I've also been playing with Magic Lantern Auto Dot Tune AFMA. It's such an indisyncratic lens that consistent results are tricky to obtain whatever method i use. Interestingly enough, I've been playing with the AFMA on my Canon 50mm f1.2 L and come to the conclusion that this lens is the bitch of the bunch. AFMA results need to be consistent to be of value. I used a daylight bulb very close to the target and my EV for testing was pretty much locked at 8.7EV.I agree Oscar.
I would recommend you re-try with more consistent lighting and see what you get. Other than that, the other three lenses I used were adjusted just fine (most of them needing less than 2 MA points). I will say, that the 85L did give me some problems with testing as it was being tested at ƒ1.2 it seems to have a hard time and would routinely lose it's ability to focus once FoCal started pushing the MA values to their extremes (+15, -20, etc.) and since I knew my 85L was pretty much spot on, I disregarded the test (the final outcome of three tests in FoCal was between 1 and -1) so I'm pretty sure that my default MA of 0 is probably the correct one. I plan on doing the rest of my lenses this weekend. FoCal ended up with the exact same results as I'd found in my own testing, so that was extremely encouraging.
#REIKAN FOCAL PRO 2.6 MR1 SERIES#
I recently bought the pro version and having done my own MA on a couple of lenses, I ran a series of tests with FoCal on these same lenses. maybe dud lens? Maybe not doing it right? My lenses now focus consistently and dont back/forward focus like they did prior. Results were consistent all times (ran the test 5 times per lens to be sure)
#REIKAN FOCAL PRO 2.6 MR1 PLUS#
I bought Focal Plus last week and adjusted all of my lenses. Otherwise you'll end up with what appears to be back focusing, and after you do MFA to correct for that, you'll have bad front focusing once you go to shoot something straight on.
Lastly, shoot your subject from straight on when doing MFA, don't shoot at angled targets. Get the images into DPP, make the AF Points visible (Command + J on a Mac), and see where you are. I'm at -3 right now.Īlso, don't go off of the 5D3's LCD to see where your focus is hitting. In the end, I had a range of potential "good" MFA values (-10 to 0), shot at each value in the range, and eventually landed on the best one. Trees are my favorite tuning subject, since the bark is really contrasty, and the grass behind/in front can help you determine where the sharpest plain of focus is.
To get my 50L dialed in I just did a LOT of shooting wide open, at objects with good texture and contrast, and eventually had an idea of where the AF was hitting the most (in front or behind target), and adjusted accordingly. Basically, FoCal can't get a consistent reading and therefore can't make an exact adjustment. It's recommended to MFA a lens at it's widest aperture, and I think that 50L gives the AF system issues due to the DOF of f/1.2 being smaller than the tolerance of the AF system. I plan to redo the 135L testing, this time from a correct, large distance.ĦD, Tamron 24-70 f2.8 VC, 135L, 70-200 f4L, 50mm f1.8 STM, Samyang 8mm fisheye, home studio My other fast lens, 135L, looked fine at -1 MA, but I noticed recently that for my main usage of the lens (full height portraits, meaning you have to be really far, with my crop camera), f/2.0 shots are always very slightly off. My newest zoom, Sigma 17-50 OS, was tested to work fine at -2 MA, in real life environment. with a few shots at each zoom and each distance you can get a pretty good feel on what MA is needed.
I didn't even need to use a tripod, remote shutter release, mirror lockup etc. Then I discovered that I get better results by hanging a large printed target on a wall in my backyard, and shooting it from realistic distances on a sunny day. ) of my lenses, and was never happy with the real life results. I spent a lot of time doing indoor testing (printed targets, computer monitor with moire patterns. From my experience, for best results in focus MA, one really needs to have the environment as close to real life shooting as possible - meaning both correct light (use daylight, not fluorescent / LED / tungsten), and distances (if the typical use of the lens is full-height portraits, the size and the distance to the printed target should be chosen accordingly).