FoCal Pro Targets & Lighting

Good Morning POTN ..

Bought FoCal Pro and installed it last night; I have two questions that I haven't found answers for, so I thought I'd ask:

Would you please tell me the type of paper/printer that gave you the best target prints? I just printed with a laser at work, and the paper we use is labeled 92 Bright/20lb. If this is not a good type, please let me know what type to buy so I can get some on my way home. I have a cheap laser so I'll just re-print at home.

I don't have any strobes and such, but I do have a double headed tabletop lamp with adjustable heads that I can train directly onto the target. I currently have two 100w incandescents in there; should I change them out with something else? I have read of inaccurate results with unnatural lights, we are forecasted to be overcast (thanks to Hurricane Sandra) for the next 4-5 days, and I have to shoot a party tomorrow .. for free

Thanks for taking the time ..

Freddy Khan

I did my testing outside in daylight...mainly because that is where I would be using the camera and 300 f/2.8 lens.

I think FoCal does not recommend using laser paper. Photo paper (Matte finish ) is what they say to use.
I did`nt have any Matte paper so I used a pearl finish one by Ilford and got very good results.

A word of warning though! If you dont get bright consistant lighting your results will vary.

Halogen is recommended. However, I used daylight and have very good results.

Hope this helps!

Terry.

I should have said Halogen is one method!

One thing I found that greatly helped the FoCal process was to set a custom white balance,using a grey card, in camera before starting the process.

+1 on the info gents .. thx much!!

Ran my first two tests with the 50/1.4 and 85/1.8 n the 7D. Quick and dirty setup and test, so I'm not 100% sure, but the green check mark showed and the tests did run to completion, so that has to mean something. I did set custom WB. Maybe its just me, but my sleeping wife's eyelashes seemed pretty sharp. I will test in better light with MA off, and then on to compare. Any recommendations on what/how to shoot so any improvements are easily visible??

The 50 MA'd at +10 and the 85 at -12.5; is that bizarre? Normally the only thing stuck to the 7D is the 70-200 or the 100L if I'm in the mood for MACROs; the results with them are usually OK, but I have always had a feeling something was off. I will run more tests with them tomorrow.

Couldn't wait ...

5D2 + 24-70 => -1 @ 24 and -3 @ 70 I knew I had a good set Should I set it to -2?

I printed the target on my laser printer and ran it outside with quite variable light. Although it complained when the darker clouds passed over it completed the tests on my 300. The results for the bare lens and in combination with 1.4 and 2x TCs were very close to those I got when testing manually - so I trusted it to do all my other lenses.

I have been playing with focal also, very mixed results. Outside bright daylight testing was -8 on the 85mm 1.2,BUT seemed liked it wasn't sharp when viewed on the computer. Indoor testing with 2 lamps, custom WB, it came to -3. Very sharp when viewed on my computer.
Also did some manual testing and I scored a -4, with perfect sharpness ( to me). Anyway, my point is I settled with -3 cuz I almost got the same results with manual testing.

70-200 2.8L IS came out to be 4@70 & 9@200 on the 7D ... should I set it to 6 or 7??

I usually shoot > 85mm+ ...

alphamalex wrote in post #15205583
70-200 2.8L IS came out to be 4@70 & 9@200 on the 7D ... should I set it to 6 or 7??

I usually shoot > 85mm+ ...

The difference between 6 and 7 is so small as to make no real world difference when compared to the target accurracy of the body's AF system.

Bob

I used bright-white heavy gauge matte photo paper on a photo printer. For lighting, I used a pair of halogen floods. Seemed to work fine.

I am puzzled by the comments about custom WB, since the camera's WB setting affects the jpeg conversion, not the camera's registering of data, and you don't produce jpeg images (or any stored images, for that matter) when running FoCal. Why would WB make any difference?

Question. I started using Focal Pro. The calibrations seems to be go ok, but the sample target images that show up on the screen and reports always see to be blurry, even the recommended AFAM settings. This happens across 2 cameras, multiple lenses, and I printed the target multiple times.

If I take a picture of the target, and bring it onto my computer it gets blurry as well. Is this just because I have to crop it so much to blow up the image (3:1)?