Thanks everyone for your help.
I did have my camera on a tripod with a remote. I refocused after each shot. I shoot in RAW and did not process my photos at all. The histogram said the photos were good. I noticed that in LR I was on a zoom ration of 4:1 and it was blurry. At 2:1 it is sharp. I had a few printed at 8X10 and they looked sharp.
I am going to try the dollar bill idea. Then possibly borrow my neighbors D500 to rule out my camera. I think that I can rule out the lenses since they all were fuzzy and test 4 different ones.
I am happy that the 8X10s came out well. I would like to see the sharpness in LR when zoomed in more that 2:1.
Amanda
Hi Amanda
Now we are starting to get to the nitty gritty of the issue you raise.
The issue in Lightroom that you are experiencing is all self-inflicted.
What this means, in Lightroom, is that ONLY at 1:1 can sharpness really be evaluated.
Going beyond 1:1 is completely unhelpful.
It is no surprise that at 4:1 things looked horrible!
So, yes one does want to "zoom" in to check things like critical focus, but only to 1:1.
Sometimes, for looking at noise and noise reduction, it is helpful to go to 2:1 or beyond, but this is not the case for checking focus.
Understand that when one goes beyond 1:1 when zooming that no more data is added. One cannot see more detail at higher zooming. At 1:1 what this means is that is that the data from one camera sensel is mapped to one screen pixel. Stretching the data from one camera sensel over several screen pixels (the result of going to 2:1 and beyond) just means that the same data (from that one sensel) is displayed by several pixels - i.e. no advantage in that, only disadvantages as you have already observed.
I am extremely pleased that you have printed those images and report that they are sharp!
I cannot overstate how important it is to view images in their final output form.
Until I started printing I had no real idea of how to really evaluate the technical side of my shooting (and post-processing for that matter).
Now I print mainly at A2+, much bigger than 8 X 12, and so at that size any technical deficiencies become glaringly and embarrassingly obvious. One of the key things that I discovered was that at 1:1 all my images looked a bit soft but printed large they looked fabulous. Based on the feedback from those prints I was then able to evaluate my post-processing, and, in the context of this conversation, the sharpening and noise reduction I was applying. Basically, I learned to associate a certain "look" on the monitor with a good print output.
Now, I don't necessarily need to print an image to know whether it will make a good print!
It does take some practice and repetition though...
In summary, it is still possible that there might be a camera/lens/technique issue, however, I feel that after reading your latest post that the problem is really just a misunderstanding of how Lightroom (and every other image editor for that matter) works.
Tony Jay