How important is a Micro Focus Adjustment feature to you?

Canon's 70D and up have the ability to micro adjust the focus of lenses. The 60D and under don't. I don't know about other brands SLRs.

Do you find yourself using this feature often? Or have your lenses been spot on already?

I like to shoot with prime lenses and a pretty shallow depth of field often. Last time I had a SLR, it was a 60D and 85mm f1.8 lens. The lens either front or back focused, I forget which. I had never had this problem in any cameras or lenses before (or I wasn't experienced enough to notice, but I doubt that) so I did some research online and read about micro adjusting for focus. I also found out my 60D didn't have that feature. So I returned the camera and lens and bought a Sony Nex. Which doesn't need focus adjustments of course.

Now I'm going back to a SLR because I need the lens selection. But I'm wondering if I need to buy a camera with micro adjustments or if the experience I had last time was just a fluke. If it's an uncommon problem, I'll be buying from Amazon so I can just exchange anything that has a problem.

Very important. I really can't see me buying a dslr without it anymore. My pentax's have always had this feature (first 2 via a debug hack, not official and only global not per lens) and needed it. I thought long and hard about trying out canon (for bird in flight photography) and was persuaded by the forums that I didn't need micro af adjustments, so bought a (new old stock) 30D for trying out. It was obvious it had front focus issues with the 55-250 IS and even more obvious with the 100-300 F4 sigma. In the end I sent the body to Canon for calibration and it then worked perfectly with my 55-250, 18-55 and 100 macro, but still massive front focus with my sigma 100-300, so off the body and lens went to sigma, came back working lovely from F5.6 upwards at all zoom settings, but still a bit of front focus at F4. So in the end I've given up, I use it occasionally and have gone back to pentax and my K30 which has adjustment for 20 lenses. For me it spoils the fun knowing that shots are not as sharp as they could be and I'm looking to sell all my canon kit for this very reason. I would have really liked to upgrade to 60D (I think the af on the 30D is great and expect the 60D is even better) or even try a lower model but canon just refuse provide af micro adjust in these models so I voted with my feet. (P.S all current pentax DSLR's have micro af adjustments no matter who they are aimed at).

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Because tolerances between bodies and lenses vary why not tune every lens for the optimal performance? Since I mostly rely on AF using several L lenses I wouldn't buy another body without that feature.

bdjansen said:

Canon's 70D and up have the ability to micro adjust the focus of lenses. The 60D and under don't. I don't know about other brands SLRs.

Do you find yourself using this feature often? Or have your lenses been spot on already?

Click to expand...

As camera sensor MP increased (and so did my skills) I found myself getting much fussier about exact focus. I discoverd that I couldn't trust always trust AF with focal lengths under about 25mm, the shorter the worse, at any aperture. I discovered that my 50mm f/1.4 lens suffered from aperture related focus drift (almost all of the older designs of that lens do). I discovered that my longest focal lengths, which had rather narrow DoFs even at 100 yards, were slightly misfocused by AF.

With my last two cameras I improved these problems a lot by discovering that I could adjust the position and orientation of the camera's AF sensor plate myself. But what I achieved was a best compromise. Some lenses in some circumstances were best manually focused.

I now have a camera with both improved AF, plus microfocus adjust. That does even better. But it's still not perfect, since I still have aperture related focus drift and wide angle AF uncertainty which simple microfocus adjust can't cope with.

bdjansen said:

I like to shoot with prime lenses and a pretty shallow depth of field often. Last time I had a SLR, it was a 60D and 85mm f1.8 lens. The lens either front or back focused, I forget which. I had never had this problem in any cameras or lenses before (or I wasn't experienced enough to notice, but I doubt that)

Click to expand...

I can look back at my old files and see quite clearly that I was much less fussy about focus in the past. I thought I was just as fussy as now, but the historical evidence proves me wrong.

bdjansen said:

so I did some research online and read about micro adjusting for focus. I also found out my 60D didn't have that feature. So I returned the camera and lens and bought a Sony Nex. Which doesn't need focus adjustments of course.

Now I'm going back to a SLR because I need the lens selection. But I'm wondering if I need to buy a camera with micro adjustments or if the experience I had last time was just a fluke. If it's an uncommon problem, I'll be buying from Amazon so I can just exchange anything that has a problem.

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AF which works off sensors which are different from the image sensor, and which emply effective apertures which are different from the aperture which you are going to take the shot, will always have AF calibration problems which can never be settled perfectly for every lens. The only reason we put up with this imperfect AF is that it's the fastest kind of AF we've so far got. The proof that it's imperfect is that every time a new flagship model comes it has an improved AF system.

The simplest solution to the problems is never to print bigger than A5 or view your images at larger than screen size

It's very important if you want accurate AF with every lens that you want to use with that DSLR.

