Lens Calibration

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Archive 2012 · Lens Calibration

LivLif
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p.1 #1 · Lens Calibration

Have any of you guys played around with lens micro adjust with a Lens Align? I don't have any complaints with my lenses just wondering if any of you experimented with this tool and if it actually helped. I would like my images to be as sharp as possible not that I have any issues now. At least from my limited experience. Maybe I'm just thinking too much.

May 08, 2012 at 04:19 AM

hardlyboring
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p.1 #2 · Lens Calibration

It works OK ...
If you send the lenses in to get serviced at an Authorized repair center they can do a better job of calibrating them.
Micro adjust can only do so much. Eventually you need professional help haha!

May 08, 2012 at 11:36 AM

Mark_L
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p.1 #3 · Lens Calibration

Sending lenses away is fine assuming your body is absolutely perfect and not just 'within tolerance' because the main issue is due to poor manufacturing tolerances some bodies and lenses won't play nicely together.

Testing is a very good idea on lenses faster than 2.8 but be sure to do it right (ie. lighting, distance and repeating) or you'll end up chasing your tail. www.reikan.co.uk/focal/focal-std.html helps the calibration process somewhat. A quick and dirty check is to use live view to focus and then af normally, if there is any change fine tune will probably help.

May 08, 2012 at 12:04 PM

TomHarmon
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p.1 #4 · Lens Calibration

I just manually adjusted all my lenses for my D800 with this chart on this site. http://regex.info/blog/photo-tech/focus-chart

All of them were a little bit different (some were back focused and some were front focused), so sending them to get fine tuned without the body might not help a lot.

May 08, 2012 at 01:11 PM

LivLif
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p.1 #5 · Lens Calibration

Thanks everyone. I know zooms can be tricky so i'm hoping to calibrate my 24G, 35G, 50G and 85G. All of them are 1.4 primes. Gonna try Tom's chart and see how that goes.

May 08, 2012 at 01:56 PM

hardlyboring
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p.1 #6 · Lens Calibration

Well you also need to remember that AF micro adjust only holds for the DISTANCE you calibrate at. For instance if you are calibrating a 35G and you have the chart or whatever 10 feet away the calibration setting may not be the same for an object that is 2 feet away or 30 feet away.
Generally when calibrating at home people pick the distance they normally shoot at and calibrate for that.

The only way to truly calibrate at every distance is to send it it.

May 08, 2012 at 02:03 PM

LivLif
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p.1 #7 · Lens Calibration

hardlyboring wrote:
Well you also need to remember that AF micro adjust only holds for the DISTANCE you calibrate at. For instance if you are calibrating a 35G and you have the chart or whatever 10 feet away the calibration setting may not be the same for an object that is 2 feet away or 30 feet away.
Generally when calibrating at home people pick the distance they normally shoot at and calibrate for that.

The only way to truly calibrate at every distance is to send it it.

Thanks Doug. I had no clue this was the case. I think I'll just keep them as they are. Honestly I have no issues or complaints with sharpness. I always want to get the best out of my equipment. Thanks for posting their. I have some serious thinking to do.

May 08, 2012 at 03:06 PM

cas5
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p.1 #8 · Lens Calibration

One of the ways I use lens align is when I purchase a new lens. I'll either bring it with me to the camera store or order several copies of the same lens from my favorite online store. Evaluate each of the lenses and pick the one that needs the least amount of micro adjustment. When I picked my 85G I went through four copies to find the one that I kept. worst of the bunch needed -18.

May 08, 2012 at 08:21 PM

deepbluejh
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p.1 #9 · Lens Calibration

hardlyboring wrote:
Well you also need to remember that AF micro adjust only holds for the DISTANCE you calibrate at. For instance if you are calibrating a 35G and you have the chart or whatever 10 feet away the calibration setting may not be the same for an object that is 2 feet away or 30 feet away.
Generally when calibrating at home people pick the distance they normally shoot at and calibrate for that.

The only way to truly calibrate at every distance is to send it it.

Precisely right. Calibrating at an average distance is certainly better than nothing, but it likely won't make the lens perfect.

