Has anyone used Reikan FoCal on Z lens? If so, was it worth it or were the lens pretty much sharp?
Reikan FoCal with Nikon Z lens
- Thread starter jerrylwatson
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John Navitsky
Well-known member
i haven’t, but generally speaking calibration should not be necessary or useful on mirrorless cameras due to how the af sensors are integrated right into the sensor
Webbie!
New member
Yes, I have. As far as making any adjustments, with the Z lenses, they are spot on. What I did find it useful for with Z lenses, though, is finding the sharpest aperture and focal distance on zoom lenses. For instance, my tests of the Z 14–30 F4 showed it the sharpest at F8.
SCoombs
Well-known member
I have been using it with my 180-600. At a bare minimum it gives a "rating" for how your copy of the lens compares to other copies out there, which is useful.
Does it help with sharpness/focus accuracy? Like apparently most people, I had always thought that calibration would be unnecessary for a mirrorless camera. However, Nikon (and other manufacturers) do include it, something I always wondered about. Eventually I saw that Reikan has a somewhat lengthy series of articles noting their statistics on how frequently mirrorless cameras have been improved with autofocus calibration and going over an explanation of different reasons that calibration might matter for mirrorless cameras.
I honestly haven't read the whole thing in depth as it is quite a lot, but the point that stood out the most was the idea that in any lens the autofocus system doesn't land on the exact same position every time even for a subject at the same distance. In more expensive lenses, the AF systems tend to be more precise and consistent whereas in lower grade lenses there tends to be more natural play. This is something Steve (I think) and others have spoken about a bit in terms of differences between more costly and less costly lenses. I can say that this definitely seems to be something I'm noticing with my 180-600: when it hits the right focus it's quite sharp, but it's not altogether consistent at how close to the ideal focus it lands when the AF is employed. In any case, the idea is that the exact range around perfect focus in which a lens' AF system is going to fall varies from copy to copy of a lens and this can result in situations where if the range is more heavily weighted to one side or the other the range may therefore include absolute focus positions which are too far away from perfect focus and so result in image softness. In other words, it becomes a dice roll on any given shot where the motors in a given lens will fall within their range of precision. The idea of calibration in this case is that it helps to shift that range so that as much of it as possible is within a range of sharper focus. In other words, its not that the camera's AF systems are not meshing well with a given lens, as can happen with DSLR phase detect systems, but that the range of precision for the motors in a given copy of a lens may sometimes fall too far on one side or the other of center and that AF calibration can shift that range to try to put the center of lens' range of precision closer to the focus point.
They explain it better than I.
In any case, I've used it and think I've seen a slight improvement on this 180-600. It recommends an AF calibration of +1. I may try messing around with other lenses to see what it says. I'm especially curious about what is currently my only S level lens, the 85/1.8, as I have noticed it tends to hit critical focus much more consistently than other lenses I have - an observation consistent with Reikan's claims about AF motors and variation in higher end vs. lower end lenses.
Does it help with sharpness/focus accuracy? Like apparently most people, I had always thought that calibration would be unnecessary for a mirrorless camera. However, Nikon (and other manufacturers) do include it, something I always wondered about. Eventually I saw that Reikan has a somewhat lengthy series of articles noting their statistics on how frequently mirrorless cameras have been improved with autofocus calibration and going over an explanation of different reasons that calibration might matter for mirrorless cameras.
I honestly haven't read the whole thing in depth as it is quite a lot, but the point that stood out the most was the idea that in any lens the autofocus system doesn't land on the exact same position every time even for a subject at the same distance. In more expensive lenses, the AF systems tend to be more precise and consistent whereas in lower grade lenses there tends to be more natural play. This is something Steve (I think) and others have spoken about a bit in terms of differences between more costly and less costly lenses. I can say that this definitely seems to be something I'm noticing with my 180-600: when it hits the right focus it's quite sharp, but it's not altogether consistent at how close to the ideal focus it lands when the AF is employed. In any case, the idea is that the exact range around perfect focus in which a lens' AF system is going to fall varies from copy to copy of a lens and this can result in situations where if the range is more heavily weighted to one side or the other the range may therefore include absolute focus positions which are too far away from perfect focus and so result in image softness. In other words, it becomes a dice roll on any given shot where the motors in a given lens will fall within their range of precision. The idea of calibration in this case is that it helps to shift that range so that as much of it as possible is within a range of sharper focus. In other words, its not that the camera's AF systems are not meshing well with a given lens, as can happen with DSLR phase detect systems, but that the range of precision for the motors in a given copy of a lens may sometimes fall too far on one side or the other of center and that AF calibration can shift that range to try to put the center of lens' range of precision closer to the focus point.
They explain it better than I.
In any case, I've used it and think I've seen a slight improvement on this 180-600. It recommends an AF calibration of +1. I may try messing around with other lenses to see what it says. I'm especially curious about what is currently my only S level lens, the 85/1.8, as I have noticed it tends to hit critical focus much more consistently than other lenses I have - an observation consistent with Reikan's claims about AF motors and variation in higher end vs. lower end lenses.
SCoombs
Well-known member
How exactly does one go about doing this sort of examination?
For what it's worth, I only have the mobile app version. Is this something that is only available in the desktop version?
Webbie!
New member
Yes, it is a test in the desktop version. I don’t remember off the top of my head what it is called, but I know it runs through all the aperture‘s, and then provide the report showing you which aperture had the highest level of sharpness.
Webbie!
New member
One other thing it is good for is testing how much your lens sharpness drops with the use of a CPL or other filter. I discovered one of my filters was absolute garbage.