Home · Register · Join Upload & Sell

Moderated by: Fred Miranda
Username  

  New fredmiranda.com Mobile Site
  New Feature: SMS Notification alert
  New Feature: Buy & Sell Watchlist
  

FM Forums | Leica & Alternative Gear | Join Upload & Sell

  

Archive 2015 · How to adjust viewfinder back focusing on D810?

  
 
Smridevan
Offline
• •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · How to adjust viewfinder back focusing on D810?


Repost from the Nikon forum:

My D810 is back focusing when I use the optical viewfinder to focus with my manual lenses (Zeiss 100mm), i.e., the object is in focus in the viewfinder but the image/picture is back focused. It appears my viewfinder and sensor plane are a bit off. Any ideas on how to correct for this?


I posted this in the Nikon forum but I didn't get any good responses probably because everyone uses autofocus there. Shims was the best idea but I think shims adjustments are too coarse for fine tuning. On my old D90 I was able to adjust a screw behind the mirror to fine tune it and it worked. I haven't looked to see if there's a screw behind the mirror on the D810.



Jun 16, 2015 at 06:22 PM
SteveDK
Offline
• •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · How to adjust viewfinder back focusing on D810?


If it's a ZF.2 100mm/2 MP you can set an AF fine tune value for the lens (try negative values for focus occurring behind the intended target). If it's a ZF it can't be AF tuned, because the process needs a CPU lens.

A caveat: if you have more than one ZF.2 lens, Nikon's systems treat them all as the same lens. So if -10 worked for your MP, but you had a 25mm/2 Distagon too, the camera would apply -10 to it also. This seems to be mostly a theoretical problem. I have not found this to be an issue with any of my ZF.2 lenses (25mm/2, 28mm/2, 35mm/2, 50mm/2, 100mm/2 and 135mm/2) and my D800E. All of them work best at Zero AF fine tune setting. Zeiss seems to have better QC than Nikon on the flange-focus-dimension, because my AF Nikkors are all different and only one works well at Zero.

Edited on Jun 16, 2015 at 09:57 PM · View previous versions



Jun 16, 2015 at 06:56 PM
SteveDK
Offline
• •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · How to adjust viewfinder back focusing on D810?


This site might help: http://regex.info/blog/photo-tech/focus-chart



Jun 16, 2015 at 06:59 PM
mdelrossi
Offline
• •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · How to adjust viewfinder back focusing on D810?


Smridevan wrote:
Repost from the Nikon forum:

My D810 is back focusing when I use the optical viewfinder to focus with my manual lenses (Zeiss 100mm), i.e., the object is in focus in the viewfinder but the image/picture is back focused. It appears my viewfinder and sensor plane are a bit off. Any ideas on how to correct for this?

I posted this in the Nikon forum but I didn't get any good responses probably because everyone uses autofocus there. Shims was the best idea but I think shims adjustments are too coarse for fine tuning. On my old D90 I was able
...Show more

Would you happen to have the viewfinder diopter set properly?
That might make a difference when you are focusing manually.
Or are you using the green dot as focus checking?



Jun 28, 2015 at 03:58 PM
Makten
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: On
p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · How to adjust viewfinder back focusing on D810?


You will probably have to re-shim the matte screen if that's what you are using for focusing. Optical viewfinders are not very well calibrated in modern cameras since most people will only use AF. There are very thin shims that allow precise calibration, so you main concern is to find them and istall them in a proper stack.

Edit: DON'T fiddle with mirror! It will screw up your AF calibration.



Jun 28, 2015 at 04:30 PM
bjornthun
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · How to adjust viewfinder back focusing on D810?


I think there is a viewfinder magnifier for the D800, which is called DK-17M or DK-21. I no longer remember, but others here may know the correct name for it. It may help a little.

There are also third party focusing screens for the D800, that may help.

I sold all my DSLRs more than a year ago partly due to frustrations with manual focusing and have moved to Sony mirrorless. I don't remember all the details about improving the DSLR viewfinder experience anymore.