May 08, 2012 at 08:27 PM

Jon-Mark
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p.1 #10 · Lens Calibration

Calibrating can make a huge difference, and is worth looking into. 11 out of my 12 possible camera/lens combinations needed adjustment, but none needed to be sent in for calibration, did them all with my own lens align. Well worth the $100 investment IMO

May 09, 2012 at 12:15 AM

tonyhart
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p.1 #11 · Lens Calibration

You guys should check out FoCal: http://www.reikan.co.uk/focal/

May 09, 2012 at 12:34 AM

LivLif
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p.1 #12 · Lens Calibration

What would you all say your average shooting distance would be for the following lenses:

24mm
35mm
50mm
85mm

May 09, 2012 at 03:38 AM

Mark_L
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p.1 #13 · Lens Calibration

LivLif wrote:
What would you all say your average shooting distance would be for the following lenses:

24mm
35mm
50mm
85mm

Use this tool:
http://www.whibalhost.com/lensalign/ldt/index.html

May 09, 2012 at 10:32 AM

LivLif
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p.1 #14 · Lens Calibration

Mark_L wrote:
LivLif wrote:
What would you all say your average shooting distance would be for the following lenses:

24mm
35mm
50mm
85mm

Use this tool:
http://www.whibalhost.com/lensalign/ldt/index.html

Thanks Mark!

May 09, 2012 at 11:47 AM

hardlyboring
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p.1 #15 · Lens Calibration

Jon-Mark wrote:
Calibrating can make a huge difference, and is worth looking into. 11 out of my 12 possible camera/lens combinations needed adjustment, but none needed to be sent in for calibration, did them all with my own lens align. Well worth the $100 investment IMO
Send your lenses to JM he is good at calibrating

May 09, 2012 at 11:47 AM

hardlyboring
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p.1 #16 · Lens Calibration

LivLif wrote:
What would you all say your average shooting distance would be for the following lenses:

24mm
35mm
50mm
85mm
My 24 and 35 I shoot at all distances.
My 24 is baller all across the board but the 35 can have some issues from time to time.

May 09, 2012 at 11:48 AM

LivLif
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p.1 #17 · Lens Calibration

I have made a decision to send them in to Nikon during the off season. I'm gonna have them clean and adjust them. I'll save myself the time and trouble. Thanks everyone for your help.

May 10, 2012 at 04:30 AM

TanouyeChris
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p.1 #18 · Lens Calibration

I messed around with the microadjustment with my 135 f2 and got lucky when I set it +7, honestly I had no idea but when I went and started shooting my focus was spot on.

May 10, 2012 at 04:42 AM

dcains
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p.1 #19 · Lens Calibration

alluremm wrote:
Absolutely! It's most effective to micro autofocus calibrate at the focal length which you will use the lens. [ie. my 70-200 sits at 180mm 90% of the time so I calibrate towards 200mm]

Don't forget the reason the major manufactures give us the ability to do our own custom micro focus adjustments on a GLOBAL or LENS by LENS bases is because they understand that from lens copy to lens copy and body to body combination there will always be small variances that will need to be corrected for to obtain the most accurate auto focus possible. Now, even some manufactures allow for custom calibration at the top and the bottom of a zoom lens giving us the ability for example to take the same 70-200 2.8 and dial in +4 at 70mm while a +7 when fully zoomed out to 200mm.

There are 3 or 4 auto focus lens calibration tools on the market and a host of DIY versions ranging from $0.00 to $159.95. IMHO, spend a couple of bucks, calibrate all of your lenses and get out there and start taking sharper images. These tools are simply worth their weight in gold!

Here's a few links:

http://focuspyramid.com

http://www.amazon.com/LensAlign-MkII-Focus-Calibration-System/dp/B004G3PANY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336486940&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Datacolor-DC-SLC100-SpyderLensCal-Calibration/dp/B0043RTJN0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1336486940&sr=8-2

This guy is a shill for his own company. PayPal payments go to Allure Multimedia.

Reported to Fred.

Aug 22, 2012 at 02:52 AM

amonline
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p.1 #20 · Lens Calibration

Everytime I try, I end up zeroing them back and hard resetting the cam. Works much better actually.

Aug 22, 2012 at 03:11 AM

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