AF microadjustment tricks

[DonaldNel]

Arash
THANK YOU!
I'll give it a try on the Mark IV and 7D.
Don

 

[Jim Zipp]

Pretty cool Arash. Never even heard of that method before. My gear is with CPS for the second time now. Mine needed too much MA with some lenses and have all hopefully being calibrated now. If I adjusted for razor sharp images at a closer distance my further shots were soft. I understand Canon uses different methods to do this and want to be at least starting from 0 or closer to it. Thanks.

 

[arash_hazeghi]

Pretty cool Arash. Never even heard of that method before. My gear is with CPS for the second time now. Mine needed too much MA with some lenses and have all hopefully being calibrated now. If I adjusted for razor sharp images at a closer distance my further shots were soft. I understand Canon uses different methods to do this and want to be at least starting from 0 or closer to it. Thanks.

Hi Jim,

Hope it works out for you, have seen the comments about MKIV but don't have that camera so I don't know why this is happening. One other issue is that if AF sensor is slightly miss aligned with respect to the beam splitter it will give soft images no matter what you do, you can verify this by using live view AF at different distances to see if it can focus properly.

Best

 

[Jim Zipp]

One other issue is that if AF sensor is slightly miss aligned with respect to the beam splitter it will give soft images no matter what you do...
Best

Thanks Arash, but I am getting some super sharp images.... just not at varying distances. Smaller birds and anything within about 60 feet are killer sharp after dong MA but that threw further subjects off. That mirror for aligning the target is a great idea.

 

[arash_hazeghi]

Thanks Arash, but I am getting some super sharp images.... just not at varying distances. Smaller birds and anything within about 60 feet are killer sharp after dong MA but that threw further subjects off. That mirror for aligning the target is a great idea.

In this case only Canon can help, hope they fix your gear soon!

 

[Ray Rozema]

Thanks Arash for all the work.

Does anyone out there know the workflow for Nikon?

Thanks Ray

 

[arash_hazeghi]

Thanks Arash for all the work.

Does anyone out there know the workflow for Nikon?

Thanks Ray

Procedure for Nikon is similar, but you need to purchase camera control pro sw and the LV magnification is not as high, but it gets the job done. I have an older version of CCP unfortunately it doesn't work correctly with Win 7 64-Bit so I can't post step by step instructions.

Best

 

[LouBuonomo]

Cool Arash... Jim and I are in similar boats mine seems not to be ablre to focus close but seems good for 15m or so out...

 

[Rick McDaniel]

Arash, I just wanted to thank you for posting this. It works better than any technique I've tried.

 

[Cynthia West]

I am going to give his a try tomorrow, if using a 300mm and 500mm what distance should the test target be set at, both with and without the 1.4TC? Also unclear about using a zoom, a 100-400, I use it at all Focal Lengths usually not above 350mm, any suggestions what FL and distance for target I should do there?
Cynthia

 

[LouBuonomo]

Make sure you don't have CF4-2 set.. I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't focus...

Well this showed a +5 MFA is still needed for my 500......

 

[arash_hazeghi]

I am going to give his a try tomorrow, if using a 300mm and 500mm what distance should the test target be set at, both with and without the 1.4TC? Also unclear about using a zoom, a 100-400, I use it at all Focal Lengths usually not above 350mm, any suggestions what FL and distance for target I should do there?
Cynthia

Hi Cynthia,

I usually set the target at 25-50 times the focal length, maybe a bit closer for 700+ mm since the target will be too far and hard to align. If there is a particular distance that you shoot in the field (e.x. perched birds from a blind) then obviously best distance is the actual field distance.

For zoom lenses unfortunately you cannot adjust for all FLs so its best to pick the focal length you use most, if you use all focal lengths equally then adjust for one, say 300mm and then check to see if it is good for other FLs as well, if not disable MA.


Hope this helps.

 

[Cynthia West]

Thank you, I will try this tomorrow, appreciate your detailed instructions.

