Curious about AF fine tune / micro adjust

I'll be receiving a D300 very soon, and was wondering about this feature, as my D2x doesnt have it, so its new to me. I'm not expecting trouble,
but merely curious about how the camera deals with certain lenses.

For instance, primes would take up one lens place in the menu, and presumably, if you then add a teleconverter, you would need to check focus and treat
it as a seperate lens, and would therefore take up one more spot in the menu ? So one prime tele lens becomes 2 different lenses ?

Moving on to zooms, i read that zooms need to be checked at minimum and maximum zoom, taking up another 2 lenses in the menu. Ok, that sounds good,
but what happens when you have, say a 50 to 100 zoom, you correct focusing at both 50 and 100 and you get them bang on, but one fine day you decide
to use 75mm ... does the camera decide that it wasnt calibrated for 75mm and therefore if you had any previous B/F focus problems at this FL, you will still get them ?

And what about 40mm.. or 90mm and so on. ?

Also, when mounting any of your arsenal of corrected lenses, do you have to enable them every time in the menu, or does the camera immediately remember each and every lens and FL automatically ?

Thanks !

I have the D300...Just put on your lens and start shooting

A friend of mine had the D2x and replaced it with the D300 and didn't have problems

I'm not expecting problems. I'm curious

Quite frankly, I really don't understand what your question is! When you attach the lens to your camera, the camera adjusts automatically to it. Just shoot! I don't know what you mean by "primes would take up one lens place in the menu". What does this mean? And where did you read this?

I understood that you can adjust up to 12 lenses ( i maybe wrong ) ... say you have a 300mm tele. You think it needs AF tuning, you do that and name the lens in the menu. That leaves 11 lenses. No ?

Pierro said:

I understood that you can adjust up to 12 lenses ( i maybe wrong ) ... say you have a 300mm tele. You think it needs AF tuning, you do that and name the lens in the menu. That leaves 11 lenses. No ?

Click to expand...

??? Honestly, I really don't know what you're trying to say. What do you mean adjust?? What is this "name the lens in the menu"?? I don't get that.

Pierro said:

I'm not expecting problems. I'm curious

Click to expand...

Google it or ask Nikon...Is it the D300 or the later D300s...I don't remember seeing this in the manual, Do you have a page number and I'll check it out...

Pierro said:

I'll be receiving a D300 very soon, and was wondering about this feature, as my D2x doesnt have it, so its new to me. I'm not expecting trouble,
but merely curious about how the camera deals with certain lenses.

And what about 40mm.. or 90mm and so on. ?

Also, when mounting any of your arsenal of corrected lenses, do you have to enable them every time in the menu, or does the camera immediately remember each and every lens and FL automatically ?

Thanks !

Click to expand...

Congrats on your camera.

Auto fine tune is a great feature but I wouldn't bother with zoom lenses.

I've done this with my prime lenses only just to get the exact focus especially when shooting wide open. The camera will remember the type of lens that you program it to "IF" it has a computer chip or is a more updated AF lens unlike the older Nikkor manual focus Ai lenses or Zeiss lenses.

IF you are using a non-chipped MF lens, you do need to go back to the menu and set the assigned non-cpu lens. This is more for exif data and proper metering. You can actually use the aperture ring to adjust the aperture instead of the command or sub-command dial.

pedroj said:

Google it or ask Nikon...Is it the D300 or the later D300s...I don't remember seeing this in the manual, Do you have a page number and I'll check it out...

Click to expand...

I googled long before i posted here. Looks like i was right about the 12 lens maximum for AF fine tune.

Photomatter Reviews - Nikon D300 Review Part II - Fine Tuning the AF - James Markus Photography LLC

Yeah maybe zooms are too much of a pain to set. but then again i'm only asking about the ins and outs of the fine feature on this camera. I may well not have any problems at all, in which case ...great.

gqtuazon said:

Congrats on your camera. Auto fine tune is a great feature but I wouldn't bother with zoom lenses. I've done this with my prime lenses only just to get the exact focus especially when shooting wide open. The camera will remember the type of lens that you program it to "IF" it has a computer chip or is a more updated AF lens unlike the older Nikkor manual focus Ai lenses or Zeiss lenses. IF you are using a non-chipped MF lens, you do need to go back to the menu and set the assigned non-cpu lens. This is more for exif data and proper metering. You can actually use the aperture ring to adjust the aperture instead of the command or sub-command dial.

Click to expand...

its quite simple what you are adjusting is the focus system so it gets the image dead on focus on the sensor...you are reducing the manufacturing tolerances ...set up a tape type ruler at 45 deg to the shooting axis ..pull out about 4 ft ....focus on the 2 ft mark at max focal length and biggest aperture ...view the result... should be in focus equally around the 2 ft mark...if not move the adjuster so its in focus equally around the 4 ft mark.

fotojack said:

??? Honestly, I really don't know what you're trying to say. What do you mean adjust?? What is this "name the lens in the menu"?? I don't get that.

Click to expand...

Calm down ! You seem to be in a bit of a flap, and about a camera i dont think you own ?

The website i found ( eventually ) has more or less covered my thoughts

I've seen the "Auto fine tune" feature that the poster is referring to, but never used it. It's just that he had a difficult time trying to explain it. Maybe I'll look into using that feature.