Apologies, I phrased that badly. The affect is there on mission start.
JG14_Smil hit the nail on the head. Depth of field was the issue. Turning this off makes everything nice and sharp again :) Thank you sir!
Sorry for the late reply as well, have had a busy week! Now all I need to do is save up for a joystick and I can do something other than CA and scenic flights in the F15C.