I've had some difficulties in AF fine tuning.
Mainly because my eyes are not good enough to tell where the sharpest point is.
The images I got from D800 with 300mm/2.8VR+TC17 combo has been pretty soft, especially in low light. I think I had finally fine tuned close enough, but not nailed it.
Please examine image below and suggest how much more adjustment is required. Any and all suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Steve
SOOC resized to 900 pixel wide & screen shot of focused area 100% crop below.
Really hard to tell from this type of image if you need any fine tuning at all or if it's something else. Did you tune under controlled conditions or just shooting real world?
Shooting wide open with a TC can be a little problematic. Shutter slap, wind, etc can impact sharpness, besides the TC its self. IMO, you fine tune for the lens. If the TC is creating problems, leave it off and crop to get the shot you want. The D800 image allows for very liberal cropping.
Without the TC, the bluebird is too far and small to crop, even for huge files from D800. I'll try without TC tomorrow.
It was set up on my backyard on pretty calm day, remote shutter release(still slaps). I'm getting a TC1.4, maybe that helps.
For myself, I use Reikal Fo-Cal software for my AF finetuning. The TC17 is however not the best of TC and not recommended on a D800. Either use the TC14 and even the latest version of the TC20 is simply brilliant.
I had TC20-EIII, but it was NO NO. Slowed AF considerably, IQ was terrible. Flat out almost no AF in low light.
I'm thinking to get Reikal FoCal for the moment. Thanks for the input.
James R wrote:
Shooting wide open with a TC can be a little problematic. Shutter slap, wind, etc can impact sharpness, besides the TC its self. IMO, you fine tune for the lens. If the TC is creating problems, leave it off and crop to get the shot you want. The D800 image allows for very liberal cropping.
There's no need to leave it off James - you can easily input two settings in AF Fine Tune (as I have just done today on both the D600 and D800 with my Sigma 120-300 and Sigma 500, both with and without a Nikon x1.4 .. and I'd add a 3rd setting for each when my x2.0 arrives).
The Exif is showing DX mode but NO indication of any TC being used. Looks like
you're still slightly front focused...subject is really not the best way to "dial it in"
Something static AND repeatable. That combo was sick on my D3/D700/D300
trenchmonkey wrote:
The Exif is showing DX mode but NO indication of any TC being used. Looks like
you're still slightly front focused...subject is really not the best way to "dial it in"
Something static AND repeatable. That combo was sick on my D3/D700/D300
You're right, Will. I forgot I took the TC off for this shot and others to fine tune. I didn't use this subject to fine tune. Rather it's already fine tuned (at least I thought I did).
I shot this bluebird to see if my tuning was done right. I thought it is still slightly front focusing(tree branch is in focus) as you pointed out. I'll work on this. Thanks!
Dustoff06 wrote:
Focal is definitely the way to go. I think I paid $80 USD and it takes some effort, but well worth it.
Thanks for the tip. I Googled it and read a lot of reviews - almost all *very* positive - so I bought the Pro version.
I intend to set it up and try it out at the weekend.
Mark_L wrote:
FoCal is excellent and takes the ambiguity and frustration out of the task. For a 300mm and TC plan on needing a fair bit of space outside though.
How about a 500 & TC Mark Actually I read some reviews that said the x50 FL was just pulled out of their .... and that shorter distances that cover the target work just as well. We'll see I guess because my garden ain't that long !
Actually I read some reviews that said the x50 FL was just pulled out of their .... and that shorter distances that cover the target work just as well. We'll see I guess because my garden ain't that long !