Nikon D750 & D780

Livin The Dream said:
I had the Canon mk11 and that was on par, certainly was a great bit of kit. I'm more interested to see how it renders.
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The VRII is my favourite rendering lens, the images are superb imo. Lots of pop, lots of 'character', sharp wide open......
 
Going to have to scramble some funds together !

What were your findings with micro adjustment, I speed read on the fly and couldn't find quickly last night. Revisiting the 24-70 tweak as not totally happy
 
What method do you guys use to MA your lenses?

Reason I ask is that I had a watch of the dot tune method vid posted a while back, and I can't make any bloody sense of it. :runaway:
 
Chuckoir said:
What method do you guys use to MA your lenses?

Reason I ask is that I had a watch of the dot tune method vid posted a while back, and I can't make any bloody sense of it. :runaway:
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I`ve used dot tune, and now have one of those card angle things from amazon. Seems to work ok. I also use my dvd collection :LOL:
 
Chuckoir said:
What method do you guys use to MA your lenses?

Reason I ask is that I had a watch of the dot tune method vid posted a while back, and I can't make any bloody sense of it. :runaway:
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Focal pro I find very good
 
Chuckoir said:
What method do you guys use to MA your lenses?

Reason I ask is that I had a watch of the dot tune method vid posted a while back, and I can't make any bloody sense of it. :runaway:
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I have used Lensalign, Dot-tune, and then finally bit the bullet and bought Focal Pro.
The thing is, unless you absolutely know you have to fine tune, don't start fiddling ! It becomes an obsession which drives you completely mad.
But seriously, the Focal is a bit laborious to set up properly, but it's very good. and gives a lot of other useful info too, like focus reliability, and repeatability, sharpness at various apertures, and lots of other reports you can geek out over.
The only lens which was absolutely in need of MA was my 135 DC, and that drove me mad trying to get it sharp. Using Focal was the only way I could do it in the end, and even that was after running it several times to ensure the best results. All my other (8) lenses need little (not enough to make a noticeable difference) or 0 adjustment.
 
@GHP / @Paulie-W / @littleted - thanks for your suggestions guys - I'm not sure if I do need to MA, so I think I'll print out one of those ruler-thingymajigs (that's the technical term, I believe) - set up on a tripod and see if I can see if it's back or front focussing - then take it from there. I haven't looked at my pictures and thought "oh that's front focussing", but I keep reading about folk doing it, which makes me wonder if my lenses are out or not. I'm happy with the results I'm producing with the camera, but wouldn't hurt to have a little play. :D

Thanks again, guys, very grateful.
 
Dot tune worked for me well with the 85 1.8g and 70-200 2.8
 
I've tried this dot tune can never understand or figure it out correctly
 
Chuckoir said:
@GHP / @Paulie-W / @littleted - thanks for your suggestions guys - I'm not sure if I do need to MA, so I think I'll print out one of those ruler-thingymajigs (that's the technical term, I believe) - set up on a tripod and see if I can see if it's back or front focussing - then take it from there. I haven't looked at my pictures and thought "oh that's front focussing", but I keep reading about folk doing it, which makes me wonder if my lenses are out or not. I'm happy with the results I'm producing with the camera, but wouldn't hurt to have a little play. :D

Thanks again, guys, very grateful.
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If you're happy with what you get, that would be enough for me.
If you go looking for problems, you WILL find them, even if they don't exist !

Unless, of course, you are in the business of taking shots of ruler-thingymajigs.
In which case, play away to your heart's content !:woot:
 
GHP said:
If you're happy with what you get, that would be enough for me.
If you go looking for problems, you WILL find them, even if they don't exist !

Unless, of course, you are in the business of taking shots of ruler-thingymajigs.
In which case, play away to your heart's content !:woot:
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You're right. Maybe if I'm bored, like, really bored, I'll have a look. :D
 
Boss just asked me a few innocuous questions about our bank statement...

:oops: :$

Fortunately one of them was a refund to MPB for a lens I sent back so she just assumed the other item was for that. Despite being a different amount and not to MPB! I think she actually doesn't really want to know and is just pleased I'm not spending our money on hookers and drugs.

Obviously those are always cash transactions so won't appear on the statement anyway.
 
Livin The Dream said:
Going to have to scramble some funds together !

What were your findings with micro adjustment, I speed read on the fly and couldn't find quickly last night. Revisiting the 24-70 tweak as not totally happy
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+12 on mine, but I think my camera's a bit fubar and going back to Nikon after this weekend.
 
Chuckoir said:
What method do you guys use to MA your lenses?

Reason I ask is that I had a watch of the dot tune method vid posted a while back, and I can't make any bloody sense of it. :runaway:
Click to expand...
DOT tune is really quite simple, have you given it a go or just watched the video?

