I recently received a D800. With talk about the left AF, I checked the accuracy of the focus points. I found I needed to fine tune two lenses between minus 14-16. At this setting the points all seem to be fine. Just curious, as I never really fine tuned before. Do most users find such a high number acceptable? Is the number likely attributable to the lens, the camera, or both? I've read reports where people were very unhappy with high fine tuning adjustments, while others did not need to adjust much. As long as it's fine tuned, I am ok, but I my concern would be to get a lens in the future and finding it needs even more- and if it was above -20. Also upon reading the manual, I saw Nikon does not recommend fine tuning, unless warranted, as it can interfere with the auto-focus accuracy.
Thank you for any responses.

You can read this thread about Fine Tune with D800.

http://www.nikoncafe.com/vforums/showthread.php?t=341387

Luis

I am not an expert on this subject, but in following this issue for a while in different threads and forums, a lens adjustment of up to plus or minu 20 is not unusual. This is probably why Nikon allows for such adjustments.

Good shooting!

--bob

I have included below the AF Fine Tuning adjustments for the same lens on three different D800/E bodies. As you can see, the adjustment is a function of the camera and the lens, but the adjustments are mostly consistent in direction and magnitude which leads you to believe the lens makes the biggest difference.




I used FoCal to do my AF fine tuning. The data you see in the results graphs gives you confidence in the final setting because you can see the trend. Shown below is the final table with one body for my 50mm f/1.8 lens which is the one that resulted the most adjustment for a lens without a TC installed.

Larry Jordan

D800E, 14-24, 50, 24-70, 70-180 Micro, 70-200, 80-400mm AF-S

Website:
http://larryjordan.smugmug.com/

Attachment #1, (jpg file)
Attachment #2, (jpg file)
Attachment #3, (jpg file)

Is there a way to either view all of the current saved values for your fine tuned lenses or even better to export the a table showing the lenses and their settings?

Is this possible in a Nikon product/software/on camera???
Is this something you get with FoCal that Nikon does not have???

I would prefer NOT to have to mount each lens and write down the current values when this seems like it would be an easy job for a CPU to do for me!

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I have not seen this capability discussed in the FoCal documentation. Since FoCal knows the current AF fine tuning setting for each lens when you mount it, Reikan can probably pull the information from the camera and produce a table for you. I would put in a request to see if Rich will add it to a future release.

I understand the Software Development Kit (SDK) from Nikon leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to documentation and support. If you are a C programmer, you might want to give info extraction a shot yourself. I have not tried it since it has been over 20 years since I did any serious C programming.

Larry Jordan

D800E, 14-24, 50, 24-70, 70-180 Micro, 70-200, 80-400mm AF-S

Website:
http://larryjordan.smugmug.com/

Did you just manually create a spreadshhet of the data shown?
Thx!
DAve

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Yes. I reviewed each report and made a table.

Larry Jordan

D800E, 14-24, 50, 24-70, 70-180 Micro, 70-200, 80-400mm AF-S

Website:
http://larryjordan.smugmug.com/

How silly is it that you cant just scroll through the settings in camera!!! It appears the only way to do it is to mount each and every lens and tc combination you have calibrated to see the saved values! (You can see WHAT has been calibrated - just not the amount of +/- fine tune adjestment!)

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I succeeded in installing the FoCal 1.7 Beta on my Mac Book Pro, and was able to do most of the tests provided by the FoCal Application. I did not do all of the tests because of time but was able to get results on my D800 using the 24-70mm f/2.8 Nikkor lens. The test I did were: Fully Automatic, Aperture Sharpness, AF Consistency, and Multi-Point Focus (using 51 sensors). I used ISO 1600 for most tests, and printed all the reports but have not analyzed them.

FoCal's announcement of the 1.7 Mac Beta describes how to install the application, but some details were not given. The announcement is found here: http://www.reikan.co.uk/focalweb/index.php/2012/10/focal-1-7-beta-5-much-improved-nikon-support-d600-added-and-lots-more/

Installation. The following paragraphs add more details on the installation.

You need the Don framework - the link to download is: http://www.go-mono.com/mono-downloads/download.html

Choose Mac OS X Stable Version: 2.10.x

Choose: Intel Mac: Runtime to download the Don framework DMG and install it.

Then install FoCal 1.7. The files from the installation have to be copied into into a folder and then added to the Mac's Applications.

FoCal Use. To use FoCal 1.7 you must pick the camera either Canon or Nikon by: FoCal>Preferences>General then go to the last line, Active Camera Support, and chose Nikon. Once you pick Nikon, when you start FoCal, the panel of Figure 1 appears. You have to remove the memory cards from the camera because, with the cards are removed it is faster to Find and Connect the camera. Figure 2, because it shows the found camera, Find and Connect changes to Disconnect. Figure 2 is the portal of all the FoCal tools, which is a step up from 1.6.

Juan



FIGURE 1


FIGURE 2

Attachment #1, (jpg file)
Attachment #2, (jpg file)

Loving FoCal Pro!

1) If I had known how easy it is I would have jumped sooner. Really. All you do is print a target on a letter sized sheet of thick matte paper and tape it to the wall flat. Aim camera at center on same plane. Press go and change +/- setting in AF Fine Tune as directed. It spits out a number for your new setting.

Really simple!

2) Also love the test that checks all the focus points against each other. Nice to confirm I have a "good" D800!

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FoCal is great. It helped me confirm that my D800 has a massive front focus problem after recently going in for service. Back she goes!

-Alex Rosen
www.flickr.com/photos/klrbee25/

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