- 2 days ago
Sharper photos often start with one overlooked step: micro-adjusting your lens calibration so the camera and lens focus exactly where they should. Here, the process is demonstrated with a Canon 500mm lens, showing how a slight manufacturing tolerance can leave an image just out of focus even when everything seems correct.
The setup uses a homemade focus calibration chart mounted at the proper angle and distance, with the camera placed on a tripod, image stabilization switched off, and the aperture opened wide for the clearest test results. After taking a series of shots at different AF micro-adjustment settings, the images are compared to find the best focus point and the most accurate correction for that lens and body combination.
It’s a practical camera tutorial for anyone struggling with tack sharp photos, especially wildlife and long-lens shooters working with Canon DSLR autofocus micro-adjustment, lens calibration charts, and focus testing at home.
SEO: Canon lens micro-adjustment tutorial, autofocus calibration, lens focus calibration chart, sharp photo tips, DSLR focusing guide, Canon 500mm lens setup, wildlife photography focus test, camera calibration for sharper photos.
The setup uses a homemade focus calibration chart mounted at the proper angle and distance, with the camera placed on a tripod, image stabilization switched off, and the aperture opened wide for the clearest test results. After taking a series of shots at different AF micro-adjustment settings, the images are compared to find the best focus point and the most accurate correction for that lens and body combination.
It’s a practical camera tutorial for anyone struggling with tack sharp photos, especially wildlife and long-lens shooters working with Canon DSLR autofocus micro-adjustment, lens calibration charts, and focus testing at home.
SEO: Canon lens micro-adjustment tutorial, autofocus calibration, lens focus calibration chart, sharp photo tips, DSLR focusing guide, Canon 500mm lens setup, wildlife photography focus test, camera calibration for sharper photos.
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TravelTranscript
00:02Hello again my friends so as you probably gather I am at home in the UK self-isolating like many
00:12other people around the world trying to stay safe from this coronavirus as I am one of those unlucky
00:21few I guess who's immunosuppressed because of some of the medication I have to take but
00:29yes I'm trying to stay out of everybody's way and I guess the hardest part is actually I'm staying
00:36away from my daughter as well which is a little bit difficult to bear but hopefully this will all
00:42be behind us soon enough and we can all get back to our normal lives anyway it's also one of
00:50the
00:50reasons I should say that I wasn't able to travel to Greece like I had intended which is a real
00:56shame
00:56because I had some I had planned some really fantastic at least I hope they would be fantastic
01:03excursions into the mountains some wild camping for landscape and wildlife photography which would
01:11have been a lot of fun both to to do and to bring to you as well but hopefully it's
01:19not gone forever
01:20and I'll be able to do it later in the year either in in the summer or in the autumn
01:27so hopefully that's
01:30in the future anyway what I thought I might try and do seeing as we're all stuck inside or a
01:37lot of us
01:39is do a couple of little tutorial videos which might be of interest to a few of you and also
01:45might present
01:46a little bit of a project to have a go at whilst we're stuck inside and looking for things to
01:52do
01:53and keep us occupied so the first thing that I thought I might have a go at was to talk
02:00about
02:02lens calibration micro adjusting your lens to your camera body as on practically every single
02:12um workshop that I've run it always seems to come up uh the uh the um the problem of getting
02:20sharp
02:21photos tack sharp photos and I'm always asked how I achieve uh this and there's various reasons why
02:29somebody might not be getting super sharp photos um one example perhaps is um camera shake in other
02:40words when you're trying to hand hold a lens and the camera like this it's very heavy so uh you
02:46might
02:46get camera shake trying to take the picture another reason could be that for the subject you're trying
02:52to photograph you haven't got a high enough shutter speed um if it's a tiny little bird that flutters
03:00its wings a thousand times a second then it's gonna be impossible to um to photograph with a with a
03:06slow shutter speed um and the third reason which is what we're going to discuss here is that your lens
03:14might not be accurately calibrated to your camera body now you might think to yourself well i've just
03:20spent so many thousands of pounds dollars whatever to buy this lens and camera why why isn't it perfect
03:28straight out of the box and the reason is that these although they're beautifully manufactured and