 

[Ivo Damianov]

Hi Arash,

Could you specify, please, because this will be a problem for many people to consider: which arrow means
plus correction in the menu, and which means minus. What I mean is, is > = +, < = -, or the other way round?

Thanks in advance!

 

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Arash,

Could you specify, please, because this will be a problem for many people to concider: which arrow means
plus correction in the menu, and which means minus. What I mean is, is > = +, < = -, or the other way round?

Thanks in advance!

+ is towards infinity for 7D and 5DMKII cameras, corresponding to infinity sign and ( > ) in fig. 6. minus is closer to camera

 

[Ivo Damianov]

+ is towards infinity for 7D and 5DMKII cameras, corresponding to infinity sign and ( > ) in fig. 6. minus is closer to camera

Thank you very much, Arash, let me see if I got you right:

If you had to press let's say the > button two times, in order to get the best sharpness, then
in the microadjustment menu you give +2 correction.

 

[mooneymse]

Thanks for the tip. I have MA with lensalign tool and your method improved on theirs. My 200 F2 and 300F2.8 both needed + 3 & +4 corrections to be at their best. Thanks again.

 

[arash_hazeghi]

Thank you very much, Arash, let me see if I got you right:

If you had to press let's say the > button two times, in order to get the best sharpness, then
in the microadjustment menu you give +2 correction.

Correct Ivo.

 

[Cliff Beittel]

Arash,

Thank you for sharing this. Your method looks promising, but unfortunately the version of EOS Utility that came with my 1Ds mark III doesn't include the Remote Live View Shooting tab you show in Fig. 2, and when I've tried to download and run several newer versions, the latest being eu281en (update wrapper) win, I always get an Error message (failed to expand the files). Has anyone else seen this? Anyone know why the install is failing? The version of EOS Utility that came with my camera is installed on my computer.

By the way, my 600 IS just came back from Canon. I sent it in because while it was perfect by itself, i.e. best at 0 MA, with either of two 1.4 extenders it was front focusing with every possible MA adjustment, even at +20. As a result of the "repair," the lens now needs +14 MA by itself and is still uncorrectable (i.e. somewhere beyond +20) with the 1.4x. According to the repair notes, "the IS lens unit, usm focusing assembly and other [sic]" were replaced, and the "center/tilt/front, back focus w/extender" was adjusted, whatever that means. The 1.4x was also adjusted. I may send the lens to the Toyota brake center next.

 

[arash_hazeghi]

Arash,

Thank you for sharing this. Your method looks promising, but unfortunately the version of EOS Utility that came with my 1Ds mark III doesn't include the Remote Live View Shooting tab you show in Fig. 2, and when I've tried to download and run several newer versions, the latest being eu281en (update wrapper) win, I always get an Error message (failed to expand the files). Has anyone else seen this? Anyone know why the install is failing? The version of EOS Utility that came with my camera is installed on my computer.

By the way, my 600 IS just came back from Canon. I sent it in because while it was perfect by itself, i.e. best at 0 MA, with either of two 1.4 extenders it was front focusing with every possible MA adjustment, even at +20. As a result of the "repair," the lens now needs +14 MA by itself and is still uncorrectable (i.e. somewhere beyond +20) with the 1.4x. According to the repair notes, "the IS lens unit, usm focusing assembly and other [sic]" were replaced, and the "center/tilt/front, back focus w/extender" was adjusted, whatever that means. The 1.4x was also adjusted. I may send the lens to the Toyota brake center next.

Hi Cliff,
This sounds more like a conflict in your computer, either there is not enough disk space or a problem with the program that unzips the installer. If it is not a self-extracting package you can try installing winzip or winrar to unzip the files, some antivirus sw may also cause problems.

As for the camera, did you send your MKIII camera along with lens and TC? problem maybe the camera AF sensor itself. If you have a different body try with that to isolate the issue. Hope you can get it fixed!
BTW, as the name suggests "micro" adjust is for fine tuning AF the achieve max pixel level sharpness as shown in the example above. If the AF is way too off, it is unlikely that MA would help.