Auto Focus MicroAdjust--Why the Stigma?

[Marsu42]

Does anyone know if there is a firmware-type hack for the 60D to alow AFMA? I really wish canon didnt dumb down the 60D

It's annoying, but that's Canon for you. Magic Lantern tried to hack it back, but they removed the whole firmware part when going 50d->60d, so it's not just hidden in the menu gui but the afma props simply don't work.

So why the increasing shunning of a lens that needs fine-tuning to work its best with a body?

As argued, it depends on the amount the lens needs - I wouldn't send back a lens for +-5, but if it's +-20 on a €2000+ lens I'd definitely consider it as this range shows their qc failed - who knows what the other issues with this copy are.

But my biggest grief with Canon's in-camera afma is that the required value depends so much on the lens-subject distance. If you're using a prime at mostly the same distance, you'll be fine. But with a multi-purpose zoom or a macro (shooting everything from 1cm to 100m distance) imho it's not possible to perfectly calibrate the lens via afma, much better to try to get exchange it until working by out of the box.

 

[Mitch.Conner]

I'm not sure I follow this thread. I think perhaps the word "stigma" is being used incorrectly in the title. When I think of AFMA I think of there being a lot of confusion out there about what it is and how it works, even though it's pretty straightforward IMO.

I've also never seen a thread where somebody claimed to send the lens back to Canon for AFMA. I'm not saying it hasn't happened, $20 says it has - I've just personally never seen somebody claim to do so on a forum.

I sent my 70-200/2.8 IS II back to Canon 3 times so far since buying it because it was soft - but it was because it was excessively soft and not something that AFMA could fix.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I'm not sure I follow this thread. I think perhaps the word "stigma" is being used incorrectly in the title. When I think of AFMA I think of there being a lot of confusion out there about what it is and how it works, even though it's pretty straightforward IMO.

I've also never seen a thread where somebody claimed to send the lens back to Canon for AFMA. I'm not saying it hasn't happened, $20 says it has - I've just personally never seen somebody claim to do so on a forum.

Many send their lenses and bodies to Canon to have them adjusted. Canon does not do a AFMA, they adjust the lens and the body if required. Its expensive.

Some do take their lens and body to a Camera Repair service which does not have the ability to make the internal adjustments, but will do a AFMA for $60 more or less.

 

[Mitch.Conner]

I'm not sure I follow this thread. I think perhaps the word "stigma" is being used incorrectly in the title. When I think of AFMA I think of there being a lot of confusion out there about what it is and how it works, even though it's pretty straightforward IMO.

I've also never seen a thread where somebody claimed to send the lens back to Canon for AFMA. I'm not saying it hasn't happened, $20 says it has - I've just personally never seen somebody claim to do so on a forum.

Many send their lenses and bodies to Canon to have them adjusted. Canon does not do a AFMA, they adjust the lens and the body if required. Its expensive.

Some do take their lens and body to a Camera Repair service which does not have the ability to make the internal adjustments, but will do a AFMA for $60 more or less.

Interesting. I had no idea. Thanks.

 

[NancyP]

Any Mac users out there who have successfully run Reikan FoCal on a Mac?

I have to say I was fortunate. The longer lenses used on the 60D have been fine.

 

[Eldar]

Any Mac users out there who have successfully run Reikan FoCal on a Mac?

I have to say I was fortunate. The longer lenses used on the 60D have been fine.

I do. It is not totally stable though. Some times it crashes and I have to rerun.

 

[dcm]

Any Mac users out there who have successfully run Reikan FoCal on a Mac?

I have to say I was fortunate. The longer lenses used on the 60D have been fine.

Yes. Latest version 1.9.10 working fine for me with a 6D on a Mac Mini with Yosemite and Mac Air with Mavericks. No crashes so far on this version although I did experience that on some previous versions.

 

[NancyP]

Thanks.

 

[m]

So why the increasing shunning of a lens that needs fine-tuning to work its best with a body?

