24, etc. Pictures taken through live view are considerably sharper on all these lenses and represent the lens's true image quality. I have concluded that the focusing system is inaccurate on my camera, and remember, <strong>the Nikon D5200 does not have autofocus calibration.</strong><br>

Is there anything that I can do, or will I have to replace my camera with a higher end camera which has AF calibration, such as the D7200. I find the problem to be very irritating, as the only way to get sharp pictures is to use live view, which uses the battery quickly, and is painfully slow and awkward to use on the D5200!</p>

<p>You can send it to service to be adjusted. Include an explanation of the problem in detail and conditions where it occurs with examples.</p>

<p>It is normal for live view focusing to be more accurate (on static subjects), but you should be able to get most shots in focus using the normal viewfinder operation as well. If service is unable to resolve the problem satisfactorily then you may want to consider cameras which come with autofocus fine tuning. The D500 has automatic AF fine tuning which is very handy (though my experience of it is based on the D5, it should work in a similar way on the D500) but it is significantly more expensive. The D7200 and D7100 are less expensive than the D500 (but somewhat more expensive than the D5x00) and have better AF than the D5x00, including (manual) AF fine tuning.</p>

<p>The Nikon 55-300mm DX lens is not best at 300mm, if that is what you are expecting. The AF system needs contrast to work well. (I've three D5200 bodies....I have not been trying to see how 'good' the images are when shooting, but on the computer...all seem to be fairly good.)</p>