AF fine tune your Pentax Camera using a lens calibration tool
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- Опубліковано 7 вер 2024
- Taking the kit lenses out for a spin last week I came to the conclusion that the DA50-200 WR lens needed a little calibration. So here's how I go about fine tuning the autofocus on my lenses when paired with my Pentax K3 using a cheap lens calibration tool.
Calibration tool - amzn.to/3Hx6McK
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The Pentax viewfinder @1:45 😂 Got to love the Pentax top brass!
If you keep the distance between camera and target as short as possible the depth of field will be the most shallow, which makes it easier to see the difference between in-focus and out-of-focus.
If you extend the distance between camera and the target, the depth of field will increase and make it more difficult to see if the focus is accurate or not.
I'll give that a go next time I do it. Thanks
This is the first time I have heard of having to adjust the AF for a Pentax. I have an obscene amount of Pentax bodies and lenses and have never had to make an adjustment. My Nikons on the other hand, every time I get a Nikon lens I have to set the AF fine tune. The worst offender is the D7000. Since I did it so often here is a little quick way to do it, set up an off camera speedlight just slightly off the camera axis, set the max aperture, and since I'm cheap, use a machinist scale set at 45 degrees. The lines on the scale are precisely etched and easy to see on the screen. The 50-200mm is one of my favorite lenses to use and I hope to see more videos of it's use(hint hint) Side note here, every time I use a Nikon I really appreciate how much better thought out Pentax cameras are.
My K3 might need to be sent in for correction then, I'm at +10 on a few lenses? My K5 & K-70 are max +4 on the same glass. I had seen a video of the Nikon D500 where it had an auto calibration feature? Looked pretty cool & time saving. I suppose it varies for each body & lens combo.
@@LeeIveson Nikon had to do something in the D500 because of all the quality control problems they had with the D7000 and all the recalls of the D750 (6 to my knowledge) There are plenty of AF fine tuning / repair videos out there for Nikon. The only Pentax repair videos I have seen are for the replacement of a faulty solenoid in K30 or K50. You video is the first one I ever saw about Pentax AF fine tuning. Why no repair videos for Canon or Sony ? When they break just throw them away.
I haven’t had any focus issues with my Pentax lenses.....
I also never had it with Pentax. But just bought a 2017 Pentax K-70 with 1301 clicks and kitlens and a seperate Pentax 18-135 WR. But both need adjustment. So I'm a little bit confused now.
Excellent. Thanks for explaining such an important and technical issue so we'll.
I don't know why but pentax doesn't have 2 different setting for zoom lens . On most other cameras there is a close and distance setting like say a 70 to 200 lens you can fine adjust for both 70 and 200 mm . With cheaper lens that only open to 5.6 it makes it hard to fine tune . Because of the dof of 5.6 you have a few feet of focus distance in front of the subject and behind it . The best way to get the best focus is to put the camera into live view and use a hi contrast flat object and manually focus the lens untill the live view is spot on the target . Then shut off the live view and look at the marking of the focus distance on the lens .With your eye on the lens focus marker press the auto focus button and see if the lens distance moves . If it moves then you need to calibrate it . If it moves to the left you have to go to the plus side if it moved to the right you have to go to the negative side . What you want to end up with is no movement if the focus ring at all from the live view focus distance to the auto focus reading .
Another hit video! That viewfinder bit was funny!
It's funny for those in the know 😂
my way to adjust focus
1) focus with liveview
2) mark the focus distance on focus ring with a tape
3) focus with OVF
4) AF adjustment until the focus distance on focus ring matched with the tape in step 2.
Pretty sound way of doing it.
Thanks for the video! I also have a K-3, the best camera I’ve ever owned, but a couple of lenses seem to be a bit off sharp focus. I should have done something a few years ago, but was a bit dubious about trying something new. Seeing that setting the fine tuning is pretty straightforward, I feel much less leery of doing it. Now I just have to get a focus checker to focus on.
No problem! It makes a huge difference if your used to having soft images caused by front or back focusing issues! I can imagine a lot of lenses will have been sold before checking the focus adjustments!