You open that package of your brand new otus only to find that the focusing ring is loose.
A note explains how to fiddle around with the lens, focusing on a test subject exactly 1 meter away and to then tighten the focusing ring down with an optionally available special screwdriver.

Checking infinity focus on a fixed star is recommended.
Half a year later, when the earth made it half way around the sun, stick your camera into an oven with the lens pointing to the same star through the oven window. Make sure the lens is in a water bath to prevent overheating. Clean the rim to ensure the lens focuses evenly. As soon as the lens is in focus, keep the temperature constant for several hours (do not open the door!), checking the focus every 5 minutes.

Congratulations. The AFMA of the lens is complete now.
To know when if will actually focus, consult the horoscope. Pick the zodiac that includes the fixed star you used for AFMA.

Depending on how acceptable it is for people to do a part of the manufacturers job, they will or will not do AFMA themselves.

 

[jd7]

So why the increasing shunning of a lens that needs fine-tuning to work its best with a body?

You open that package of your brand new otus only to find that the focusing ring is loose.
A note explains how to fiddle around with the lens, focusing on a test subject exactly 1 meter away and to then tighten the focusing ring down with an optionally available special screwdriver.

Checking infinity focus on a fixed star is recommended.
Half a year later, when the earth made it half way around the sun, stick your camera into an oven with the lens pointing to the same star through the oven window. Make sure the lens is in a water bath to prevent overheating. Clean the rim to ensure the lens focuses evenly. As soon as the lens is in focus, keep the temperature constant for several hours (do not open the door!), checking the focus every 5 minutes.

Congratulations. The AFMA of the lens is complete now.
To know when if will actually focus, consult the horoscope. Pick the zodiac that includes the fixed star you used for AFMA.

Depending on how acceptable it is for people to do a part of the manufacturers job, they will or will not do AFMA themselves.

This misrepresents the point of AFMA. As someone else has already suggested earlier in the thread, think of AFMA as calibrating your tools.

If you want to say it is the manufacturer's job, you're saying the manufacturer has to use tighter tolerances during the manufacturing process, in which case you had better be happy to pay higher prices for your gear.

 

[YuengLinger]

M, I think you have answered "YES!" to the question asked earlier by an incredulous poster, "Does anybody really think of AFMA as a stigma?"

Do tires, best in the world, need to be balanced when put on a new car, best in the world?

To think that the need for AFMA is indicative of sloppiness by the manufacturer is just wrong.

Camera bodies and lenses are made of materials that must have a certain amount of flex. Furthermore, they are made to tolerances that permit them to be sold for hundreds or thousands of dollars rather than millions.

So being able to fine tune AF with a few pushes of buttons on a camera is a huge benefit to consumers.

Phew!

 

[candc]

I don't have an issue doing afma on the canon lenses. If they are off its usually consistent and easily correctable. Its the sigmas that deserve the stigma! The amount of fiddling it takes to get a sigma zoom lens right is ridiculous. I'm camera afma probably won't work so you have to use the dock to do 4 focal length x 4 subject distance corrections. Figure 4 hours and at least a hundred trips up and down the stairs. I just can't believe they can't do a better job at the factory. Once you adjust it with the dock it may need afma on certain bodies which I can understand due to camera lens mount tolerances and such but that initial work you have to do with the dock is like starting from scratch to get the lens where it should have been to begin with.

There, I feel better now.

 

[YuengLinger]

I don't have an issue doing afma on the canon lenses. If they are off its usually consistent and easily correctable. Its the sigmas that deserve the stigma! The amount of fiddling it takes to get a sigma zoom lens right is ridiculous. I'm camera afma probably won't work so you have to use the dock to do 4 focal length x 4 subject distance corrections. Figure 4 hours and at least a hundred trips up and down the stairs. I just can't believe they can't do a better job at the factory. Once you adjust it with the dock it may need afma on certain bodies which I can understand due to camera lens mount tolerances and such but that initial work you have to do with the dock is like starting from scratch to get the lens where it should have been to begin with.

