Reikan FoCal - Automatic AF Micro adjustment software

[MeHoo]

I know about the f8 limitation, but I didn't know if foCal used liveview's AF or not because it does have to be in liveview in order to work for my setup. That told me that maybe it was using that combination, and thus, might still work. Now I know.

Makes me wonder if when the camera is on a tripod and I'm using liveview to focus, that it's actually a really bad idea and less accurate.

[neuroanatomist]

Makes me wonder if when the camera is on a tripod and I'm using liveview to focus, that it's actually a really bad idea and less accurate.

Live View (contrast-detect) AF is very accurate, it's just a lot slower than phase-detect AF. Phase detect measures the difference between the separated contrast peaks from the incoming light, and calculates the magnitude and direction of change, then tells the lens to move X amount in Y direction, and that's it. Contrast detect essentially checks contrast, moves lens, checks contrast, moves lens, etc., until maximum contrast is achieved (which isn't known until contrast peaks than starts to go back down).

[apsphoto]

Hi all,

I have been running the software now and I have done most of my autofocus lenses, I still have the 500mm f4L to do as well as the 100-400mm at 400mm when I get some time to setup for a long distance. I used approx 50x the focal length for all the testing and this was done using the Pro version of the software. One thing that is critical to getting good calibration, or at least for me, is to have a well lit target. I ended up setting up with led video lights to illuminate the target, this helped a lot, and also it really needs a place that is out of the wind, etc. running was pretty straightforward and I am overall happy with the results. Here are some of the numbers I got, all lenses are Canon EF lenses unless noted, the quality is the quality of the curve fit.

1DMarkIV 5DMarkII
Lens AFMA quality AFMA quality
50mm f1.4 6 ex 5 ex
100mm f2.8L macro 2 ex 2 ex
180mm f3.5L macro 3 ex 1 ex
85mm f1.8 -8 acc 13 gd
100-400mmf4.5-5.6L @100mm 0 ex 0 gd
70-200mmf4L @70mm 5 ex -4 ex
70-200mm f4L @200mm 4 ex -5 ex
17-40mm f4L @17mm -4 ex -7 gd
17-40mm f4L @28mm -4 ex -7 gd
17-40mm f4L @35mm 0 gd -1 gd
17-40mm f4L @40mm -3 ex 3 gd
24-105mm f4L @24mm -7 gd 6 ex
24-105mm f4L @105mm 3 gd 5 ex
Tokina 16-28mm f2.8 @16mm 3 ex 1 ex
Tokina 16-28mm f2.8 @28mm 11 ex 7 ex
300mm f2.8 L IS 3 ex 7 ex
35mm f2 -4 pr 0 pr
50mm f1.8 II 7 gd 11 ex

At least I am getting repeatable results, I have a lensalign that I never got real repeatable results with so I never trusted it, but overall I am very happy with this software solution.

Alan