03:35uh made by these companies canon nikon etc sony fuji they're all amazing amazingly engineered uh lenses and cameras
03:45um but they're all built to uh within certain tolerances and it might be that this particular lens with
03:55this particular camera though they're within the manufacturer's tolerances it's just ever so slightly
04:03uh focusing uh out of range of the sensor and when i say slightly i'm talking thousands of a millimeter
04:11uh or hundreds of a millimeter tiny tiny amount but it's enough at this length of lens to throw your
04:19photo out of focus or not give you um that pin sharp photo that you're really after um but the
04:26beauty of
04:27these um these cameras is that you can calibrate them to get accurate focusing uh in camera and the cameras
04:36will remember for every lens in your quiver um what micro adjustment to make um so once you've set it
04:45you can just forget about it the camera will remember and you should also remember that you're
04:50going to have to do this uh not only for every lens but for every focal length so for example
04:56if you
04:56have a 100 to 400 zoom you'll have to do it at the 100 end and also the 400 end
05:01and maybe even in the
05:03middle at 200 um a calibration for each of those focal lengths then you might have to if you use
05:10uh
05:11teleconverters like this one uh you'd have to do it without the teleconverter with the teleconverter
05:16all these combinations um and the camera will remember that uh so that next time you go to use it
05:23with
05:24that particular camera lens combination um you won't have any issues the camera will focus pin sharp
05:31um so yeah okay so the next step uh you might be asking yourselves is that how do you actually
05:39do the calibration and uh the way we do that is um using a focus calibration chart uh you can
05:47buy these
05:47online they cost anything from 20 pounds to 60 pounds i think is the most expensive i found on amazon
05:54um or you can make one yourself i chose to make one myself because i i enjoy making things um
06:01so i made
06:02this board which i mounted at 45 degrees with the focus chart glued to the front of it and the
06:09whole
06:09thing is mounted on a little tripod um on a ball head so that i can change the angle make
06:16sure it's
06:17completely level and parallel to the sensor of my camera because they have to be totally opposite each
06:25other um uh yeah also the other point you have to um set the focus chart a particular distance away
06:34uh from the sensor and that has to be 25 times to 50 times the focal length of your the
06:42lens that you're
06:43trying to calibrate so in this instance 500 mil uh times 25 that gives 25 meters distance um 12 and
06:53a
06:53half meters distance um as a minimum that we'd need to set this away from the from the camera
07:00so what i'm going to do is i'm going to go ahead and set all that up and i'll join
07:04you then in the
07:05meantime i'm going to run a little bit of b-roll for you of me making this so if you're
07:10not really
07:10interested to see how i put this together please feel free to skip ahead okay i'll see you on the
07:15other
07:16side
10:35Hello again.
10:37I've set up the focusing board, which you'll see out in the garden there, just in the distance,
10:47which is about 12.5-13 meters away from me.
10:53I leveled it and made sure that it was as parallel as possible that I can make it to my
11:03lens down here, my camera and lens down here.
11:07And what I've done is to try and get it as parallel as possible.
11:13If I bring it up on here, you'll see the focusing line on the back of the camera is green,
11:26which means it's totally level.
11:28And also the vertical means that it's, you see the line here that flits up and down.
11:41So that all being said, I'll switch over, make sure it's focusing right in the middle and I'll do my
11:50first shot.
11:52Okay, so the other thing, okay, so the other thing I'll do, okay, so the other thing I'll do, okay,
11:54so the other thing I forgot to mention is that you should be set, you should set your lens to
11:58the widest possible aperture that it can go to.
12:01So in this case, it's an f4 lens. So that's what I've set it to. And also that you make
12:07sure, because you're shooting on tripod, you switched your image stabilization off, because that will interfere with it.
12:16And as long as that's all set to go, it'll just refocus on the center line.
12:26And I've got it on a 10 second delay to let the camera, give the camera a really good chance
12:33to settle down before taking the image so that it can make sure that it is as sharp as possible.
12:42Okay, so having taken that shot, what we do now is, is gradually change the micro adjustment on the back
12:52of the camera.
12:54So taking a shot with every adjustment, and then we'll bring all the photos into the laptop and have a
13:02look at them and see which is the best point of focus, and then we'll know which adjustment is the
13:08best to make, if any.
