# FoCal Pro Beta for 5D MK III AFMA



## Mt Spokane Photography (Apr 9, 2012)

Reikan foCal has released a beta for Pro users that supports AFMA of the 5D MK III with some limitations. Its 5 or 6 weeks more before the SDK is released by Canon, so it is a clever work around.

I'll be trying it tomorrow on my 5D MK III.

For those who haven't heard of it, it will control your camera and do a semi automated autofocus micro adjustment. I use it, it is accurate and useful. 
http://www.reikan.co.uk/focal/

There are no free trials, you must buy it. However, use this link for a discount http://www.reikan.co.uk/focal/mbp45/


----------



## Daniel Flather (Apr 9, 2012)

I'm looking forward to your test results and subsequent post.


----------



## YellowJersey (Apr 10, 2012)

Daniel Flather said:


> I'm looking forward to your test results and subsequent post.



As am I. I've been looking at FoCal for some time now.


----------



## Mt Spokane Photography (Apr 10, 2012)

I spent a few hours today getting up to speed with it, it is a beta, so there are a few quirks. I had difficulty with both my 100mm L and 85mm f/1.8 with consistent AF results, I had similar issues with those lenses on my 5D MK II and 7D.

I calibrated my 35mmL, 24-105mmL, 50mm f/1.4, 85mm 1.8, 100mmL so far. Tests after the cal show razor sharp images.

I am planning to calibrate the long zooms tomorrow, since the setup is different for them.

They have added a lot of new features such as calculating the sharpest aperture of your lens, dust analysis, etc. I did not get into those yet.


Because they have not yet received the SDK for the MK III, you must manually enter the AFMA settings into your camera before each series of exposures at that AFMA. You get onscreen guidance, and a error message if you do it wrong.

For zooms, set your lens to wide or telephoto and it will recognize the setting and guide you to run the AFMA and set it into the body . Then, zoom to the opposite extreme and run the AFMA again, setting the result into your body. I did this again after setting both to see how much interaction there was. I received the same result at wide the second time, so there is very little interaction at wide after setting the telephoto. I did not have to set a large AFMA value, so it might be different if you set wide to -10 and tele to +17. I'd then run the wide again with tele to +17 and see if it changed.

Even having to set AFMA manually, it still goes pretty quickly once you get the setuo and process down pat.


----------



## rwmson (Apr 10, 2012)

Cool! Thanks for the review.


----------



## JR (Apr 10, 2012)

Given the result you are getting MT Spokane, i really wish i had done this with the mkiii i had a week ago or so. Now with even more delays with the 1dx, i think i will just get another mkiii body and run it through this software and sell my mkii.

Thank you for the update once again. Please do post your impression of the mkiii, really interested in your opinion.

Jacques


----------



## EvilTed (Apr 10, 2012)

Hey Mt Spokane,

Thanks for the discount link 

The page you get is different from the regular page.
On this you can check a box for 5D MK3 but with the discount link you cannot.
Does it make any difference?

Thanks

ET


----------



## rhommel (Apr 10, 2012)

this looks interesting! thanks for the link!

how long does it take to calibrate 1 lens? 5-10 minutes tops?

also how often do you guys calibrate? every season/quarter/shoot?


----------



## nightbreath (Apr 10, 2012)

It also looks interesting for me. I mainly shoot at f/1.2 - f/1.8, so does it really worth it? Is it better than manual testing and adjustment?


----------



## AnselA (Apr 10, 2012)

Thanks Mt. Spokane


----------



## neuroanatomist (Apr 10, 2012)

nightbreath said:


> I mainly shoot at f/1.2 - f/1.8, so does it really worth it? Is it better than manual testing and adjustment?



If you shoot at wide apertures, AFMA is critical, IMO. FoCal gives similar results (in my hands) to manual testing - but FoCal is a who lot easier since it automates the process (and the proper way to manually calibrate involves taking many, many shots).


----------



## Mt Spokane Photography (Apr 10, 2012)

rhommel said:


> this looks interesting! thanks for the link!
> 
> how long does it take to calibrate 1 lens? 5-10 minutes tops?
> 
> also how often do you guys calibrate? every season/quarter/shoot?


 
Get the "PRO" version.

Go to the Licence Management system page and download the beta version at the bottom of the page.

Right now, for a 5D MK III, you must manually set AFMA, so I'd allow 30 minutes per prime lens lens and 60 minutes per zoom lens, after you install the software, print the targets, and get all the preparation done.

You need to setup as follows for each lens, thats part of the time estimate.


