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.
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.
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.
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?
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 :)
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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...?
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 .
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!
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.