Hi there I’ve been shooting with a 90d for the last four years with l glass last year I bought a second hand 1dx mk 2 with 20k clicks on it I absolutely love it used for our showjumping and dressage horses I live in Spain so not really a problem with light looking at canon es there seems to be only a couple of hundred euros difference between the new ri and the 1dx mk 3 doesn’t that tell you something so far this year I’ve taken 0ver 45k pictures on my 1dx mk 2 and really happy with the results
Using a tape measure is fine indeed and works very well...however, larger telephoto lenses (150mm+) (I'm specifically talking about the SIGMA 150-600mm Contemporary lens) Using a small tape measure just won't cut it! Secondly, I've heard of others that use natural landmarks for adjusting their AF. I'm not sure how one would be able to set up a targeted object 30-50+ feet away from the camera living in a small apartment or not having access to a large yard. With that said, how does one accurately calibrate a lens such as mine in order to have accurate (as possible) AF? You can't adjust the AF on a 600mm lens sitting at a desk in a small room.
Very helpful video, so if your camera is front focusing do you move the adjustment towards the cameraand if its back focusing you move the dial towards the mountains?
Thanks for this. There are many videos showing different methods for focus adjustment which is rather confusing. I wonder how you would advise doing a micro-adjustment on a 500 f4 or any other long prime lens?
Heh... I was just wondering if I'm simply unlucky. Since I began my photography journey, I've owned 3 different camera bodies and hmm... around 15 autofocus lenses? -ranging from bughet ones to flagship models. The only lens that didn't require any focus adjustment (whether slight or significant) was an old zoom lens from the '90s on Pentax K5IIS, ironically enough. There seems to be a consistent issue of misalignment in every DSLR camera body and lens combination that I've tried. The question is, can you perceive these misalignments, and do they bother you? I'm seriously considering switching to a mirrorless system for my next camera purchase.
Cheers Rob , I forgot what a pain that can be , I will be getting my 1DX hopefully Monday/Tuesday . I have sent the EOSR back , had a few lock outs , the thing I did notice it is very sharp will all my EF lenses . If we are allowed out to play I intend to earn some money this year with it and see how the R5 first cameras work .
Thanks Rob, very useful. But I see that you moved the focus point towards the camera on the LCD but with the aim of moving the actual focus point further away. Do you find that the camera display is backwards? The Nikon has a similar display and I've wondered which way to go in or out but not checked.
Thanks Alan without getting "scientific" in my answer, which I'll always try to avoid 🤔 the best thing you can do is to play with both directions on the dial and gradually get it nearer and nearer
i'm afraid the adjustment was backwards... if the camera was indeed focusing a bit in front of the subject, the microadjustment should be + not -. also on the last picture 6:48 looks like the mm marks on the tape measure are much crisper around 20mm than 26mm where the card was positioned. but this being a youtube video, it's also quite possible that what i'm seeing on my monitor is not what it looked in real life :)
Similar feature on Nikon, called AF Fine Tune. Unfortunately we only get one focus setting per lens on Nikon, not an issue on primes but for zooms we have to either average "wide" vs "tele" values or just calibrate at the most used zoom length. Do you add another calibration setting if the lens is used with a tele-converter?
@@RobSambles No, the camera remembers separate settings for the lens and the lens with the teleconverter (at least if they're both Canon, haven't tried with third party). This does mean calibration is pretty time-consuming if you have several possible zoom lens + teleconverter combinations!
Hi Rob, I always struggle with soft focus on my canon 5d mii and I have a bit of a problem. I've just tried to micro-adjust, but it's not good enough, now I can see that the focus is indeed in front of the target, but it´s still off by maybe 3 - 4 cm and I already set it backward to +20 and that's how far it will go... I did lens adjustment using a sigma 70-300 also tried on a 50 mm canon lens, but still get the same result. Any advise...?
Don't you get a bit of an error if the memory card is not in line with your sensor plane? For example, if you focus on the middle of your memory card the base is further away of the picture plane and therefore slightly out of focus. I think if you want to tweak your setup you have to tilt the memory card backwards with the same angle you tilted your camera. Great Video! Keep up the good work Greetings from Germany Sebastian
Thanks Sebastian, good tip. The camera is low to the surface so I don't think any of the card would be outside of the depth of the field if focusing on the middle (probably 0.5mm max difference top to bottom) but yeah I'll try that next time 100%
@@RobSambles I think it is not a big error but if we are talking about micro-adjusting I think it might be important to remember alining the picture plane with the subject
@@Baschtel6666 It really is recommended to do this on a 90 degree angle or as much as possible. This method would only work if you autofocus exactly at the bottom edge of the card. It also makes it a lot easier if you line the card, or any object with good contrast for that fact, with a major mark in inches or centimeters. With smaller apertures you might not see much of a difference. But you should autofocus with as shallow of a depth of field as possible to see the biggest difference in sharpness. Though, stop down as far as needed to get a 'sharp' image to start with. CA and overall ghosting doesn't help to judge where the sharpest point is.
