How many of your lenses required af adjustments? I just found my 35L need some and did on mk III, checked all other - all fine. Does it sound to you that lens need pro service as well? It is 2 y.old and I never found this issue on 5D I recently sold.

Great option, thanks Canon!

what method did you use to test your lenses? some methods in common use are better than others.

5 out of 12 possible combinations of 9 lenses and a 1.4X extender. Out of those 5, 2 needed only slight tweaking (+3 and +4), 3 needed more than +5 MA and none are in the negative MA territory. I'm seeing an improvement over the same lenses on my 5D in all cases except the 35L (+8 but perfect on my 5D). There have been quite a few people who've had issues with that lens on the Mk III so I wouldn't send it in for service; it's one of the reasons I think it'll be up for replacement sooner rather than later. Had expected it at Photokina instead of the 24L Mk II.

Emile Gregoire wrote:
5 out of 12 possible combinations of 9 lenses and a 1.4X extender. Out of those 5, 2 needed only slight tweaking (+3 and +4), 3 needed more than +5 MA and none are in the negative MA territory. I'm seeing an improvement over the same lenses on my 5D in all cases except the 35L (+8 but perfect on my 5D). There have been quite a few people who've had issues with that lens on the Mk III so I wouldn't send it in for service; it's one of the reasons I think it'll be up for replacement sooner rather than later. Had expected it at Photokina instead of the 24L Mk II.


Correct, I did almoust max adjustment for 35L and still seem not perfect.

santa wrote:
what method did you use to test your lenses? some methods in common use are better than others.


I do shots wide open, for lenses like 35L focusing in F1.4 should be very narrow. So I am using some letters or something at about min focusing distance and checking how it gets changed while adjusting.

I've seen a couple of posts suggesting adding a bit of front focus to UWA lenses. Is that a common adjustment?

There is no set rule as to whether a lens will need front or back micro adjustment on a mkIII. The calibration can be off on both the mkIII focus points, and on any or all of the lenses you use. When I took delivery of my mkIII it was front focusing at +10. One of my lenses needed +17 MA to come into focus. After a trip to Canon they recalibrated the camera and and that same lens requires +7 MA now. Out of the ten different lenses I own the MA range is from +7 to -3. They all work well and focus nicely.

I agree. You may also find a lens needs +10 on one model and -5 with another. At least Canon and Nikon are providing the AF fine tuning adjustement in all but the low-end bodies now.

EBH

EB-1 wrote:
I agree. You may also find a lens needs +10 on one model and -5 with another. At least Canon and Nikon are providing the AF fine tuning adjustement in all but the low-end bodies now.

EBH


Doesn't the 50D have this?

I'm happy they've started it on the new 5d and I think the 50D. In reality, a lot of "not so sharp copies" i'm sure could be solved with a few clicks either way.

Yes, the 50D exemplifies that trend in Canon bodies. Presumably it saves the manufacturer some lens and body service costs under warranty.

EBH

I applaud it. Who knows, if I start bringing in more money on my photos, my crop bodies may be 50D's some day.

I try not to get wrapped up in gear, but damn a 5D would be sexy in my bag.

Deleted... duplicate post... sorry

Breitling65 wrote:
Emile Gregoire wrote:
5 out of 12 possible combinations of 9 lenses and a 1.4X extender. Out of those 5, 2 needed only slight tweaking (+3 and +4), 3 needed more than +5 MA and none are in the negative MA territory. I'm seeing an improvement over the same lenses on my 5D in all cases except the 35L (+8 but perfect on my 5D). There have been quite a few people who've had issues with that lens on the Mk III so I wouldn't send it in for service; it's one of the reasons I think it'll be up for replacement sooner rather than later. Had expected it at Photokina instead of the 24L Mk II.


Correct, I did almoust max adjustment for 35L and still seem not perfect.

I tried the MA process on 3 of my lenses and couldn't get it right -- very frustrating! So I called Canon service, sent them some files, and they told me my camera was front-focusing and needed to be serviced. No WONDER I couldn't get the MA to work right... So, I drove it to Irvine last week and will pick it up Tuesday (they're closed Monday for Columbus Day!). I'll report back what I find, but I was not happy to see this problem. My 1dII was much better, but I'm confident that they'll fix this and get me where I need to be.

I'm mentioning this because if you can't get it to be "perfect," maybe, like mine, your camera needs an adjustment...

Larry Becker

Here you can find a very accurate method, which works great and is also easy to use: Perfect AF Microadjustment method

That's a good test, but from what I see it can only indicate that the lens is in focus somewhere within its depth of field. I prefer to know that my lenses are focusing at 1/3 back in the DOF which has to be done by other methods.

About this whole Micro adjustment thing--- I think this is time consuming. What if someone may create a small program accessible via USB port plugged in to a computer.... the program runs the test\calibration comparing lens' sharpness vs blurriest against its settings on a chart.

Much like when you calibrate your HP printer .. all you need to do choose the straightiest line it can produce... then enter those values on your camera... -- no need to compare pictures the software does it for you.

hope someone here may come up with that...using Canon's developer's Kit.

Or maybe Canon should release some utility or as part of an update to their EOS Utility.
It would be great if they made it so that the 40D can do these micro adjustments.

4 lenses, 16-35, 50 1.2, 135 2.0 and 70-200 2.8 IS all bought new from a dealer that does not restock returned lenses and after testing I needed zero microadjustments on any of the lenses with the MKIII.

jchin wrote:
Or maybe Canon should release some utility or as part of an update to their EOS Utility.
It would be great if they made it so that the 40D can do these micro adjustments.


I bet Canon has that on their factory.... how do u think they calibrate EOS bodies and lenses?....

jchin wrote:
Or maybe Canon should release some utility or as part of an update to their EOS Utility.
It would be great if they made it so that the 40D can do these micro adjustments.


I bet Canon has that on their factory.... how do u think they calibrate EOS bodies and lenses?....

bushwacker wrote:
jchin wrote:
Or maybe Canon should release some utility or as part of an update to their EOS Utility.
It would be great if they made it so that the 40D can do these micro adjustments.


I bet Canon has that on their factory.... how do u think they calibrate EOS bodies and lenses?....

Now if they would only release the software to the consumer ... hmm ... wouldn't that save them a lot of employee hours in calibrating lenses to bodies? I'd love to see them release that for the XXD line of bodies.

I almost had a "soft copy" of my very sharp 24mm F1.4 (and it's been tweaked by Irvine too) when I mounted it on my new 50D. I MA ed the 50D in the venue (using the much better LCD to detect critical focus) before the performance (much better focus somewhere around +15).

With 15 + lenses and 4 MA bodies I have found NO correlation between the lenses and bodies. But the need (and benefit) of adjustment is real. About 70% of my lens/body combos need significant MA adjustment.

I'd like to see the MA feature include not only different lenses, but different focal lengths, for the zooms. I have found different front/back focussing maladies at different FL's, especially in the 24-105!!
Could a firmware update address that?

Oh my ... maybe that is why my 24-105L looks bad at times and not at other times on my 20D and 40D.

Here is the test that I used - I found that a combination a target I found on the web, and one that I created myself did the trick.

http://blog.willshootphotography.com/2008/10/canon-50d-af-mi.html

I ended up testing only at the near end of the focusable distance for the lens thinking that the narrower DoF closer to the lens would require more precise positioning of the elements to get tack sharp focus - if I focus on something 100 yards away, the DoF is more and should prob allow for slight variations in the focus ring position that will still yield tack sharp focus.

Thoughts?

- Will

http://blog.WillShootPhotos.com