Calibrating / Fine Tuning AF for each of your lenses?

gilbouk

gilbouk

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Hi people,

Thought I'd put the question out there about fine tuning / calibrating your Auto Focus for your lenses. Do any of you do this - how often do you check your AF, and how do you to it?

I have a Nikon D500, and it does have a built in Automatic AF Fine Tune feature, however I've read that the results aren't the best as it relies on the user finding 'perfect focus' with error (no matter how small) on the focus ring resulting in inaccurate calibration.

Do any of you use 'Focal'? Any recommendations on any other 3rd party solutions that have proven to be good?

https://blog.reikanfocal.com/2016/04/nikon-d500-automatic-af-fine-tune/
 
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I have a Spyder lenscal for fine tuning. Couple of pointers if using it. First the camera lens has to be level with the target and square on. Next if using zoom lens there is no set distance between camera and target , you just have to guess the mean difference. With fixed prime lens there is recommended distance lens mm X distance that can be found on the internet.
However the camera has to be rock solid still so remote shutter trigger is best.

What do I think of it? I find Nikon lenses and cameras pair together are well tuned anyway .Third party lenses I can't say about nor other makes.

Unless you have real problems with focus then don't bother, and if you do either send camera or lens back for calibration.

if a professional photographer wanting the absolute sharpness say of a face shot then maybe, but I havn't bothered with it
 
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Focal Pro works for me, however it requires good light to do it and a stable setup for the camera and target, I would recommend the Focal hard target.
Some 'Pros' use it before every assignment, I tend to do it as and when I feel the need.
The good thing for me is that it takes the 'me' virtually out of the equation so that the technology can do its thing and explain to me how/why it arrived at the micro-adjust setting it did.
 
I use Focal and as Gramps says it takes the guess work out of the process. I also use the Tamron Tap in consoles for even better accuracy.
 
gramps said:
Focal Pro works for me, however it requires good light to do it and a stable setup for the camera and target, I would recommend the Focal hard target.
Some 'Pros' use it before every assignment, I tend to do it as and when I feel the need.
The good thing for me is that it takes the 'me' virtually out of the equation so that the technology can do its thing and explain to me how/why it arrived at the micro-adjust setting it did.
Click to expand...

where do you calibrate the 200-500mm ?? at 200mm or 500mm ?
 
holty said:
where do you calibrate the 200-500mm ?? at 200mm or 500mm ?
Click to expand...

Though I have not yet used FoCal the question of zoom lenses is covered by the website and the one thing I recall is that as it 'works' with the camera body it Focal will make corrections at both ends of the zoom range only if the body MFA has that facility! I cannot remember what they recommend where the body does not support the two settings per lens?
 
I've used Focal for my prime lenses and always been pleased with the results. It's a bit flaky on my MacBook Air but it gets there in the end. :)
 
You don't need to do it unless you see, from your images, that there may be a potential front/back focus issue.

I have Focal Pro but it doesn't work properly with my 2 D3S', so my lenses are at 0 AF setting and haven't noticed any probs so far.

It worked well when I had my D500, D810 etc though (y)
 
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holty said:
where do you calibrate the 200-500mm ?? at 200mm or 500mm ?
Click to expand...

I just rented the 200-500 so I didn't do that one, however if/when I get one it will be at 500mm as I will be at that length most of the time
 
gramps said:
I just rented the 200-500 so I didn't do that one, however if/when I get one it will be at 500mm as I will be at that length most of the time
Click to expand...

I calibrated for the 500mm end on my 200-500 as that's pretty much where it stays. Mine is also pretty much bob on at any other focal length I've tried. Also calibrated with the 1.4x TC on which gets used reasonably frequently when there are decent light levels. I used the dot-tune method which costs nothing and is pretty easy, if time consuming (also needs decent light and a faraway target)
 
I recently purchased a target on fleabay, about £6, it' a fairly thick cardboard, used it last week and found 3 of my 6 lenses far enough out to need adjustment, the whole thing took about 2 hours in total and imo well worth doing.

I had a feeling my 100mm macro was out from a shoot a few days before as I was sure I focussed on the subject yet the subject wasn' sharp and the camera was in a tripod.
 
Re: Focal. I got the wife to print me out an A3 target at work on a decent colour laser and I then mounted it on cardboard.

I did find that you need a much smaller target when testing at minimum focus distances.*

*Required for Tamron Tap in console.
 
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