DIY Photography

Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time

  • News
  • Inspiration
  • Reviews
  • Tutorials
  • DIY
  • Gear
Search

Submit A Story

Is this the end of backfocus problems? Nikon’s new Auto AF Fine Tune calibration explained

Apr 22, 2016 by John Aldred 2 Comments

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

d500_auto_af_fine_tune

With reports coming through that the D500 has now started shipping in the USA, those who have received them have been keen to start showing them off.

Amongst the fanfare of abilities like 10fps shooting, and ISO performance never before seen in a crop body, one little mentioned feature of both the Nikon D500 and D5 is the Automatic AF Fine Tune feature.

This single understated feature could mean an end to back and front focusing issues that have plagued photographers for years.

While camera & lens manufacturers do the very best they can to calibrate their lenses during their creation, manufacturing tolerances mean that one sample may be slightly more out than another.  This is where AF fine tuning steps in.

Many photographers were very happy when DSLR manufacturers started giving us the ability to fine tune our autofocus systems with individual lenses, to eliminate back & front focusing problems, but many still don’t know exactly how to use this feature, and even for those that do, it can be a cumbersome task.

It can also be troublesome if you have zoom lenses that focus perfectly fine at one end of their focal length range, but are slightly off at the other.

Obviously you can only pick one focal length to calibrate a lens from, so you generally would pick one end or the other, or compromise in the middle and have both extremes suffer slightly.

Even some prime lenses could potentially suffer.  A lens may focus perfectly fine up close, but be out when focusing at a greater distance, or vice versa.  Often, photographers just put it down to the AF point missing its target and giving the shot another go, yielding the same result.

Both of these situations mean, of course, that you aren’t always able to fully utilise your expensive lenses throughout their entire focal & focus range quickly and easily.

Nikon’s new D5 and D500 bodies aim to solve this problem by making AF fine tuning a much more speedy and efficient process, allowing you to recalibrate your lenses on the fly, as and when you need to.

In this short video from DPReview, we see Sam demonstrate exactly how this feature works.

Being able to calibrate your lens with just a few button pushes in under a minute will certainly make life much easier for photographers on location, working at a range of focal lengths and focus distances.

While the issues mentioned above regarding lenses being out at different focal lengths or focus distances but spot on for other parts of their range will still be an issue with Nikon, correcting for this at a moment’s notice has become a complete breeze.

Hopefully, in the future, Nikon will allow you to store multiple points for lenses at various focal lengths in their zoom range and at different focus distances, automatically correcting as it goes to fill the gaps in between.

But for now, we’re not going to complain.

Have you calibrated your DSLR autofocus system with your lenses to help ensure you get perfect focus every time?  Have you not done it because you just don’t know how and it just looks too complicated?  Let us know in the comments.

[via DPReview]

FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Flipboard
  • WhatsApp

Related posts:

Portrait Lighting Tips: Fine Tune Your Look By Adjusting Light Positioning PSA: Amazon Photos auto-save might not be auto-saving all of your raw files Nikons D4s Set for Release in March This guy actually made a digital back for his 35mm Nikons out of a Sony NEX camera

Filed Under: Gear Tagged With: AF Fine Tune, D5, D500, Lens Calibration, Nikon

About John Aldred

John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

« “It’s no use!”: 10 tips to overcome photographic discouragement
This 20 year old Nikon 35mm SLR is faster than their new D5 DSLR »

Submit A Story

Get our FREE Lighting Book

DIYP lighting book cover

* download requires newsletter signup
DIYPhotography

Recent Comments

Free Resources

Advanced lighting book

Recent Posts

  • Watch: How good (or bad) is an $8.50 tripod?
  • How to light and photograph Lego building interiors
  • Lighting Setup: How to light your portraits with £50 LED tubes
  • Review: Insta360 announces its first gimbal – The AI-tracking Insta360 Flow
  • World Press Photo 2023 regional winners show why AI will never kill photography

Alex Baker is a portrait and lifestyle driven photographer based in Valencia, Spain. She works on a range of projects from commercial to fine art and has had work featured in publications such as The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveller and El Mundo, and has exhibited work across Europe

Dave Williams is an accomplished travel photographer, writer, and best-selling author from the UK. He is also a photography educator and published Aurora expert. Dave has traveled extensively in recent years, capturing stunning images from around the world in a modified van. His work has been featured in various publications and he has worked with notable brands such as Skoda, EE, Boeing, Huawei, Microsoft, BMW, Conde Nast, Electronic Arts, Discovery, BBC, The Guardian, ESPN, NBC, and many others.

John Aldred is a photographer with over 20 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter - and occasional beta tester - of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.

Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.

Copyright © DIYPhotography 2006 - 2023 | About | Contact | Advertise | Write for DIYP | Full Disclosure | Privacy Policy