who uses Focal or similar?

[bearbooth]

How many beginner/amateur/hobby photographers use some kind of adjustment method to fine-tune their lens?

I've read so many good reviews on Focal AND a few other AF adjustments but wonder how many of those are from professionals or people who earn their living from photography.

Reason I ask is, I still consider myself as a beginner and if it wasn't for someone commenting on one of my photos as "it looks as though it maybe back-focus, that's why x is not clear"  I would never have even noticed. I would have thought, camera shake, I used the wrong setting, I focused at the wrong spot, not enough light, subject moved.....

how many would:
1) buy lens
2) check lens in detail
3) fine tune AF microadjustment
finally 4) go shooting.....

[rpt]

Me. It is a hobby and I bought FoCal. It proved to me that my 24-105 was fine and my 100-400 needed fixing...
Unfortunately on the 5D3 it runs in manual mode for setting the MA value.

[PeterJ]

I come into that category and had never given AFMA much thought until I came across this site. Before FoCal was around I bought a Lens Align Pro and they work well. For most of my lenses it didn't make a great deal of real-world difference with my 7D apart from a 100L macro. While taking hand-held close-ups I'd put focus problems down to hand movement and the very shallow DOF (plus I'd never owned a macro before) but AFMA made a remarkable difference and was money well spent just for that lens alone.

My 24-70L also needed a fair adjustment, although I tend to use that stopped down a bit and for less focus critical shots so it wasn't so noticable in practice. You'll probably find the same that for some lenses it doesn't make much difference but for others it does. IMHO it's money / time well spent considering what lenses costs to get the best out of them.

I've since bought a 5D3 and the FoCal software and while as rpt said it doesn't run in fully automatic mode I still find it less tedious than using a traditional target and it takes out the human factor analysing the images. While I don't obsess about it the sharpness charts are pretty cool as well for occasions when you don't care about aperture from an exposure / DOF point of view so you can pick the sharpest aperture.

[Mt Spokane Photography]

FoCal Pro is the way to go.  My Lens align tool is just gathering dust.
Lenses which benefit most from alignment to the camera are the wide aperture lenses, but every one of my lenses except for my 300mm L needed some tweaking.  Only a couple were off enough such that it would make a real world difference.
The calibration curve is a excellent tool, it lets you visually see where the peak sharpness it.  This is only valid for the distance to subject, and for a zoom, the focal length used.  Thus, running at different distances and focal lengths gives you more information as to which AFMA settings will cover your most used distance and focal lengths without messing up the others too badly.
 
This is a older screen shot I took in January when I first received the software.  You can easily see where the peak sharpness is, but you can also see that being off a little is not the end of the world.
With this lens, a -5 to -10 does not make a whole lot of difference. The software picked -8 as the best.  A setting of "0" would be way off on focusing, and have much lower resolution.
 

[DET]

FOCAL is still not available for the Mac.  Does anyone know of a similar product for the Mac?

[geminix]

FOCAL is still not available for the Mac.  Does anyone know of a similar product for the Mac?

Actually they have released the beta for the mac, featuring full auto support for the 5DMK3 finally. I believe you have the purchase the pro version to have access to the beta.

Unfortunately the beta won't run on Mountain Lion yet - they are waiting for an update to the SDK from Canon, due in early October.

[canon816]

How many beginner/amateur/hobby photographers use some kind of adjustment method to fine-tune their lens?

I've read so many good reviews on Focal AND a few other AF adjustments but wonder how many of those are from professionals or people who earn their living from photography.

Reason I ask is, I still consider myself as a beginner and if it wasn't for someone commenting on one of my photos as "it looks as though it maybe back-focus, that's why x is not clear"  I would never have even noticed. I would have thought, camera shake, I used the wrong setting, I focused at the wrong spot, not enough light, subject moved.....

how many would:
1) buy lens
2) check lens in detail
3) fine tune AF microadjustment
finally 4) go shooting.....

The very first thing I do before I shoot with a lens is calibrate it to my camera bodies with focal..... If the AFMA is off there is no way to tell whether the lens is performing as it should.  Focal will also reveal whether there is a problem with a lens.  In very rare instances a lens can be such a bad copy that it will never work well....  I bought a $3,000 Sigma 300 f2.8 lens that could not be adjusted enough to focus properly.  Even at +20 it was still off by over 18inches on a subject only 40 feet away!!!!  This is pretty rare, but I sure was glad I had caught it before owning it for a year then realizing the issue.  (I didnt need focal to tell me this was a bad copy for my body, but it would be more common to if you found a lens copy that was unacceptably inconsistent.  )

[marekjoz]

