DotTune: Video Tutorial for AF tuning without photographs

I've just posted a video tutorial of the DotTune AF fine tuning method. Here's the link:

DotTune Video Tutorial (YouTube) 

And here is a link to the original DotTune thread.

Note: link to video updated by moderator per the O/P's request

Very informative, thank you. Now I will go out and give it a try with a 800e and a few lenses.

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Have Fun!
Steve
http://stevequad.smugmug.com/photos/476767353_j7E44-Ti-0.jpg

Thanks Horshack.

How much does the range vary? Instead of moving increment by increment can you take a jump to speed up finding the other end of the range?

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Robin Casady
http://www.robincasady.com/Photo/index.html
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."
— Bertrand Russell

Certainly you can.  You're only interested in the endpoints.

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Mike Dawson

Thank you--very helpful!

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WSSA #318

Knowing range variability would make it easier to guess at the jump amount.

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Robin Casady
http://www.robincasady.com/Photo/index.html
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."
— Bertrand Russell

Very interesting. I will have to see how it compares to how I allready fined tuned my lenses. See if this way does a better job than the old fashioned way i did mine.

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http://www.pbase.com/dc9mm

Thank you for posting

What focal length to use if lens is not prime?

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'Photography is about feel of view, not field of view'
I view, I feel, I shoot
http://gplus.to/Grandpaparazzi

Start with the middle of the zoom range. Check the extremes to see if they are different. If they are, you have to decide what is important to you. Do you want to stay with the middle, or do you want to pick a fl. that is most important to you.

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Robin Casady
http://www.robincasady.com/Photo/index.html
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."
— Bertrand Russell

Really great post, thank you

I assume you've tried this and seen the results. How do think this compares to the methods most of us have been using?

Excellent work and looking forward to trying!

Robert

It depends on the lens. On my Sigma 35mm f/1.4 the range is very small, only 4 AF tune units. On my 50G f/1.4 it's 9 tune units. You can jump around at any increment you'd like when trying to locate the general are of the range.

Thank you. Unfortunately, focus at infinity is affected as Nikon anticipated. Silly, faulty camera!

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"There is not a thin line between love and hate. There is - in fact - a Great Wall of China with armed sentries posted every 20 feet between love and hate." (House)

Very nice job, thanks a lot for posting this. Elegantly simple.

(LensAlign is going to hate you.)

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Michael Sherman
http://www.msphoto.ca

Horshack

You are the Man! Simple and efficient! I am getting much more reliable and concistent results with your method compare to any other one and/or software that are available on the market.

Many thanks for sharing

Phil

Nice job, Horshack.  Your explanation is easy to follow.

People might want to choose the distance they most use the lens at, vs. the 40 times the focal length, if the tuning varies with distance.  Likewise for zoom lenses they might choose their most common zoom range vs. the midrange.  Or, they might choose the longest zoom focal length where the affect of miscalibration is the worst.

Nice.

After a huge FoCal failure I am going to try this one

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Francesco
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http://www.siteaside.com/

I tried and I got to a range of -14 and +20 ..... but since I reached +20, I actually cannot say what range I have. Or do I use +20?

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Francesco
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http://www.siteaside.com/

All the hardware is already inside the camera! They only need to provide a default test setup. Tell them to use all AF points and to add two extra extreme values for zooms. If you do that, than maybe if my future camera will be a Nikon again, I could enjoy this system.

Thanks. Just out of curiosity, any idea what characteristic of the lens determines the range?

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Robin Casady
http://www.robincasady.com/Photo/index.html
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."
— Bertrand Russell