@@LeeIveson
As it happens, last night I attended the ZZ Top concert here, and took my first concert pix with my new-last-Fall D* 50-135 f2.8 lens, and it looks like the focus is spot on. With the Pentax D 18-135 f4-5.6 lens that I started shooting the show with, the pictures were okay at best, especially when zoomed to 100% (8.3x). When I switched to the D* 2.8 Pentax lens, it was a different story. When I zoomed in to 100% after the concert, I was very pleasantly surprised to see every whisker in Billy Gibbons's amazing beard sharply resolved, and this was from about 50 feet/15 metres.
Conclusion: the K3 sensor deserves the best glass you can put in front of it.
@@nomorokay Nice! The DA*50-135 I the best rendering lens I've used full stop! It is a superb lens, slow to focus but I can deal with that when it gives the images it does. Sounds like you have a great copy of that lens too!
AF fine tune is a great feature. With some of my lenses like the DFA 100 macro I was able to considerably improve focus accuracy. Got repeatable, consistent result using test target therefore correcting the bias was straightforward. However, with other lenses such as the DA50 and DFA50, it's not a matter of systematic front/back focus, but rather lack of consistency. Camera on tripod and fixed target. Focus plane will change depending on focusing direction, on pressing and depressing the shutter button. It's simply not repeatable enough to clearly identify the correct adjustment. Just plain random. In this case I just leave it at zero and be careful when I focus wide open. Accept the limitations of the system, so to speak.
I've had that a few times with some of the lenses with wide apatures and I always use back button focus too. It's weird & very frustrating 😕
@@LeeIveson Luckily top notch AF with large apertures is only relevant for some types of photography that are not my main focus, and I'm not a professional I can afford to miss or repeat some shots. Still holding onto my 8 years old K3, money well spent at the time. Market has shrunk, prices have gone up. For the price I paid (900€) now you could buy only small entry level MLs that you need toothpicks to operate. Even back in the day the build quality and durability of top Pentax bodies like the K3 rivaled that of flagships from the big brands. Used it from -35 °C to +40 °C with no issues, feels like you can drive nails into concrete with it.
@@yuser314159 I'm just on editing a build quality/handling comparison video between my K3 & the 7DII I picked up, the 7DII is very well built but the K3 is just like a little tank. 👌
You need larger target for such distance. This test target from aliexpress is only good if it fills at least 1/2 of the frame (I have the same too). You can easily print scale on A3 paper and just leave something standing in the middle. Then put the camera a little bit above the level, so you can see the scale on the resulting photo.
Prior to any focus calibration tighten your mount screws on camera and clean any dust or hair that are on the AF module under mirror.
Also keep in mind, that some lenses have aperture focus shift = which means that some fast lenses have different focusing point at F1.4 and then at F4 for example, so you have to decide which is more important for you or do some compromise. Similar for any zoom lens as you mentioned various zoom stages might have different issue :D
It also is a good idea to grab some paper and make notes about your lenses in case you reset your camera or buy new one. Usually corrections are similar, so it is faster then.
Sounds like you have this down! Thanks for those tips, I did forget to say that I usually have the lens at its largest aperture when doing this.
@@LeeIveson And the most important part.. there are some lenses that are simply not able to consistently hit one spot :D On tripod, nothing changes, just defocused manually, focused by AF, ten times.. and oh.. every attempt with different result :D FA50/1.4 for example or some older body driven lenses. Then all you can do is to set something in the middle of the offset errors detected..
As I mentioned those mount screws on camera, same applies for lenses. Especially heavy lenses do like to stress the mount and sometimes screws come loose. Even some funny moments can happen then, because camera can loose proper contacts and F number on display starts blinking or camera behaves like if some manual lens is attached etc. yet for eyes it still appear to be tightened enough. Happened with Sigma 50-500 two times and small screwdriver fixed the issue :D
And finally the proof is in the real pictures, not these test shots. Seriously. In normal conditions we take shots of 3-dimensional objects, not flat surfaces. And the AF point has got a physical area, it's not a "point" in mathematical meaning. Not to mention, the blinking squares in the viewfinder might be slightly missaligned with the actual AF sensors. There's no other way than learning our cameras.
@@ryszardtarnowski8213 Yes, parts of AF module are cross shaped and larger than those red rectangles in viewfinder. That itself sometimes can cause focusing issues because camera tries to focus on different thing than what we expect :D
+ various reflections and interferences also come into equation. Sometimes a filter can cause focusing issues easily. Not to mention polarisers and ND filters which are able to render AF unusable.
Great video!
