I have been doing MA since 2008 and have figured out some reliable methods. I use it on my 1ds-mk3 and 50D. I am getting a 5DmkIII and will need to do it again. I am intrigued by many of the hassles that Focal eliminates, like target alignment and also the automated way it aquires MA.
I find that after I do indoor adjustments at close range, I do them over outdoors at longer range and almost always need to change it to avoid front focus. Sharp infinity is a priority for me in landscape work.
But FoCal also allows you to use your own images so this would not be an issue. Being a gear head, I think I would like the pro version with all the reports.
I used the pro version mainly because I needed to boost my iso for 400 and 560mm focal lengths to obtain adequate shutter speeds. I use the recommended target distances, which meant my telephotos were calibrated outdoors. I never bothered to do detailed testing at infinity afterwards as my focus always looked very good at all my distances. Admittedly, I used MA mainly for bif where dof is shallow, but distance clearly not infinity. I would imagine if I needed perfect infinity focus, it would come into play for astro photos, and for that I use live view.
Thanks for he link, I read them all. I have the light issue under control as well as vibration. My lenses are f2.8 L lenses so I don't expect a big problem there either.
I got the pro version last year and don't regret it one bit. The extra options available make it much more than just an AFMA tool. Heck, the dust analysis thing seemed like a gimmick to me until I ran it, saw that my sensor could use a cleaning and my images "suddenly" seemed cleaner. Turned out fine specks of dust had accumulated because I had forgotten all of 1 time to switch off the body while changing lenses and this was not big enough for a visual detection by the naked eye.
Yeah also have the pro version..it's great! It would sure be great to get the fully automatic tuning back that was provided with the older bodies like MKIV pre 1Dx and 5DMKIII
Feb 03, 2013 at 10:20 PM
Lars Johnsson Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
I just finished doing photos of family this weekend with the 24-70 2.8 II, much of them at 2.8. They look so much better than my calibrated 50mm, that I'm not going to calibrate it.
Curiously, the 5DIII was assigning a mfa to the 24-70mm that varied with focal length even though I never set mfa to anything. The menu said mfa was zero, but clearly that was not happening. I manually set it to zero at both focal lengths (the apparent current setting), then the mfa adjustment stayed at 0. Odd
I bought the PRO version and not having ANY luck with my Canon 6D. I verify the focus chart, start the process, the line above stays green for about 15 shots, then it complains "needs to add focus points" and takes about 15 more shots and then finally says "poor results". I've tried this with prime lenses and with a telephoto. Nothing works. If anyone has ideas, I'd sure be thankful. The software is running on a Windows 7 laptop with all the current updates loaded.
there are some other posts about this recently that are worth searching for.
Main things that came up for me in your scenario were poor lighting on the target and/or inadequate shutter speed.
I have a sunroom that was brightly lit. Latest test that failed was my 40mm pancake. Program was recording settings at 1/500.... So I had good light and fast shutter. I've tried it in light that was 1/2000 and that didn't even work.
hmmm. I don't know.
I don't have the 6D, but that should not matter for your results. How many lenses have you tried? Did they work with focal on another camera body?
you are fairly straight on with the target, target is flat against a wall/structure, you get the green check when zoomed in live view, have sturdy tripod, floor not vibrating (ie a porch deck), attached usb cable is not jerking the body around during testing, all lenses that have IS it is turned off?
did you try one of their most recent beta builds?
do you have another camera body available to test with your current lenses?
The pro version should let you save a pdf file of your focus results vs. mfa plot. What does it look like?