13:10So let me just show you that on the back of the camera. It will be different if you have
13:14a Nikon or a Fuji or a Sony or anything like that.
13:23Alright, so on the back of the camera here, if I can just focus, come on focus, okay, so if
13:32I go into the menu, and it should be I think under the autofocus, and AF, here we go, so
13:42under the AF menu if you're on Canon, AF micro adjustment,
13:48and then it says, it's disabled at the minute, but adjust by lens, so change, and we can, so it
13:57should have been set on zero, here, but what we'll do is we'll increase it to five, plus five,
14:08and then take another shot, and see what that gives us, then we'll do minus five, take another shot, and
14:15see where our focusing is set, so let me do all that, and I'll come back to you in a
14:23bit.
14:25So, okay, so hello again, I've taken all the shots on the camera, with all the increment adjustments, so I've
14:35got, I went, the first shot I did was zero,
14:38then I went plus five, took a shot, plus ten, took a shot, fifteen, took a shot, etc., and then
14:43I went the other way on the scale, minus five, ten, fifteen, twenty, etc.,
14:48taking a shot each time, and, and, and in fact, after I finished that, I did also continue on taking
14:57more shots, with just an increment of one, so I did plus one, two, three, four, five,
15:04just to see what that would give me, and, because I know that that's going to be more accurate, for,
15:09for this particular lens, from having done it before, so I just wanted to show you that as well.
15:14So, if we dive in here, the first shot, um, is at zero, uh, no calibration at all, and you
15:22can see that, in fact, the camera, uh, and lens is forward focusing,
15:27so you can see, this area here, where it says, uh, focus test chart, between that, and the, the dark
15:33line focus here, that is the sharpest area, uh, of this picture.
15:38So, if we, uh, go forward to plus five, you can see that it's brought the focusing back, and, in
15:47fact, it's now, uh, uh, rear focusing, um,
15:53um, and this is the sharpest area, up, above the, uh, center focus line, and, as we go up, plus
16:0310, it, the focus has moved even further up, to the 20, 30, 40 mil, uh, region,
16:11and, and, then, plus 15, it goes even higher still, and, then, plus 20, uh, it's all the way out
16:19at 80 mil, is the sharpest part of the, uh, image,
16:22and, the center line here is completely out of focus, and, then, we went, um, minus five, um, which you
16:33can see, is completely out of focus,
16:36there, and it's completely out of focus, in the middle, and, as we progress, it's sending it, the focus, the
16:44other, in the other direction,
16:46so, it's forward focusing, down here at 80 mil, on this one, uh, yeah, so, it's, it's definitely a plus
16:55adjustment,
16:55that we need to make, for my lens, so, if we go back to, uh, zero,
17:00zero, and, then, we'll switch to, plus one, here, and, you can see, that, plus one, is really nice, actually,
17:10nicely focused, right in the middle, um, and, it's got a decent, depth of field, here, so, it's, uh, minus
17:17six,
17:18ten mil, and, plus six, ten mil, is nice, and sharp, all that area, so, if we forward that, a
17:25little bit more,
17:26that's, plus two, now, and, we're losing it, from behind, here, our depth of field, but, it's still
17:34okay, in the front, um, so, that's, plus three, four, plus five, and, the focus comes, all the way down
17:43here, again, so, yeah, I think, for, for my particular lens, plus one, is giving me the best, uh, range
17:52of
17:52focus, from the center focus point, uh, behind a couple of mil, and, in front, a couple of mil,
17:59that's my depth of focus, uh, depth of field, um, so, I'm pretty happy with that adjustment there,
18:06so, like I said before, you're gonna have to go through, and do that, for each, and every single
18:10lens, all the combinations, with your teleconverters, um, all the ranges, of your, uh, zoom lenses,
18:18if you've got 100 to 400, like I said, you do it at 100, 200, 400, maybe, um, to give
18:24you the best,
18:24uh, calibration for that lens, so, yeah, I hope you found this, uh, useful, and, um, uh, you can have
18:36a go at, uh, uh, doing this for yourselves, for your equipment, and, um, getting, uh, those perfectly
18:42sharp shots in the future, so, thanks for watching, uh, and I hope to see you again soon, bye for
18:49now.