Reikan FoCal (3.6 MR1) - Results Questions

Hey all,

I've had Reikan FoCal for a number of years, but haven't used it for quite some time. I just fired it back up, updated it, and ran the AF Calibration across a few of my lenses. It came up that all of them needed some form of adjustment or another, and that makes me a bit suspicious. I've stored all the adjustments "per-lens" in the camera, so it's easy enough to disable in the field if I feel it's needed, but I honestly don't know what sort of adjustment amounts could be considered "normal". I know every lens and every body differs, but I really don't have much experience with lens micro-adjustments, so I think I was really looking for some confirmation that the adjustments that FoCal came up with might not be completely out of whack? . Here are the details:

Camera: Canon 5D MKIV

Lenses:

Canon EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM - Just got this lens 2nd hand, about 4 years of use by the previous owner: Adjustments: Wide: -10, Tele: +2
Canon EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM + Canon 1.4x iii Teleconverter - Adjustments: Wide: -10, Tele: +12
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM - Owned this lens for about 6 years, never adjusted before - Adjustments: -6
Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 L IS USM - Owned this lens for about 5 years, never adjusted before - Adjustments: Wide: +1, Tele: +5
Sigma 150-600mm f5-6.3 dg OS HSM contemporary - Owned this for about 4 years now - Adjustments: Wide: -6, Tele: +2

I'm not saying that I don't get some good, sharp, shots with all of these lenses, as I do. I do get my fair share of "soft" shots, or ones where I feel the focus just misses where I wanted it to be. Just seeing these results/recommendation​s coming out of FoCal, I wondered whether needing to adjust all of my lenses, even by a small amount, is "normal". None of the lenses are new, all had some good years of use on them, so maybe I'm just being overly suspicious

Any advice would be great!
Thanks very much,

Cheers,
James

I've used it in the past and numbers are nothing special. Repeat test for comfirmation and make sure your distance and light are good.

Thanks PCS,

Yeah, I did the tests a couple of times, and they all came back about the same. According to the "Target Setup" tests, my distances and lighting were all good and suitable for the calibration test.
I'm out all day tomorrow with the camera, so I'll do a few tests with the adjustments activated vs. disabled, and see what happens!

Cheers!

I'm all about sharp photos, more than I should be. I have used Reikan, bought focus targets, etc etc, and now I use none of them. I suppose I could use them but now I just pick a stationary subject that has really good fine detail and work with that. If the AFMA is set to "0" I will shoot photos at -10 to +10 and pick the best one. Then recheck that best one with about 4 photos on each side of that best photo to confirm. Dial it in so to speak. Once I have that settled if something seems to shift later it is easy to just shoot a few again and adjust the number slightly. Having bright outdoor light and a good target cannot be over emphasized. Bright light, tripod, mirror lockup, 10 second timer, defocus the lens between shots every time. With a short lens you are able to angle the camera down at 45 degrees and shoot a ruler. With long lenses and a long distance to the target you just have to go with something else.

For long lenses, camera/lens level to the ground and focus plane perfectly perpendicular to the target.

I know, Reikan does all this for you. For me though it just never hit it spot on. I'm more satisfied with my own settings.

5D4 body
My 100L macro is +3.
My 100-400ii is W -2, T -4.
With the 1.4xiii added it is W -2 and T -3.

I used FoCal on many cameras and your results seem within the sort of results that I saw.

I used the software to make the adjustments but then I tested to see if it felt like the adjustments made sharp photos. Usually they did.

Orias wrote in post #19467919
...I do get my fair share of "soft" shots, or ones where I feel the focus just misses where I wanted it to be. ...

Just a thought:

If you can discern any sort of consistency to the focus misses, always front focused, always back focused, you can just move your AFMA number by 1 or 2 and check some shots again rather than completely go through Reikan again.

I used to calibrate my 7D2 every season change (temperature changes also effect the lenses).