Take some test shots to have a "Before" set of images.
Measure distance to the target
Use FoCal to align the camera and target to make sure it is parallel to the sensor and at the same heigh
Start test Set AFMA to zero
Follow on screen steps, manually setting the AFMA about 8-12 times depending on the accuracy options, it could be more.
Finally set the calculated AFMA in the body and duplicate the first set of test shots to confirm proper focus.
 Note, for a zoom lens, run the test twice at wide and tele zoom. I run it 1 more time at wide to make sure the tele setting did not affect the wide setting.

If the Canon SDK is released and the process can be done automatically, it will save a lot of time, maybe half. It will also save your finger tips. Manually setting the AFMA a hundred times and more gets them worn down.

I spent 6 hours doing 4 primes and a zoom, but I printed the latest version of the targets and mounted them to flat plexiglass and did a lot of fooling around installing the latest beta version of the software.

If the wind stops blowing and it doesn't rain today, I might get to my telephoto zooms. I rather doubt if its worth AFMA for my 17mm or 15mm primes, they are in focus from a few feet to infinity anyway. AFMA at 2 ft doesn't tell you much, but it does tell you if AF is consistent.


----------



## npc2396 (Apr 10, 2012)

I wish I would have seen this thread on Saturday. I just purchased the Pro version to use on my 7D and 5D III and I really like the software. I've used the lens align product but prefer the automated software. 

Where do I get the beta version with 5D III support. (never mind I see it now)


----------



## JR (Apr 10, 2012)

npc2396 said:


> I wish I would have seen this thread on Saturday. I just purchased the Pro version to use on my 7D and 5D III and I really like the software. I've used the lens align product but prefer the automated software.
> 
> Where do I get the beta version with 5D III support. (never mind I see it now)



I have the lens align product but i think this software is more user friendly and will likely save time to perform all the test...


----------



## Mt Spokane Photography (Apr 10, 2012)

JR said:


> npc2396 said:
> 
> 
> > I wish I would have seen this thread on Saturday. I just purchased the Pro version to use on my 7D and 5D III and I really like the software. I've used the lens align product but prefer the automated software.
> ...


 
My vision is not the greatest, so unless i'm looking at a large monitor, I cannot see fine detail enough to determine small differences in sharpness. This makes foCal give me better results than my Lens Align, but those with sharp vision can use either.

BTW, you can use your lens Align Target with Focal.


----------



## JR (Apr 10, 2012)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> BTW, you can use your lens Align Target with Focal.



Oh cool, I did not know that. Thanks.


----------



## Mt Spokane Photography (Apr 11, 2012)

I did my 135mm L and my 100-400mm l this afternoon, and then the wind came up. At 400mm, 50 X focal length is over 60 ft, so I do the test outdoors. The breeze moves the camera and target enough so that FoCal cannot get accurate results. I finally gave up. We are having thunder showers tonight, and rain for the next week, Yuk. I have adjusted my 28-300 and 70-200 by trial and error, but would like to pin it down a little closer. I have three more telephoto zooms to do yet.

I have noticed some focusing variability in some of my lenses, while others are very good. I'd like to find out if its just test technique or if its a lens issue. Generally, the "L" telephotos are the most consistent, but not always.


----------



## ssimmonsphoto (Apr 11, 2012)

I am definitely intrigued and will likely hit the buy button once it comes off Beta. I've tried the LensAlign products before and it was a PIA. Having it more automated would make me much more sane (and, therefore, likely to keep my lenses tuned up).


----------



## rwmson (Apr 11, 2012)

I purchased the Plus version yesterday and tried to use it with my new 5D Mk3 but it says the camera is unsupported. EOS Utility can successfully remotely control the camera to take shots. Focal appears to "see" the camera because it shows up in the GUI as a 5d mk3, but it says "unsupported" and I can't do anything beyond that with Focal. Yes I closed Canon EOS utility and had the camera tethered before launching Focal.

Canon 5D Mk3 w/24-105 kit lens
Latest Focal version
Windows 7 64-bit

I sent Reikan an e-mail and am eagerly awaiting a response (unless one of you have some suggestions). Any ideas?


----------



## ideaworx (Apr 11, 2012)

rwmson said:


> I purchased the Plus version yesterday and tried to use it with my new 5D Mk3 but it says the camera is unsupported. EOS Utility can successfully remotely control the camera to take shots. Focal appears to "see" the camera because it shows up in the GUI as a 5d mk3, but it says "unsupported" and I can't do anything beyond that with Focal. Yes I closed Canon EOS utility and had the camera tethered before launching Focal.
> 
> Canon 5D Mk3 w/24-105 kit lens
> Latest Focal version
> ...



