brabusa Loc: Jacksonville FL

Anybody familiar with this item:

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

Save your time and money. I have tried to calibrate my lenses in all kinds of cheap ways just to waste an immense amount of time. I use FoCal now. Absolutely worth the $.

brabusa Loc: Jacksonville FL

where can I find FoCal, I did a web search and nothing came up!

Vector

It's Reikan Focal

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1194556-REG/reikan_focal_98000_focal_pro_lens_calibration.html/?ap=y&ap=y&smp=ba_f1_lar&smp=y&lsft=BI%3A6879&gclid=CjwKCAiAu5agBhBzEiwAdiR5tIccT1j39r-OOiqV0DXt2VzLTXqU1aCdAX8q1QrBWG0IjGQ7VB_6mxoC0AgQAvD_BwE

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Absolutely agree. Get the professional version of FoCal - it has all the advanced lens profiling as well as calibration functions.

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

Waste of money. Have owned many DSLR's over the years and NEVER had to fine tune any focus on any lens I ever owned.
Loads of folks buy these and end up having more problems with their lenses after messing up the focusing.
With a mirrorless camera you do not have to fine tune period.
Again, I never had to and my images were always tack sharp, of course, I shot Nikon optics (which as everyone here knows are the best on the market hands down, end of story, book um Dano)

GLSmith Loc: Tampa, Fl

https://www.reikanfocal.com/ is the direct URL you can download the pro version from. I've heard, seen comments over the years about folks "never needing" to fine tune their lens to the body they use. Although I look at the menu for Nikon d-850 and see the Auto AF Fine Tune selection available. Little acknowledged factoid is camera bodies are made in 1 facility & with DSLRs an assigned value is entered when the sensor is placed into the circuit board, lenses are built in a separate factory, so fine tuning is a body/lens per unit...If one wants to use generic settings, who am i to argue. I can not speak to mirrorless cameras, but I do know FoCal already has the software available for the Z series. Using a 600 mm on a target that is 2-3 1/2 miles away, I have found that FoCal is the most accurate of calibration devices

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

In all the times I have seen that remark, the poster has never said that the lens was ever calibrated. Just because he thinks his pictures are sharp, he does not know if they could be sharper. For him, good is good enough. I wish people would stop posting untested claims.

Spiney Loc: Reading, PA

I have it. It came with my Spyder Monitor Calibration puck a few years ago. I found it worked well with my Nikon D7000 and assortment of AF Lenses. I did have a focus issue. I had tried making my own calibration guide using a print out from online attached to a yardstick. The Spyder lenscal worked much better. It’s been a few years since I’ve worked with it. I’d check eBay for a used one.

gwilliams6

Well the reality from the five decades of pro experience of this long photojournalist, and his fellow newspaper and magazine staff photographers is YES some lens/camera combos needed to be adjusted and recalibrated after longtime wear of mirror mechanisms in our DSLRs and heavy use of big long lenses had thrown them out of perfect optical alignment to the focusing sensor in our DSLRs. It does happen, even if it never has happened to you Bill. We would have Nikon and Canon do the recalibrations for us as part of our NPS and CPS memberships.

Yes Bill our top Nikon lenses were no different than our top Canon lenses, and our Nikon DLSRs were no different than our Canon DSLRs when it came to professional wear from hard professional use and extensive banging around on the job in all the worst conditions traveling and shooting around the world. Just a fact.

But thankfully it is true you should never have to micro recalibrate mirrorless camera/lens combos as they have no flopping mirror mechanisms to wear and get out of alignment, and in mirrorless the image focus is always taken directly off the sensor without passing through any prisms and mirrors. I have never had to recalibrate any of my Sony mirrorless cameras/E-mount lens combinations.

But even the top pro Sony, Nikon and Canon mirrorless do have provisions to allow micro recalibrations on the rare instance a sensor is out of alignment. Bill check the menus with your Sony A1 and Nikon Z9 and I bet you will find it.

Most hobbyists wont need to do any recalibrations on new or normally used DLSR camera/lens combos to get sharp photos. But it could crop up with any heavily used gear, and it does. Just reality, even if most will never have to do it.

If you do go and micro recalibrate your lenses, don’t expect this to be the magic pill that means all your images will be sharp! Good focusing techniques coupled with using the right focusing modes and strategies will help far more that making small micro adjustments with your lens focus. Having a calibrated lens but not doing other things that contribute to sharp focus is like closing a porthole on the Titanic.

Even with calibration, it also won’t be as hyper specific as you may think. Once you change your aperture value that could mean that there is a small adjustment away from 0 (and you can’t calibrate for multiple apertures) so this isn’t a fail safe for getting sharp images. It is just one little element of a whole arsenal of strategies that you need to nail sharp images. .

Cheers and best to you all.