Jun 28, 2015 at 04:39 PM
SoulNibbler
Offline
• •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · How to adjust viewfinder back focusing on D810?


THIS:

bjornthun wrote:
I sold all my DSLRs more than a year ago partly due to frustrations with manual focusing and have moved to Sony mirrorless. I don't remember all the details about improving the DSLR viewfinder experience anymore.


After 4 years of Sony mirrorless my experience with the P645z for anything non af is enough to make me tear out my hair. The viewfinder is just useless.

Also no diopter adjustments don't really help.



Jun 29, 2015 at 01:52 AM
Keith B.
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · How to adjust viewfinder back focusing on D810?


Do yourself a favor and have the D810 fixed...it's broken. You should....assuming you have acceptable eyesight....be able to dead-accurately eye-focus the D810 with a manual focus lens. Without needing/using the green dot.



Jun 29, 2015 at 02:31 AM
theSuede
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · How to adjust viewfinder back focusing on D810?


Makten wrote:
You will probably have to re-shim the matte screen if that's what you are using for focusing. Optical viewfinders are not very well calibrated in modern cameras since most people will only use AF. There are very thin shims that allow precise calibration, so you main concern is to find them and istall them in a proper stack.

Edit: DON'T fiddle with mirror! It will screw up your AF calibration.


Exactly this.

The mirror also sets your AF distance, DON'T touch it!

The thing setting your VF focus plane is the shim thickness under the matte plate on top of the mirrorbox. Your VF optics are only there to give you an image of the image projected on to that matte plate. Lens>mirror>matte plate gives an image. Matte plate > VF optics > your eye.

To correct this (if your AF and "green dot" works as they should) you replace the shim under the plate by a thicker or thinner one. Any service station should be able to do this.



Jun 29, 2015 at 10:16 AM
jhinkey
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: On
p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · How to adjust viewfinder back focusing on D810?


Keith B. wrote:
Do yourself a favor and have the D810 fixed...it's broken. You should....assuming you have acceptable eyesight....be able to dead-accurately eye-focus the D810 with a manual focus lens. Without needing/using the green dot.


Not really with fast glass - lenses that are f/1.4, f/2 or so and really sharp you just can't see critical focus with a D8XX OVF. F/4 or f/5.6 should not be a problem.



Jun 29, 2015 at 10:33 AM
bjornthun
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · How to adjust viewfinder back focusing on D810?


The D800 has a viewfinder magnification of 0.71x. My old Olympus OM-1 has 0.9x and my OM-4Ti has 0.8x. The DSLR viewfinders are optimized for AF only, not for MF. That becomes very apparent if you go from a Nikon D700 with 12mp to a D800 with 36mp.

A Sony A7 with both 10x magnifier and focus peaking gives me a much higher keeper rate (99-100%) on MF than a DSLR does.



Jun 30, 2015 at 06:07 AM
jhinkey
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: On
p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · How to adjust viewfinder back focusing on D810?


bjornthun wrote:
The D800 has a viewfinder magnification of 0.71x. My old Olympus OM-1 has 0.9x and my OM-4Ti has 0.8x. The DSLR viewfinders are optimized for AF only, not for MF. That becomes very apparent if you go from a Nikon D700 with 12mp to a D800 with 36mp.

A Sony A7 with both 10x magnifier and focus peaking gives me a much higher keeper rate (99-100%) on MF than a DSLR does.


+1
Not only the apparent image size, but the f-stop of the optics (DOF) is very limited. My A7R was great for this, though I sold it in anticipation of IBIS on the A7RII (yeah!) which helps tremendously with trying to focus short to longer tele lenses when using them hand-held (a la my Oly EM-1).



Jun 30, 2015 at 11:40 AM





FM Forums | Leica & Alternative Gear | Join Upload & Sell

    
 

You are not logged in. Login or Register

Username       Or Reset password



This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.