Has anyone encountered the need to Micro adjust lenses yet?
I purchased a 24-105 and it is amazingly sharp on the 5D mark 2 but then noticed how poorly my 24-70 focuses using the same tests. I thought the lens was broken so I tried manual focus and the results were perfect. I thought perhaps my lens may need calibration so I tried my friends 24-70 as well with the exact same results. I have set between -4 and -10 or greater micro adjust seems to 'fix' it.
Has anyone else encountered any problems? I may manually 'calibrate' all my lenses using the micro adjust feature.
Secondly does anyone have a great technique to help the micro adjust process? In my travels searching for answers it seems some people set up objects at varying distances and go through the different micro adjust levels.
I know this topic is done to death but I am curious to see if anyone else has any issues with their 5D mark 2.
I'll be updating my current 5D to the 5DmII next year at some point so I'm interested in your question regarding this as well. I don't have much time to research these things but I find this blog quite helpful on occasion which I think you would find helpful as well...
Could just be the lenses need calibrating, im not entirely sure. Is it possible for a lens to come 'uncalibrated' with lack of use? I was with out a camera for 3 months and moved recently. I am not really used to this situation so am not entirely sure if i should send it in to Canon as it might be a waste of money.
I've had no issues with not using lenses for a while (up to 6 months in some cases) I have however knocked my 24-105L a couple of months ago which did effect the auto focus motor (manual focus worked OK), although not as bad as in your example. I did end up getting Canon to fix it.
I'm thinking you did the same when you moved. Could you get Canon or your dealer to diagnose the problem first before you outlay any money?
^^ ThaT Chuck W. method above was very informative.
I have about 10 lenses and find that most need some micro adjust. I try to adjust focus so it is optimized at the distance that I am most likely to use the lens. For zooms, I will adjust at max focal length. I use a number of methods for each lens to double check the focus.
Method #3: I also have my own test pattern that I just mount on something flat (cereal boxs) and set up at the distance that I feel is typical of what I may use the lens at.
When I first got my 1dsmk3 I just got so frustrated trying to micro adjust all my lenses and couldn`t get them to settle to any standard. I got Canon to collect the camera(one week old:-( when it came back they had set up and adjusted the AF. All the lenses barring one were now perfect at 0 (what does that tell you?)
If your lenses work fine on the previous camera(in this case my 1dsmk2) then why should they need adjusting to work on another CANON camera and if so then surely they won`t work right on the old camera
I`ve never sent a lens in that works ok on my Canon cameras, just the new body and that has worked fine for me.
Lenses like Sigma ect are maybe a different story but we should be able to buy a lens from our camera maker and it should work first time (it`s not rocket science) and if it is impossible to get older bodies and lenses to all work together then the system needs changing, we pay a premium for our bodies and as far as I`m concerned probably the single most important link in the chain like Af should be rock solid and reliable.
Perhaps someone knows different from me but I can only go by my own situation.
Hope you get it sorted, at least with live view you have an easier way of checking things (mind you, live view doesn`t always agree 100% with the focus screen, more so with wide f stop lenses that have focus shift in some examples from wide open to stopped down and if you are seeing it through live view then you can bet to a certain degree it`s happening when just using the viewfinder and AF.) I`ve rarely seen an image on the screen in live view that is exactly on the button in the view finder but I suppose in a lot of cases the DOF is helping.
