D200 focus problem

My D200 is several years old and in the last week I have been having difficulties getting the camera to focus using my 200-400VR or 600VR with or without a TC14EII teleconverter. Using the center focus point it will sometimes focus, but seems to hunt excessively or will just bog down and not focus at all. The camera will focus better on high contrast subjects, but it seems that when confronted with a less contrasty subject (eg a gray bird on a grey stump with a medium green background) it will hunt, stutter/shudder or stop focusing entirely. I purchased some contact cleaning spray that I applied carefully to all the lens, teleconverter, camera interface areas with no improvement. I have a new fully charged battery in the camera. Today I used the camera for a couple of hours and tried using the other focus points and my impression (preliminary) is that it is focusing better with these peripheral points. So, is this a setting isssue somewhere or repair time? I was hoping to hold off on a camera purchase until a D300 replacement was out, not sure what I will do??? Any suggestions (no, I won't be buying a D3X). Thanks for taking the time to read my long-winded question.

Gary, If you have a service center near you, I would encourage you to head there. I had focusing problems with my D200. It was always inconsistent. I do wish you the best. You're probably talking about a two-hundred dollar repair but not sure it will do that much good. Sorry I can't be more encouraging ... Maybe someone else has other words of wisdom.

Carol

I'm afraid I echo what Carol said. Maybe the d200's were all designed to start with problems at some point, so we have to think about an upgrade? lol..

I LOVE my D300 - but what about a 700?

sandy r

Gary, I wish I knew the answer to this too but IMO neither Nikon or Canon have managed to quite get the focusing technology I would like. Doesn't matter if you use the D200, D300, D3, the camera will still hunt, stutter/shudder or stop focusing entirely no matter what you do. Single point focus is the most reliable 95% of the time but dynamic AF, forget it, well for birds in flight anyway. Only a week ago I was getting some really great flight shots of short eared owl, it was coming round for more shots so regularly I decided to have one more try with dynamic AF, what a hard lesson I learned there. The owl dropped down into the grass, picked up a vole and then flew toward me perfectly. I had all the time in the world to pick it up but the camera wouldn't even begin to hunt for it, just before it almost filled the frame, vole hanging from its bill, I depressed the shutter fully in the desperate hope 'something' might happen, it did, I got three oof pics that would have been prizewinners. If I had left camera on single point AF I would almost certainly have picked it up.
I 'REALLY' wish Canon/Nikon would design a camera where you begin focusing on single point and then once focus is achieved, press a button which switches you to dynamic area focus, that's what I wish !!!
By the way, we are not alone with this problem, I have just discovered a friend of mine has had camera and lens back to manufacturers and of course...no fault found.
If anyone else has the answer I'm certain we would love to hear from them. Richard Ettlinger is perhaps an ideal chap to ask, he shoots fantastic flight shots but may still have the same problems as we have ?

I had similar problems with the d200. The only answer I had was manual focus.

Sorry to hear your problems. My D200 has been going strong now after years of use. Sorry, don't have the image count in front of me. Sounds like a repair issue to me. I have now switched to using my D700. I am not sorry I paid the bucks for the D700 instead of getting a D300. When I go back to my D200, it is working flawlessly finding focus. My only complaint is that it seems that many shots from the D200 were not as tack sharp as I thought it should be based on shutter speed. However, many of my images are from a moving boat, handheld, etc...so, I feel it probably is "my" issue.

Troup

Hi Troup Nightingale, to be honest, I think any of these camera/lens combinations should pick up a moving boat ok but a bird in flight is a whole different critter. It looks to me like some of us, well the bird photographers anyway, need a little bit more than the cameras can give at present but as I said before, if anyone out there thinks they have the answer, let's hear it. The fact that none of the notable names have responded is beginning to indicate to me that the technology we require is not quite here yet.
Someone suggested we use military technology and have the camera fire infra red beams at the flying subject, great idea, no contrast problems...who knows what the future holds for camera technology ???

I was having the exact same problem! I took it in for service, and the diagnostic came gback "Auto focus mechanism failure". It required a bit of an overhaul. Costs were around $240.00.

Chris

Thank you to all who made comments and suggestions. I'm reluctant to spend $240.00 on repairing a 3 year old digital SLR...