I use this method and the chart that looks a bit like a ruler positioned at 45 degrees to the camera. I then take several real world test shots and tweak as necessary as neither the dot tune or other methods can replicate your average shooting. Subject distance and aperture can effect the fine tune so it's really important to test in real world conditions.
 
GHP said:
I have used Lensalign, Dot-tune, and then finally bit the bullet and bought Focal Pro.
The thing is, unless you absolutely know you have to fine tune, don't start fiddling ! It becomes an obsession which drives you completely mad.
But seriously, the Focal is a bit laborious to set up properly, but it's very good. and gives a lot of other useful info too, like focus reliability, and repeatability, sharpness at various apertures, and lots of other reports you can geek out over.
The only lens which was absolutely in need of MA was my 135 DC, and that drove me mad trying to get it sharp. Using Focal was the only way I could do it in the end, and even that was after running it several times to ensure the best results. All my other (8) lenses need little (not enough to make a noticeable difference) or 0 adjustment.
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I assume it still only gives one adjustment though, ie you can't adjust for different focal lengths and subject distances etc?
 
minnnt said:
My 24-70 was absolutely spot on at 0. Superb lens.

The Sigma dock is an incredible piece of equipment. Screw dot tune and all that jazz. The way it lets you do 4 focal distances is invaluable imo.
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Canikon really need to pull their finger out and introduce something like this. Even if they can't do it to work with older lenses they should do it for future ones.
 
snerkler said:
I assume it still only gives one adjustment though, ie you can't adjust for different focal lengths and subject distances etc?
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Yes, absolutely correct.
It gives you the best adjustment setting for that lens (at the testing distance, which for me is the distance that particular lens is most used at)
If using a zoom lens, only 1 setting, so it will give you a setting for each F/L setting you test at. It may differ from long to short end though.
I use primes, so zooms don't worry me !!
The Sigma dock is the best thing as apparently there are loads of adjustments you can make !
 
snerkler said:
Canikon really need to pull their finger out and introduce something like this. Even if they can't do it to work with older lenses they should do it for future ones.
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Agree.
They will, one day.
By then there will be better options from Sigma ( probably.)
 
Ok, I've used dot tune to tweak my 120-300's AF. A couple of times just to get my technique right... nailing focus manually even on live view at 300mm even on a locked down tripod & head isn't easy! I ended up with a range of locks between -9 and -17, so set my default value at -13. For some reason I had better success using the default value than a stored value for this lens... maybe because it's an older Sigma and needed that fair bit of adjustment? The following image was then taken of the high contrast scene (windows are great for this!) which to my eyes looks like acceptable focus (which was achieved by defocusing and using AF through the viewfinder):

SDfKyM7.jpg


I guess I should have levelled my tripod better ;) Here is an 8x enlargement in LR - does this look reasonable?

TVJHt8o.png


Subject distance about 10m (compromise between having the subject "big enough" and a focal distance which might be commonly used), 1/200 and f/5.6 which is the lens stopped down two stops so should be pretty sharp and well before diffraction issues.
 
If you want a really quick and dirty check just point your lens at a flat surface with some text on it, shoot wide open, then repeat with Liveview.

If they look the same, job done, no worries. Liveview will always be bang on, so it's a reliable point of comparison.
 
pjm1 said:
This might be a lens issue, but I can't seem to get focus lock with liveview?!? I'll need to check with other lenses to see if it's an issue that's camera related or lens related. Or operator error...
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Didn't some sigmas not work in LV
 
Yeah, that's what my googlefu tells me too. Could potentially send the lens back to Sigma for firmware update but given I never use LV to focus, it's not a particular issue for me. It does affect my ability to focus remotely when tethered - something I noticed but put down to the tether system I was using...
 
pjm1 said:
Ok, I've used dot tune to tweak my 120-300's AF. A couple of times just to get my technique right... nailing focus manually even on live view at 300mm even on a locked down tripod & head isn't easy! I ended up with a range of locks between -9 and -17, so set my default value at -13. For some reason I had better success using the default value than a stored value for this lens... maybe because it's an older Sigma and needed that fair bit of adjustment? The following image was then taken of the high contrast scene (windows are great for this!) which to my eyes looks like acceptable focus (which was achieved by defocusing and using AF through the viewfinder):

SDfKyM7.jpg


I guess I should have levelled my tripod better ;) Here is an 8x enlargement in LR - does this look reasonable?

TVJHt8o.png


Subject distance about 10m (compromise between having the subject "big enough" and a focal distance which might be commonly used), 1/200 and f/5.6 which is the lens stopped down two stops so should be pretty sharp and well before diffraction issues.
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If you've read my recent posts about the Signa 85mm you will see that my camera doesn't play nice with Sigma either. Tried an old 70-200mm f2.8, new Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 and 3 different sigma 85mm's and had the same issue that normal fine tune barely altered the AF, even +20 wasn't enough, but default fine tune 'fixed' it at around +8-12. What I'd did find though was that this massively through out the outer AF points so have you checked this?
 
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