I use Focal but I have found, that if you have one body and one or two lenses only, you can try without it. It's a very good tool (although each time it crashes on my computer and reports some API errors) but finally shows what it should.
If you see, that your lenses is backfocusing or frontfocusing, you can hang on the wall in appropriate distance from the camera (the closer the distance to the really distance from subjects you shoot the better), then manually focus on tripod via liveview (with 10x magnification), treat it as a reference and later check AF with other AFMA settings (+/-). You have to make at least 3, 4 photos with the use of each setting and remember to defocus after each shot. You compare at which AFMA setting your photos look at best in comparison to the liveview reference and this is it.
It works as well. It is important to hang the test chart vertically on the wall, and not at some specific angle. As a chart you can use a money bill as well. Remember not to change light, ISO and other settings, except AF and MF. Shoot in M mode.
Focal is great for automatization of the whole process. When you have 2 or three bodies and several lenses, going manually through this can make your head ill.

[celliottuk]

I've used it extensively to calibrate my 7D and 1D IV. Unfortunately, there's a bug which stops it working with a 1D  X

[neuroanatomist]

I've used it extensively to calibrate my 7D and 1D IV. Unfortunately, there's a bug which stops it working with a 1D  X

Bug?  Can you elaborate?

I trust you're aware that the PC version only works in MSC mode with the 1D X and 5DIII (you have to change the AFMA values manually). The Mac beta has full auto for the 1D X.

[bearbooth]

purchased the Focal software and just did it on my kit 24-105 @105 and my 50 1.4.

results:
50mm 1.4 needed +9 adjust
24-105 needed +5 adjust at 105mm

is that usual?

[Mt Spokane Photography]

purchased the Focal software and just did it on my kit 24-105 @105 and my 50 1.4.

results:
50mm 1.4 needed +9 adjust
24-105 needed +5 adjust at 105mm

is that usual?

I have now done most of my lenses (I've a ton of old EF film lenses that I may consider some day).
Here is the results so far, and a typical report that FoCal Pro produces.
 
This is my table made to keep track of my settings in case I happen to lose them.  Zoom lenses have two settings, while primes have one.  I wish there were a macro setting for the 100mm L, I'm certain that the AFMA value will be a lot different at near macro distances.
Most of my lenses are close enough to be set to zero, but my most used lens, the 135mm L, along with my 85mm f/1.8 need AFMA.  I have yet to test the 35mmL, I overlooked it or would have done it when I had the 16-35mmL setup for 35mm.  Same for my 50mm f/1.4.  Doing a AFMA for my 15mm FE would not likely make a difference, but I'll do it anyway.

 
 
Table produced by FoCal.  As you can see, the lens had a AF issue one time.  I was outdoors, and the wind was blowing gently, so a gust might have moved the target, or just the lens misfired.  It happens more than you might think, and FoCal shows it.

[canon816]

purchased the Focal software and just did it on my kit 24-105 @105 and my 50 1.4.

results:
50mm 1.4 needed +9 adjust
24-105 needed +5 adjust at 105mm

is that usual?

not at all.

as long as it is within the afma range of -20 to 20... it doesnt really matter.

[neuroanatomist]

I wish there were a macro setting for the 100mm L, I'm certain that the AFMA value will be a lot different at near macro distances.

It wasn't for me. For the 100L Macro on my 1D X, it was +4 at 50x FL, +2 at 25x FL, and +3 close up (filled the frame with FoCal's tiny target).  On the 7D, it's +2, +3, and +2, respectively, and the 5DII was -2, -1, and 0.

[hoghavemercy]

purchased the Focal software and just did it on my kit 24-105 @105 and my 50 1.4.

results:
50mm 1.4 needed +9 adjust
24-105 needed +5 adjust at 105mm

is that usual?

I have now done most of my lenses (I've a ton of old EF film lenses that I may consider some day).
Here is the results so far, and a typical report that FoCal Pro produces.
 
This is my table made to keep track of my settings in case I happen to lose them.  Zoom lenses have two settings, while primes have one.  I wish there were a macro setting for the 100mm L, I'm certain that the AFMA value will be a lot different at near macro distances.
Most of my lenses are close enough to be set to zero, but my most used lens, the 135mm L, along with my 85mm f/1.8 need AFMA.  I have yet to test the 35mmL, I overlooked it or would have done it when I had the 16-35mmL setup for 35mm.  Same for my 50mm f/1.4.  Doing a AFMA for my 15mm FE would not likely make a difference, but I'll do it anyway.

 
 
Table produced by FoCal.  As you can see, the lens had a AF issue one time.  I was outdoors, and the wind was blowing gently, so a gust might have moved the target, or just the lens misfired.  It happens more than you might think, and FoCal shows it.

I have a year old 35L at +8, and a 4 months old 70-200 f4L IS at +4 pretty new, i think even brand new lenses might need a little calibration. not worried since it's giving better results.