A glimpse at automated AFMA from Nikon

[Refurb7]

FoCal works fine with Sigma lenses. I've used it with the 35 and 50 Art lenses and it worked very well.

I hope Canon introduces an automated system like Nikon's.

I guess you translate the Canon MFA value unto the Sigma dock by multiplying by 2?

I use FoCal with each camera's built-in calibration, with the Sigma lenses attached. This way each lens is tuned to each camera.

I have a Sigma dock, but haven't yet used it, and so far don't feel that I need it. My plan was to do in-camera calibration at 50X the focal length, and then to do dock calibration for near distance and infinity, but the near distance and infinity seem to be OK, so I'm going to leave them alone for now.

FoCal is designed to work with your camera's built-in calibration, so I'm not sure whether or how it relates to using the dock settings. It may work as you suggest, but I don't know.

The thing about the dock is that it's designed for calibration at four distances, three of which are very close, and the fourth is infinity. This is good for getting calibration for a range of distance settings, but it tunes the lens generally, not specifically to each camera. (Of course, not a worry if you always use one camera.)

For in-camera calibration, FoCal recommends a distance of 50X the focal length for lenses under 85mm. Check their page for longer lenses. This is good for general purpose calibration. But if using the dock for calibration, you would use the specific distances in the dock software.

 

[ichiru]

FoCal works fine with Sigma lenses. I've used it with the 35 and 50 Art lenses and it worked very well.

I hope Canon introduces an automated system like Nikon's.

I guess you translate the Canon MFA value unto the Sigma dock by multiplying by 2?

I use FoCal with each camera's built-in calibration, with the Sigma lenses attached. This way each lens is tuned to each camera.

I have a Sigma dock, but haven't yet used it, and so far don't feel that I need it. My plan was to do in-camera calibration at 50X the focal length, and then to do dock calibration for near distance and infinity, but the near distance and infinity seem to be OK, so I'm going to leave them alone for now.

FoCal is designed to work with your camera's built-in calibration, so I'm not sure whether or how it relates to using the dock settings. It may work as you suggest, but I don't know.

The thing about the dock is that it's designed for calibration at four distances, three of which are very close, and the fourth is infinity. This is good for getting calibration for a range of distance settings, but it tunes the lens generally, not specifically to each camera. (Of course, not a worry if you always use one camera.)

For in-camera calibration, FoCal recommends a distance of 50X the focal length for lenses under 85mm. Check their page for longer lenses. This is good for general purpose calibration. But if using the dock for calibration, you would use the specific distances in the dock software.

Yeah some people on DPreview suggested multiplying FoCal values by 2... I'll give it a shot when I buy it. I have yet to wrap my head around spending 200 $ for something I might not have to do at all if I just switch to mirrorless... thanks again!

 

[TeT]

benefit of this method:

thanks for the simple methodology ... I NOW have to blow up images to max to ascertain exact focus when AFMA. I can read a distance scale just fine Will save me mucho effort...

 

[Loswr]

Reikan had a deeper look at the D500's automated AF Fine Tune, compared to their own FoCal process.

http://www.reikan.co.uk/focalweb/index.php/2016/04/nikon-d500-automatic-af-fine-tune/

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Reikan had a deeper look at the D500's automated AF Fine Tune, compared to their own FoCal process.

http://www.reikan.co.uk/focalweb/index.php/2016/04/nikon-d500-automatic-af-fine-tune/

I just read the article but found Neuro beat me to posting.

With a laptop or pc attached to the camera using liveview, you can probably obtain the critical autofocus needed to properly fine tune the camera, at one point in the zoom range. Unless Nikon has greatly improved live view in their new camera, its frustrating to wait for the image to update, and since its a low resolution image, even then, getting the best possible focus might be difficult or impossible. I had that trouble with my D300S and then my D800.

If that initial AF is not perfect, the calibration will be off!

 

[AlanF]

Nikon Fine Tune - FoCal Perspective

As expected:

http://www.reikan.co.uk/focalweb/index.php/2016/04/nikon-d500-automatic-af-fine-tune/

"Summary

There’s a fair amount of detail in this blog post, so I wanted to give a summary of the initial findings.

On the surface, the D500’s automatic AF Fine Tune system does a fair job of quickly calibrating the autofocus system. In reality, however, the need to manually repeat calibrations to iron out variability in results extends the time taken. The need for absolute perfect focus before calibrating introduces a large amount of variability to the results and the lack of consideration for the overall autofocus system (mechanical, optical and electronic together) leads to suboptimal choices by the camera.

If you want to get your AF Fine Tune in roughly the right area without a computer handy, the D500’s auto AF Fine Tune is great. Otherwise (perhaps not surprisingly) we’d recommend to use FoCal!"