With Nikon it's AF Fine Tune. I have 2 Nikon bodies. A D300 with the AF Fine Tune and a D90 without this feature. I hope to replace the D90 soon. The primary reason being that it's missing the AF FT (micro adj) feature. Without it, if you want accurate AF, you must keep the body and any lens that you want to use on that body, "AF-calibrated". And they normally don't stay "in calibration" for any great length of time - especially in extreme summer heat.

Some lens service companies will sometimes ask you to send the body in with the lens so that they can AF-calibrate the lens for that body. Not something that I would want to do for sure.

So, having the Micro Adjust feature can save you a lot of time / money keeping everything AF-calibrated.

Here is a nice "AF" article by Roger C. of LensRentals.com...


Hope this helps in some way. Good luck with your decisions.


Wayne

bdjansen said:

Canon's 70D and up have the ability to micro adjust the focus of lenses. The 60D and under don't. I don't know about other brands SLRs.

Do you find yourself using this feature often? Or have your lenses been spot on already?

I like to shoot with prime lenses and a pretty shallow depth of field often. Last time I had a SLR, it was a 60D and 85mm f1.8 lens. The lens either front or back focused, I forget which. I had never had this problem in any cameras or lenses before (or I wasn't experienced enough to notice, but I doubt that) so I did some research online and read about micro adjusting for focus. I also found out my 60D didn't have that feature. So I returned the camera and lens and bought a Sony Nex. Which doesn't need focus adjustments of course.

Now I'm going back to a SLR because I need the lens selection. But I'm wondering if I need to buy a camera with micro adjustments or if the experience I had last time was just a fluke. If it's an uncommon problem, I'll be buying from Amazon so I can just exchange anything that has a problem.

Click to expand...

I am a Nikon user and I had an issue with my D5000 body which does not have this feature. It wasnt visible with the kit lens, but when I bought a 35mm f1.8 lens, the backfocus was visible. It was within warranty and I sent the body, kit lens, the 35mm lens and another lens to Nikon who adjusted the focus and now I dont have that issue. I bought two lenses, 55-300mm and Sigma 10-20mm, both of which are spot on and worked without problem right out of the box.

But if I am to buy a new camera, I will go for one with AF-tune feature.

Another thing to keep in mind is that as you go for higher level DSLRs, the AF is a lot more complex and focus problems are mostly bcoz of user error. For a first DSLR I would recommend going for a simpler one, but if you already have experience with ILC then I think going for a higher end camera is better.

You might want to read up on focus related threads on the FX forums where there is a lot more indepth information. I recently came across a thread where the poster said that the AF locked on to a more contrasty object which was outside of the AF-rectangle. I tried it on my D5000 and surprisingly that was true for my camera as well. PDAF has a lot going on behind the screens and there is a lot more scope for errors.

Very important.

I have micro focus adjust available to me on my Pentax cameras, but I don't bother with it. But then again I am using zoom lenses no faster than f/2.8 for almost everything. (family and vacation photos)

If I was using fast primes with my Pentax, probably I would get interested in microfocus adjust.

Same thing for my Sony A65 that does not have microfocus adjust. I have checked for forward focus or back focus on my zooms and don't detect any. But lots of people on the Sony forum say the microfocus adjust on the A77 makes a huge difference when shooting with fast primes.

I have MF adjustment available on my 6D.
When I got the 6D I went out and took a load of typical (for me) photos.
They all looked absolutely fine and appeared to be focussed where I intended them to be.
I've not even considered the possibility of adjusting any of my lenses and I think people become obsessed with this feature simply because they have it.
To me, the only time it might be useful is in close-up (Macro) or possibly portrait uses with shallow depth of field.
In both cases, the likelihood of user error (i.e. selecting the wrong focus point) is far more likely than a slight lens focussing error.

I prefer to forget about MF adjustment in favour of actually going out and taking pictures of the real world, rather than test subjects.
So far I've not had any focus problems with my 6D, and I never had any with my previous SLR either, which did not have MFA.

I'm the same about sensor dust.
I don't go around taking shots of the sky at f22, but if I spot some dust on one of my normal images than I'll consider cleaning my sensor.

Actually, the 50D has micro focus adjustment which was dropped in the 60D.

BG454 said:

I have MF adjustment available on my 6D.
When I got the 6D I went out and took a load of typical (for me) photos.
They all looked absolutely fine and appeared to be focussed where I intended them to be.
I've not even considered the possibility of adjusting any of my lenses and I think people become obsessed with this feature simply because they have it.
To me, the only time it might be useful is in close-up (Macro) or possibly portrait uses with shallow depth of field.
In both cases, the likelihood of user error (i.e. selecting the wrong focus point) is far more likely than a slight lens focussing error.