They are in the process of adding full support for 5dm3 as I know. I am sure the rest of the crowd here can support that.

Cheers,

Shane


----------



## Mt Spokane Photography (Apr 11, 2012)

rwmson said:


> I purchased the Plus version yesterday and tried to use it with my new 5D Mk3 but it says the camera is unsupported. EOS Utility can successfully remotely control the camera to take shots. Focal appears to "see" the camera because it shows up in the GUI as a 5d mk3, but it says "unsupported" and I can't do anything beyond that with Focal. Yes I closed Canon EOS utility and had the camera tethered before launching Focal.
> 
> Canon 5D Mk3 w/24-105 kit lens
> Latest Focal version
> ...


 
As noted in the original post, the PRO version users have access to the Beta which works with tthe 5D MK III. The lower versions do not get access to beta versions or other advanced features.

If you want to use the beta version (It does have bugs), upgrade to the PRP version.


----------



## wickidwombat (Apr 12, 2012)

i dont think it can come off beta until we get some proper raw converters either
so a question for those that have focal, is it worth it?
do you get significant time saving benefits when calibrating a boatload of lenses?
is the accuracy significantly better than other methods?


----------



## Mt Spokane Photography (Apr 12, 2012)

wickidwombat said:


> i dont think it can come off beta until we get some proper raw converters either
> so a question for those that have focal, is it worth it?
> do you get significant time saving benefits when calibrating a boatload of lenses?
> is the accuracy significantly better than other methods?


 
It does not depend on outside software, it probably uses jpgs from the camera. that does not matter, since its merely finding the sharpest setting.

As to benefits, YMMV. Some lenses are close enough out of the box to be fine, while some, particularly wide lenses do benefit. I found it to be much more precise than methods that require me to visually decide which image is sharper and found that I was sometimes way off. In other cases, my AFMA with lens align tool matched perfectly.

One of the side benefits is that you can spot focusing issues in your camera / lens combination. We often hear of users who do not get consistent results.

The two photos of my laptop screen below show that one has a smooth curve with few inaccurate images while another lens struggles.

Reasonable curve I believe that was my 300mm f/4L, my only lens to have 0 AFMA on both 7D and 5D MK II. I sold it to finance my 5D MK III.






This one is ok, but the lens had issues, probably due to vibration of me walking on the wooden floor during one of the test points.


----------



## WSMyles (Jan 20, 2013)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> use this link for a discount http://www.reikan.co.uk/focal/mbp45/



Thanks, I did  

Only just received the lenses, a couple of weeks after the body. Lots to learn yet!

I spent an hour or so in semi-manual mode playing with it on the 100 2.8L before the battery died; by my eye and the Q results, it seemed best at +5. While the battery recharged, I re-read the manual now that I had some concrete concepts to attach to the text of the manual. It made a lot more sense after!

I went back and did the 100 L, the 24-105L and the 70-300L in about half an hour in Full Auto/MSC mode (it's a 5D Mark III). All seemed to work fine, but FoCal ended up with a different result on the 100. "10" instead of "5"... however the data points were pretty much flat at Q1500 from 4 to 15 on the "auto" calibration. I'll go back later and really "dial" it in, manually, before doing a "sharpest aperture" run.

MANY thanks for making this offer available. It's a good program. Takes a bit of getting used to, but in reality it isn't nearly as "finicky" as the manual suggests. I didn't have to adjust the target once - just point the camera correctly at it 

FoCal has "dialed in" some pretty damned sharp AF for me in less time than it took to erect the testing equipment (and gazebo for the sun!) and break it down again. I'm impressed, and I think the discounted price makes it even better value.

Apologies for Thread Necromancy, but this one (if any) deserves to live!


----------



## kchung (Mar 1, 2013)

fyi, the discount is now expired.


----------



## RGF (Mar 5, 2013)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> Reikan foCal has released a beta for Pro users that supports AFMA of the 5D MK III with some limitations. Its 5 or 6 weeks more before the SDK is released by Canon, so it is a clever work around.
> 
> I'll be trying it tomorrow on my 5D MK III.
> 
> ...



Just recently heard (again) about this tool and decided to investigate it. Hearing lots of good stuff on this forum about it. Unfortunately when I cheked the link the discount is no longer available. Do you happen to know of any other discounts available? Or perhaps if someone from FoCal reads this, they can provide one to the readers of this forum - thanks.


----------