I don’t understand this, if your focus is too close I thought you had to move it towards the mountain symbol or am I wrong having not done this I’m not sure. Al.
To be honest it seems to vary tremendously front and back, lens to lens. I'm not sure there's too much science to it unfortunately. My best advice would be to play around both ways until you feel it's better. It's definitely improved it on my lens.
FWIW I've just calibrated my lenses using www.northlight-images.co.uk/camera-af-microadjustment/ Might be worth a look if you have trouble with the tape measure system.
Wait what? You had focus in front of your target and you moving it even more to front (- AF microadjustment, slider to left) and it improves??? Something is not right here. All manuals (canon user manual) and other movies show that in this case you have to go + AF (slider to right). So how you made it to work?????????
To be honest it seems to vary tremendously front and back, lens to lens. I'm not sure there's too much science to it unfortunately. My best advice would be to play around both ways until you feel it's better. It's definitely improved it on my lens.
Nonsense you have the adjustment back to front. If your camera is front focussing, you use +, if your camera is back focussing you use -. Thats what it says in the Canon Manual.
I didn't know about this. I'll be checking my lenses this weekend! Thanks for the tip.
Yeah well worth it Rob
Can make a big difference.
Hi there I’ve been shooting with a 90d for the last four years with l glass last year I bought a second hand 1dx mk 2 with 20k clicks on it I absolutely love it used for our showjumping and dressage horses I live in Spain so not really a problem with light looking at canon es there seems to be only a couple of hundred euros difference between the new ri and the 1dx mk 3 doesn’t that tell you something so far this year I’ve taken 0ver 45k pictures on my 1dx mk 2 and really happy with the results
Using a tape measure is fine indeed and works very well...however, larger telephoto lenses (150mm+) (I'm specifically talking about the SIGMA 150-600mm Contemporary lens) Using a small tape measure just won't cut it! Secondly, I've heard of others that use natural landmarks for adjusting their AF. I'm not sure how one would be able to set up a targeted object 30-50+ feet away from the camera living in a small apartment or not having access to a large yard.
With that said, how does one accurately calibrate a lens such as mine in order to have accurate (as possible) AF?
You can't adjust the AF on a 600mm lens sitting at a desk in a small room.
This is perfect timing Rob! Haha, I bought a tamron 24-70 and have noticed that it's slightly back focusing. Thanks for the tutorial!
Awesome - hopefully this will work for you. The only I'd try differently would be to do the 70mm end from further back. Maybe an extra meter or so
Great video mate, I'm sorting mine tomorrow now
Very helpful video, so if your camera is front focusing do you move the adjustment towards the cameraand if its back focusing you move the dial towards the mountains?
Excellent video! Thanks for walking us through the process. You made it very easy to understand!😊😊
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks for this. There are many videos showing different methods for focus adjustment which is rather confusing. I wonder how you would advise doing a micro-adjustment on a 500 f4 or any other long prime lens?
Thank you....just what the doctor ordered. Will post another comment after making the adjustments.
Heh... I was just wondering if I'm simply unlucky. Since I began my photography journey, I've owned 3 different camera bodies and hmm... around 15 autofocus lenses? -ranging from bughet ones to flagship models. The only lens that didn't require any focus adjustment (whether slight or significant) was an old zoom lens from the '90s on Pentax K5IIS, ironically enough. There seems to be a consistent issue of misalignment in every DSLR camera body and lens combination that I've tried. The question is, can you perceive these misalignments, and do they bother you? I'm seriously considering switching to a mirrorless system for my next camera purchase.
Cheers Rob , I forgot what a pain that can be , I will be getting my 1DX hopefully Monday/Tuesday . I have sent the EOSR back , had a few lock outs , the thing I did notice it is very sharp will all my EF lenses . If we are allowed out to play I intend to earn some money this year with it and see how the R5 first cameras work .
Nice one Roy sounds good
One way to speed up this process is to shoot tethered! Saves you some time swapping cards in and out! :)
Yeah good shout
Thanks Rob, very useful. But I see that you moved the focus point towards the camera on the LCD but with the aim of moving the actual focus point further away. Do you find that the camera display is backwards? The Nikon has a similar display and I've wondered which way to go in or out but not checked.
Thanks Alan without getting "scientific" in my answer, which I'll always try to avoid 🤔 the best thing you can do is to play with both directions on the dial and gradually get it nearer and nearer
How do I do this for a 75-300?
i'm afraid the adjustment was backwards... if the camera was indeed focusing a bit in front of the subject, the microadjustment should be + not -.
also on the last picture 6:48 looks like the mm marks on the tape measure are much crisper around 20mm than 26mm where the card was positioned.
but this being a youtube video, it's also quite possible that what i'm seeing on my monitor is not what it looked in real life :)
Thankyou Rob very good Video.