I prefer to forget about MF adjustment in favour of actually going out and taking pictures of the real world, rather than test subjects.
So far I've not had any focus problems with my 6D, and I never had any with my previous SLR either, which did not have MFA.

I'm the same about sensor dust.
I don't go around taking shots of the sky at f22, but if I spot some dust on one of my normal images than I'll consider cleaning my sensor.

Click to expand...

My Sony A55 doesn't have AF Microadjust and may be I have been lucky that all dozen or so lenses work fine on it. But, if any were off, I would have to either send it dor adjustment or simply deal with it. Many people do have front/back focus issues and it isn't just a minor dof issue either. You could be focusing in the hitter but focus falls on the first baseman.

My NEX-3 being a CDAF based camera doesn't need it. However, in PDAF applications via the adapter that uses mirror, I do have the option to correct any issue and that is a good thing to have. I wish this feature were included in all, not just the top level trims.

From my experience it is very useful micro focus adjustment if you are going to use big aperture lenses.

I never had any significant focus problems for lenses with biggest aperture at f/2.8-4 but for two primes, Nikkor 50 f/1.4 and Nikkor 135 f/2 DC, it made the night/day difference. Sigma 30 f/4 and Nikkor 85 f/1.4 had only marginal improvements.

I had no improvements for my f/4 zooms or my f/2.8 primes - at last I could detect.

Best regards,

--
O.Cristo - An Amateur Photographer
Opinions of men are almost as various as their faces - so many men so many minds. B. Franklin

next to zero. not needed. gimme hi iso any day instead.

bdjansen said:

Canon's 70D and up have the ability to micro adjust the focus of lenses. The 60D and under don't. I don't know about other brands SLRs.

Do you find yourself using this feature often? Or have your lenses been spot on already?

I like to shoot with prime lenses and a pretty shallow depth of field often. Last time I had a SLR, it was a 60D and 85mm f1.8 lens. The lens either front or back focused, I forget which. I had never had this problem in any cameras or lenses before (or I wasn't experienced enough to notice, but I doubt that) so I did some research online and read about micro adjusting for focus. I also found out my 60D didn't have that feature. So I returned the camera and lens and bought a Sony Nex. Which doesn't need focus adjustments of course.

Now I'm going back to a SLR because I need the lens selection. But I'm wondering if I need to buy a camera with micro adjustments or if the experience I had last time was just a fluke. If it's an uncommon problem, I'll be buying from Amazon so I can just exchange anything that has a problem.

Click to expand...

If I were to buy a DSLR, I would buy one with focus micro adjust. The headache caused by being unable to fix a focus issue, and needing to send of the camera or lens for replacement/repair is not worth the small cost difference required to get a camera with that feature, IMO.

jonrobertp said:

next to zero. not needed. gimme hi iso any day instead.

Click to expand...

It's not an either/or situation.

bdjansen said:

Canon's 70D and up have the ability to micro adjust the focus of lenses. The 60D and under don't. I don't know about other brands SLRs.

Do you find yourself using this feature often? Or have your lenses been spot on already?

I like to shoot with prime lenses and a pretty shallow depth of field often. Last time I had a SLR, it was a 60D and 85mm f1.8 lens. The lens either front or back focused, I forget which. I had never had this problem in any cameras or lenses before (or I wasn't experienced enough to notice, but I doubt that) so I did some research online and read about micro adjusting for focus. I also found out my 60D didn't have that feature. So I returned the camera and lens and bought a Sony Nex. Which doesn't need focus adjustments of course.

Now I'm going back to a SLR because I need the lens selection. But I'm wondering if I need to buy a camera with micro adjustments or if the experience I had last time was just a fluke. If it's an uncommon problem, I'll be buying from Amazon so I can just exchange anything that has a problem.

Click to expand...

In principle it is very important if you use fast lenses. My D5100 doesn't have it, but my next camera will (or will be mirrorless). I thought I had back-focus with my 35mm 1.8, so I sent it in with my camera to be calibrated. When it came back, I assumed all misfocused shots were down to me. When I did a proper test, I found it was still back-focusing, so I sent it back to Nikon with the camera, apparently they "forgot" to check for back-focus. When I got it back I found the body was now front-focusing BADLY with ALL lenses, at least there was a statement that the 35mm 1.8 had been corrected.

So, it appears to me that Nikon U.K. are not reliable at calibrating their own equipment or following instructions, so to save time, energy, frustration and expense, I would much rather do it myself with autofocus fine-tune.

The "fly in the ointment" is that I have read that if you set autofocus fine tune to anything but "0", you may fix the front/back focus issue, but focusing becomes less reliable.

Using live view gets round the problem and I have found myself preferring it in museums and galleries. It's a pity that the D5100 live view implementation is not good and it's far too slow for action shots.