Do you have any tips to improve focusing speed on a Nikon P500?

I bought a new Nikon P500 for a trip (cruise) to Alaska. In trying it out before I believe I am a bit disappointed in the time it takes to focus while zoomed and also the clarity of zoomed photos. I know a mini tripod will help on the trip - any tips on focusing while zoomed and in improving the focus time of P500?

Answer:

The first thing to check and try is the autofocus settings on the P500. If you are experiencing slow autofocus speed when zooming in check to make sure the camera is set to Full-Time Auto Focus mode instead of the default "single autofocus" setting. Using full-time autofocus should help the camera maintain focus while zooming but be aware that it will also likely reduce your battery life.

As for the clarity of the pictures when zoomed in, there could be several things that can help that. The first is to make sure the image stabilization feature is turned on. Second, make sure you are not using digital zoom. I would recommend disabling the digital zoom feature or avoid using it.

With the optical zoom range the P500 has it becomes very important that you keep your shutter speed high enough when zoomed out to the maximum telephoto range because it does not take much camera movement to induce motion blur with a lens that has a 35mm equivalent focal range of 810mm.

For best results without a tripod, you should try and keep your shutter speed around 1/800 of a second when fully zoomed to help avoid camera shake. While that type of shutter speed would be ideal it is not always possible, so it is very important that you learn the proper technique for holding the camera steady. Try using your arms and body to form a triangle that can help stabilize the camera. I would also recommend using the viewfinder instead of the LCD display when possible because that alone will help you hold the camera steadier.

A tripod or mono-pod will help avoid camera shake or there are other products available such as bean bags, puffin pads, etc. that can help stabilize a camera and that is fairly portable.

I hope that these tips help you get the most from your new Nikon P500 and that you are able to capture a lot of great photos on your Alaska cruise. I would encourage you to really learn how to use the semi-automatic modes such as shutter priority or aperture priority modes and learn how to adjust your ISO when needed to be sure the shutter speed is high enough when you are at the maximum zoom range of the camera.

About papixelhub

Hi there, I’m Prem Amrit ! I’m an entrepreneur and digital marketing consultant from Patna, India. I founded my own digital agency, where I help SMBs leverage social media, SEO, and content marketing to grow their traffic and generate qualified leads for their business. I started Papixelhub in 2019 as a side project to document all the strategies, tools, and tactics that I was using to grow my small agency. The goal was simple: to arm other solopreneurs with all the right information they needed to launch a successful business.