There, I feel better now.

Sharing your feelings about the Sigma 50mm Art, which was so tantalizing yet so unreliable. To heck with a dock if I already have a camera with AFMA functions. That said, I was super lucky with the 35mm Art, and the Sigma 15mm fisheye has been great in all its fishiness.

For my Sigma 50mm Art, I don't think the problems were AFMA related. I saw a post that suggested, half-jokingly, that some of them seemed to have a random number generator on the AF chip. Sure seemed true.

 

[gqllc007]

Any Mac users out there who have successfully run Reikan FoCal on a Mac?

I have to say I was fortunate. The longer lenses used on the 60D have been fine.

Yes. Latest version 1.9.10 working fine for me with a 6D on a Mac Mini with Yosemite and Mac Air with Mavericks. No crashes so far on this version although I did experience that on some previous versions.

I have a macbook retina 13" and FoCal crashes every now and then. I have to rerun...frustrating when it crashes on the last part

 

[m]

Do tires, best in the world, need to be balanced when put on a new car, best in the world?

The whole point is not about whether it is necessary, but who is supposed to do it and that different people can come up with different answers to that question.
Are you balancing your tires yourself?

To think that the need for AFMA is indicative of sloppiness by the manufacturer is just wrong.

See, I tried to make my post ridiculous enough to not be taken as a serious opinion but the same "just wrong" point of view from the other end of the spectrum.
And actually having that spectrum is my argument here. Maybe this world has a bit more DR than a single color of "AFMA is awesome and everybody should do it and why the hell is anybody not doing it, OMG!".

There are people with and without auto focus, interchangeability of lenses, shift, mirrors, tilt, film, ...and the desire to adjust auto focus. I wonder if calling it "just wrong" isn't as much of a stigma itself.

I'm not actually having an opinion on AFMA.

 

[Mitch.Conner]

The only aspect of AFMA that might be considered Canon's job is - if DPAF can be used to semi-automatically achieve proper AFMA (by comparing AF on the same point between PDAF and DPAF), I don't know why they wouldn't implement it. Boasting that their cameras have automatic AFMA would be a major selling point IMO.

The fact that they haven't done it suggests that either cameras don't currently have the required processing power to compare the results between two images taken with the different AF methods, the software required to achieve such a feat cannot be fit within a firmware, or that it simply isn't possible or practical for another reason.

I don't believe in this instance that Canon just doesn't care. They have DPAF, and if it could be used for something amazing like auto AFMA, I have to believe they'd want to implement it to give their lenses and cameras an added competitive edge.

 

[DominoDude]

I don't have an issue doing afma on the canon lenses. If they are off its usually consistent and easily correctable. Its the sigmas that deserve the stigma! The amount of fiddling it takes to get a sigma zoom lens right is ridiculous. I'm camera afma probably won't work so you have to use the dock to do 4 focal length x 4 subject distance corrections. Figure 4 hours and at least a hundred trips up and down the stairs. I just can't believe they can't do a better job at the factory. Once you adjust it with the dock it may need afma on certain bodies which I can understand due to camera lens mount tolerances and such but that initial work you have to do with the dock is like starting from scratch to get the lens where it should have been to begin with.

There, I feel better now.

Sharing your feelings about the Sigma 50mm Art, which was so tantalizing yet so unreliable. To heck with a dock if I already have a camera with AFMA functions. That said, I was super lucky with the 35mm Art, and the Sigma 15mm fisheye has been great in all its fishiness.

For my Sigma 50mm Art, I don't think the problems were AFMA related. I saw a post that suggested, half-jokingly, that some of them seemed to have a random number generator on the AF chip. Sure seemed true.

That sounds like me.
I like Sigma glass, but I have grown to despise the way they handle AF, and the way that their service and support treat users (at least how they've been treating me, and I'm usually not special enough to warrant a unique treatment).