Thanks man 👍
❤K3
Oh Lee, no, no, no it really is time to go mirror less my friend, LOL. But seriously that was interesting as l never have calibrated a lens before.
I would like to have a run out with somthing like a Sony A9 but the price! Then I have to buy all the lenses again 😪
@@LeeIveson It does tend to be a huge expense that for sure.
Dies this apply to manual lenses? 😂 I know there's always one eh. Prime example of a numpty.
Good video anyway. I've seen the feature on my k70 but never looked at it. I might when I'm not shooting anything one day. Just to see if it's my old eyes or the lenses.
I'm going to say no off the top of my head I'm pretty sure they have to be able to communicate with each other via electronics. I'll have to check now 🤣
My K-3 needs +9 or +10 on most of my lenses, whereas my K-1, KP and K-5 need very little adjustment. Seems that my K-3 was not very well calibrated in the factory, I've had it from new and it has always been like this
That's the same thing I'm finding! My K5 & K-70 are never to far out, the K3 is at the limit with most of my lenses, same as yours +8 to +10? Looks like the Pentax production staff must have had a few to many sherbets before putting the K3 together 😂
@@LeeIveson I wonder if they are all like that? I thought images from my K-3 were soft when I first got the camera, but after adjusting the focus for my lenses it worked fine. I've had it 7 years now.
@@davidstorm4015 It will probably just be the acceptable tolerance form factory, it would be pretty hard to get each body perfectly zeroed with every lens combo borderline impossible. As you say once you've tuned the AF for your lenses that's it, saved & done!
The front and back focus terminology always confused me. If you focus on the target, and the picture shows the actual point of focus was in front, do you move the adjustment to ‘+’ or ‘-‘ to correct in the camera?
Thanks!
If things in front of your target are in focus you need to go "-"
If things behind your target are in focus you need to go "+"
I've found it helps moving the "+" or "-" by at least 3 points to clearly see if much changes, then fine tune from there. Hope this helps. Cheers
I’m curious Lee, have you tested the 55-300 PLM on the K3iii and if so how did it compare.
Funny you should mention that as I had to go +9 on the adjustment to get my copy of the 55-300 PLM to focus correctly. I'm due another calibration soon, I'll see how that one goes!
Great video again. Dumb question, but does the test distance matter? I'd hope you wouldn't get differing results at various ranges, or that would be a real headache!
Well its not a dumb question, some people will say to make the distance shorter or increase the target size if its further away. I've not had issues doing it the way I showed here, but i can see the point in making the distance shorter so that you can see what's in & out of focus easier. On the Pentax website they say to go up to x50 of your focal length for the distance, so in my case it should have been 200mm x 50 = 10,000mm (32ft) which is probably near to what I did to be fair.
@@LeeIveson cheers. I need to get a proper chart and have a go. Previously used 3 batteries (different distances slightly), and the k30 manual as my targets, about 1-2m away.
So far, I've been lucky and not had to adjust any, or doing it wrong!!
@@daellis130 The chart I use was only about £3 or somthing. To be honest though he way you've been doing it will work fine too, it's just making sure the have a target that wont move, and a measurement system to show how far back or front focusing your kit is.
@@LeeIveson I'll give it a go as I like tinkering. It's another good excuse though isn't it."Sorry love, can't take you shopping today, I have to calibrate my lens's!"
Great stuff , think I understand it. Where did you get your calibration card and what do they call it .... thanks
Just be sure to keep note of your AF adjustment settings so when you check the images for focus you know which is which. 👌 Oh and I have a link for the calibration card in the video description.
@@LeeIveson Hi Lee , stupid question ... Ok so you calibrate one particular lens , do you do this for all lenses or just any that may be showing focusing issues. Does the camera store the settings for each individual lens or do you need to dial the settings in each time when using the suspect lens , hence keeping the notes
@@andrewmartin8739 I will do this for each of my lenses separately as they will all be different, and I'll do that on each body I own. The camera can store around 20 individual lenses so once done it saves your settings. It's just good to write down where your at for each shot you take, I've had it happen where I think I've got it right by checking the camera screen but then when I take a look on the pc I can see it's off. That's why I'd say to make notes so you can match them up with your shots when you get back on the computer 👍
@@LeeIveson Cheers for the info 👍
Lmao... You got me xD
Well it's all about the optical viewfinder, it's the Pentax vision! 🤣
@@LeeIveson lol