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AF adjustment

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by Glenn NK on Sat Feb 09, 2013 12:15 pm

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Has anyone else come across the AF tuning method mentioned here - and tried it?:

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1187247/0

It was also posted on DPR by "horshak".

Many positive comments on FM.

Glenn

Economics: the study of achieving infinite growth with finite resources.

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by Glenn NK on Mon Feb 11, 2013 12:28 am

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not interested?

Economics: the study of achieving infinite growth with finite resources.

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by PF on Mon Feb 11, 2013 8:26 am

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I gave it a quick try and the results were consistent with what I had with FoCal. Looks like a great solution to make adjustments in the field.

PF
[url=http://www.p-f.ch]www.p-f.ch[/url]

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by DChan on Mon Feb 11, 2013 9:46 am

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Here's another one using live view:

http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/microadjustment/

IMO, if it's good for AF check/adjustment in the field, it's good enough for AF adjustment/tuning anywhere.

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by bender16v on Mon Feb 11, 2013 10:46 am

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I very seldom use it, but yesterday I had my 1.7 TC on a 300mm f4 with a D600 body and after a day of shooting eagles I unhappily found that the focus seems to be off a bit. With the bare lens it seems O.K. in the article linked by DChan it says each lens combo needs to be adjusted. I'm new to this and have never felt the need to adjust this before but now I see that it might help.

Does this adjustment change a lot depending on the combo? Do you do this every time for every combo? Does the camera's temperature also affect this a lot?

-Chris Harrison

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by Tim Zurowski on Tue Feb 12, 2013 8:03 pm

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Thanks for posting this Glenn. Today I did the process for both my D800 and D600 and feel that I have it pretty close now. The only thing that came up that concerns me is that even at -20 on the D800 with the 500 VR and 1.4x converter, the dot was still staying mostly on, but would occasionally hit the arrow. So I just took that as the one edge and set it at -11. I also could not really see any significant difference in test images between -5 and -20. Without the converter it is set at -5.

Cheers
Tim Zurowski
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by E.J. Peiker on Tue Feb 12, 2013 8:57 pm

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That isn't unusual Tim. About 1/3 of the 500VR+1.4x combo's I've done and that is dozens can not be brought on target even with a 20 point adjustment. However it is a whole lot better than with no adjustment. I would recommend setting it to it's maximum in that situation and always shoot stopped down at least a stop.

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by Tim Zurowski on Tue Feb 12, 2013 9:08 pm

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E.J. Peiker wrote:That isn't unusual Tim. About 1/3 of the 500VR+1.4x combo's I've done and that is dozens can not be brought on target even with a 20 point adjustment. However it is a whole lot better than with no adjustment. I would recommend setting it to it's maximum in that situation and always shoot stopped down at least a stop.

Thanks EJ. Boy I sure must have been lucky with my old D300. You probably remember me talking about it, but every time I did the AF Fine Tune with it, it was always best around zero. The D800 and D600 are totally different and have to be -15 to -20. So what is your typical setting with just the 500 (i.e. no converter)?

So do you ever relay this info to Nikon so they can improve their AF Fine Tune? It sucks that their own products cannot be fine tuned accurately.

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Tim Zurowski
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by Glenn NK on Tue Feb 12, 2013 10:36 pm

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Tim Zurowski wrote:Thanks for posting this Glenn.

You are quite welcome Tim. I haven't been able to check it out - I left Victoria a couple of days ago - motorhoming down I-5 (spent a day in Eugene OR having the ignition fixed).

I think with the addition by D Chan, this technique will become pretty useful. Which makes me wonder how long the commercial products are going to be able to compete with something that costs nothing and in the opinion of some, is better.

And I wonder how long it will take for Nikon and Canon to add the simple procedure into their manuals?

Glenn

Economics: the study of achieving infinite growth with finite resources.

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by E.J. Peiker on Tue Feb 12, 2013 11:27 pm

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Tim Zurowski wrote:
E.J. Peiker wrote:That isn't unusual Tim. About 1/3 of the 500VR+1.4x combo's I've done and that is dozens can not be brought on target even with a 20 point adjustment. However it is a whole lot better than with no adjustment. I would recommend setting it to it's maximum in that situation and always shoot stopped down at least a stop.
Thanks EJ. Boy I sure must have been lucky with my old D300. You probably remember me talking about it, but every time I did the AF Fine Tune with it, it was always best around zero. The D800 and D600 are totally different and have to be -15 to -20. So what is your typical setting with just the 500 (i.e. no converter)?

So do you ever relay this info to Nikon so they can improve their AF Fine Tune? It sucks that their own products cannot be fine tuned accurately.

E.J. Peiker http://www.EJPhoto.com
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/EJ-Peiker-Nature-Photographer/

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