What apature did you use for the test shots Rob?
Great question. I shot wide open at 2.8 to keep the depth of field as shallow as possible
Thanks Rob. Very informative.
Rob, do you set your camera at specific angle for this test?
Similar feature on Nikon, called AF Fine Tune. Unfortunately we only get one focus setting per lens on Nikon, not an issue on primes but for zooms we have to either average "wide" vs "tele" values or just calibrate at the most used zoom length. Do you add another calibration setting if the lens is used with a tele-converter?
Good question - I would imagine you'd either have to do the telephoto end without the converter or with it and just have the one adjustment
@@RobSambles No, the camera remembers separate settings for the lens and the lens with the teleconverter (at least if they're both Canon, haven't tried with third party). This does mean calibration is pretty time-consuming if you have several possible zoom lens + teleconverter combinations!
Does calibration at 2 or 3 feet translate to better calibration at 20 or 30 feet?
Yeah in my experience of doing this it does. To do a full thorough job it would be worth doing this a few times at different distances
Hi Rob, I always struggle with soft focus on my canon 5d mii and I have a bit of a problem. I've just tried to micro-adjust, but it's not good enough, now I can see that the focus is indeed in front of the target, but it´s still off by maybe 3 - 4 cm and I already set it backward to +20 and that's how far it will go... I did lens adjustment using a sigma 70-300 also tried on a 50 mm canon lens, but still get the same result. Any advise...?
Simple: it's your camera body that's causing the problem. Take it for servicing.
Don't you get a bit of an error if the memory card is not in line with your sensor plane?
For example, if you focus on the middle of your memory card the base is further away of the picture plane and therefore slightly out of focus.
I think if you want to tweak your setup you have to tilt the memory card backwards with the same angle you tilted your camera.
Great Video! Keep up the good work
Greetings from Germany
Sebastian
Thanks Sebastian, good tip. The camera is low to the surface so I don't think any of the card would be outside of the depth of the field if focusing on the middle (probably 0.5mm max difference top to bottom) but yeah I'll try that next time 100%
@@RobSambles I think it is not a big error but if we are talking about micro-adjusting I think it might be important to remember alining the picture plane with the subject
@@Baschtel6666
It really is recommended to do this on a 90 degree angle or as much as possible.
This method would only work if you autofocus exactly at the bottom edge of the card.
It also makes it a lot easier if you line the card, or any object with good contrast for that fact, with a major mark in inches or centimeters.
With smaller apertures you might not see much of a difference. But you should autofocus with as shallow of a depth of field as possible to see the biggest difference in sharpness. Though, stop down as far as needed to get a 'sharp' image to start with. CA and overall ghosting doesn't help to judge where the sharpest point is.
Recommended: Set up for a 2 second delay so you don't affect the shot.
Does it matter the f stop or the distance to the focus target?
Maximum zoom level with largest aperture (lowest possible F-stop number) makes the most sense to me: shallowest depth of field.
Does the camera remember which lens is which? Or everytime you change lens you have to re adjust camera??
Yes it does
Great tip.Does this work on Sigma lenses?,when I press on the menu to adjust the lense nothing happens.
Yeah I think it should, if it's one of the newer Sigma lens you can use the sigma hub which is fantastic
Thanks Rob, it worked once I put it in M 😁
I don’t understand this, if your focus is too close I thought you had to move it towards the mountain symbol or am I wrong having not done this I’m not sure.
Al.
To be honest it seems to vary tremendously front and back, lens to lens. I'm not sure there's too much science to it unfortunately. My best advice would be to play around both ways until you feel it's better. It's definitely improved it on my lens.
FWIW I've just calibrated my lenses using www.northlight-images.co.uk/camera-af-microadjustment/
Might be worth a look if you have trouble with the tape measure system.
Hello, here is an idea for a video =D Make a tutorial with a 70-200 lens =D thank you!
FIIIRRRSSSTT!
First reply!
I liked your video immediately because of the Knicks shirt! Lol
liked for 3 vids a week
Wait what? You had focus in front of your target and you moving it even more to front (- AF microadjustment, slider to left) and it improves??? Something is not right here. All manuals (canon user manual) and other movies show that in this case you have to go + AF (slider to right). So how you made it to work?????????
To be honest it seems to vary tremendously front and back, lens to lens. I'm not sure there's too much science to it unfortunately. My best advice would be to play around both ways until you feel it's better. It's definitely improved it on my lens.
Nonsense you have the adjustment back to front. If your camera is front focussing, you use +, if your camera is back focussing you use -. Thats what it says in the Canon Manual.
All the adjustments you made were to the negative side, which moves the focus in the OPPOSITE direction from what you showed. Entire vid is sloppy.