AFFT and the Nikon 200-500 5.6

The ruler on the model I mentioned is long enough. Even if you find that your lens/camera is AFing off the ruler, surely you can adjust the increments in the camera to bring the AF point back onto the ruler.

I had the D7200 and I am pretty sure it has auto focus fine tuning.

Hopefully someone will step in here and help. I have to do everything off this phone until tommorow.

Good night......or good morning, depending on where you are

Thanks Robert. I am over the Lensalign method and have found a method tethering the camera to my laptop and using live view via Tethering software. Should be much easier. Here is a link for anyone interested, scroll a fair way down to the relevant section. I think EJ may be doing something like this now as he mentioned recently he was doing AF fine tuning via tethering and he recently mentioned he had got Helicon Focus and it includes very nice universal camera control software.

Best part is you can zoom in on the laptop screen to get very precise results, that's a bonus for tired old eyes like mine.

http://www.ophrysphotography.co.uk/page ... stment.htm

The directions are for Canon cameras but the method works on all cameras with Live view AF and some form of tethering/camera control software.

I will give some feed back after I have tried the method.

I tether the camera via Capture One and use the Lens Align II jig with the long ruler.

E.J. Peiker wrote:I tether the camera via Capture One and use the Lens Align II jig with the long ruler.

E.J.  With the shallow depth of field that the long lenses have when wide open (few inches at the most)  why is the long ruler necessary?  Even at 100 Ft. the center area of the lens covers very little.   hcarl

hcarl wrote:

E.J. Peiker wrote:I tether the camera via Capture One and use the Lens Align II jig with the long ruler.

E.J.  With the shallow depth of field that the long lenses have when wide open (few inches at the most)  why is the long ruler necessary?  Even at 100 Ft. the center area of the lens covers very little.   hcarl

Has anyone got an answer to why a long ruler is necessary when using LensAlign with long focal length lens?  hcarl

Yes - the longer ruler also comes with a larger focus target and is designed to give more accurate results with the longer specialty lens. It is easier to see and focus on at the longer distances required for the 500 & 600mm lens. You need to be at approximately 100ft for a 600mm lens if using the 50 x focal length recommended for accurate results.

If you go to the Lensalign site and click on the distance calculator and type in your lens and Fstop and do the calculation for 25 x FL, about 50ft you will see it gives marginal results, for 50 x FL the longer ruler kit is recommended.

hcarl wrote:

E.J. Peiker wrote:I tether the camera via Capture One and use the Lens Align II jig with the long ruler.

E.J.  With the shallow depth of field that the long lenses have when wide open (few inches at the most)  why is the long ruler necessary?  Even at 100 Ft. the center area of the lens covers very little.   hcarl

What Kim said plus I don't only calibrate long lenses

Actually lately I've been doing quite a bit of medium format focus trim and the long ruler and larger focus target is very helpful.

Hi Kim

1.  I took a thorough look at the LenAlign site, the link provided in that article you provided and I also called Nikon (regarding the Pro2)

2.  When I did my AFFT on the 200-500, the distance I chose was not arbitrary, but rather based on the experience I had in past; i.e. that distance was generally the same as the one I got so many soft images from my 80-400.  Not anymore with this 200-500.   It happen to be about 50 feet.  I did not measure it and there is no need to measure it.   What I did coincidentally agrees with the criteria on the website.  There is nothing magical about LenAlign.  Please see #4.  It requires a basic understanding of what i happening.  I have this basic understanding.

3.  When Nikon ever gets around to returning my 80-400 (another story!!!), I am going to do the same AFFT.  I suspect I may have been "tech-dum" (as I can sometimes be)  enough to have done the AFFT and then foolishly left the default value what it was before I started the AFFT!  Hello!  I hope  I did just that. This would explain why my 80-400 is soft at distances and a new AFFT would make it considerably sharper (at distance) than it is now.

4.  The crux of the LensAlign tool is to find the distance (point) at which your unit is autofocusing....... in relation to the point you are autofocusing on....or rather, the point you thought your unit was autofocusing on (and actually was not!).    That is it in a nutshell. 

5.  With that in mind, if a person does repeated AFFT tests with the short rule, can clearly discern the LEAST SOFT character (number) and discern that the characters above it and below it are softer.....then the long rule is not necessary.

For me, I suspect the long rule would be a waste of money.    

Pro2 software:  I did read that link and I did call Nikon.   As I recall from my Nikon conservation, that Nikon software (Pro2) will not work with the later Nikon DSLR models.  Have really not gotten to the bottom of this Pro2 thing yet, but I suspect that the only way it can be done through tethering is with non-Nikon software.  And that may have been what E.J. was referring to.   I need to look into this further.  

Hi Robert

The Nikon Pro 2 software works with all the latest Nikon cameras including the D500. I have the software as it is great for setting up your camera with copy rights and other text settings rather than doing it in camera, plus I do some food photography for local clients and shoot that tethered as it is easier to see how to set up the shots and how the light looks. I use daylight lights for the sessions.

You can download a 30day trial of the Nikon software from their site. I did find a good open source free software for Nikon cameras that seems very good. Here is a link

http://www.digicamcontrol.com/

Re your AAFT fumble, happens to the best of us but I think it is better if you set the default value to Zero and just enter the actual value in the saved value area for each individual lens.

You can use Lightroom to tether or Capture One or any number of programs many of them free - Google is your friend!  About the last thing in the world I would use is a piece of software from Nikon.

For sure.; ain't it the truth!

And when I talked with Nikon on Monday, this is what I was told:
  
   1.  Pro2 will not work with my D500.
   2.  There are third party softwares out there for the same purpose but "We" do not recommend them.  

Now I find from Kim that it would have worked with the D500.  

That LR option sounds like something I might try down the road.  

hcarl wrote:

Blck-shouldered Kite wrote:After doing the AFFT and shooting my buddy (a local gorgeous Maine coon cat that visits me every day), gulls at the estuary, loons at the lake and my first resident woodchuck (yippee!).........I love this lens.  It is very sharp.  And, it is very sharp at distance, something my 80-400 is not.  

Some reviews say the 200-500 is very fast AF.  I do not think it is as fast as my 80-400, but I have to get the 80-400 back from Nikon to say for sure. If the 200-500 has a deficiency that bothers me, it is an AF that so far seems to lag on acquisition of BIF.

But sharp it is!!  Oh, forgot to mention that with these long zooms, I shoot almost everything at f8, so surely that makes a difference.  Have to remind myself, in the next few days, to see how sharp it is wide open.

Good to hear you got the results you were after using LensAlign.  Were you using the software program when doing the fine tuning and if so which version. I need to do some as well with my D800 and 500mm lens.   hcarl

I am sorry for not responding to this before.  I did not use the software program.

Was going back to look for any 200-500 thread, looking for others who have used this lens.  For those of you who own it, what do you all think of this lens?  And what do you think about it at 500mm too?  

When I do get this lens, I am going to also get that longer/bigger LensAlign model too.  I will want it as sharp as I can get it....obviously.

thanks

Robert

So who else out there owns this lens and what do you think of it?