D7200 Fine Tune Feature

06Honda

Senior Member
My current setup is a Nikon D7200 and the Nikon AF-S 80-400MM F/4.5-5.6G ED VR. Lately I am not happy with the overall images and would like to know if there is a specific way for me to try and use the Auto Fine tune feature to dial in the gear better. This is the lense I shoot with all the time and almost always shoot at 400mm. Thanks for any info or help on how to do this with my setup.

* I have seen some articles on how to do this with a smaller lense indoors on a tripod and printing a paper to focus on but with this long zoom lense I am not sure how to go about it.

Paul
 
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Whiskeyman

Senior Member
There are a few options; some require you to purchase equipment and/or software, but others don't.

One way is detailed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zE50jCUPhM

Another way is to use a medicine bottle and focus in the middle of the label and use your observation skills to determine which shot is sharpest. You'll need to load the photos from your run through the AF Fine Tune settings on your computer and view them at or nearly at 100% to get the best results, IMO. Some use a larger cylinder, such as a 12 oz beverage can with writing on it, to do the test and focus half-way between the center and the edge of the can. You'll need to have single spot focus seta and I would only do this in AF-S mode.

I have used several methods and find that if you take your time and pay attention towhead you're doing and record what you see, any of the methods work. My first choice to fine tune my AF on any camera/lens combination is now to use FoCal software because it provides me with other information about my cameras and lenses.

Good luck in getting your gear setup optimized!

WM
 

todd7500

Senior Member
I use a software based program with my D7100 and D750 and all my lenses. I think it is one of the most accurate ways to fine tune focus. To each his own though.

https://www.reikanfocal.com/

I looked at this online. Looks very interesting, but I am curious...

Does the camera "remember" the A/F settings (now tuned to match your copy of any given lens) each time you mount that lens?
Does the camera "remember" multiple lenses?
Does this software talk (thru a USB) to your camera and "load" the adjustments and have you had any issues with that?

Thanks for posting this BTW, seems like a small price to pay to be able to check all the lenses you own, plus if you are shopping for anything "previously loved" it would be worth its weight in gold!
 

lokatz

Senior Member
Hi Paul, in your post, you said 'Auto Fine tune', so let's clarify something first: a few newer Nikons (D7500, D850) indeed have an automatic function to fine tune AF, although I read repeatedly that it does not work all that well. Your D7200 does not have this feature.

What your camera does have, in the Setup menu, is a MANUAL option to fine tune AF. Separately for each lens and, as mikew pointed out, also for each lens+teleconverter combination, you can adjust the focus point to move it a bit forth or back. This is done by setting a value between +20 and -20, where a + means the camera/lens combo will focus further away, correcting back focus, and a - means the camera/lens combo will focus nearer to the camera, correcting front focus.

I don't use the software solution Don mentioned but do everything manually, which also works well. Here is a good explanation of how the process works. A handy and cheap tool that will help you do this accurately is this. If the 0 point is the sharpest in your test shots and the numbers to the front and back of it get equally more unsharp, you nailed it and your lens focuses as it should.

This can be done with lenses of any length. Make sure to set your test chart at least 10-20x times the focal length away from the camera. In other words, with your long lens at 400mm, make it at least 4m.
 
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06Honda

Senior Member
Thankyou all for the very helpful posts, will work on this over the next day or so. Just thought of one thing that may or may not be of any value but I have never checked to see if their is any Firmware updates for my D7200. My current Firmware is:

L0.01 A 1.0001
B 1.00b
L 2.009
D 1.000014
 

todd7500

Senior Member
I use a software based program with my D7100 and D750 and all my lenses. I think it is one of the most accurate ways to fine tune focus. To each his own though.

https://www.reikanfocal.com/

Don,
Once you have established the correct + or - amount of fine tuning for any given lens, do you need to manually enter that value every time you use that leans?

To put it another way, you are shooting with one lens, that you have previously "fine" tuned to say... +3, you put on a different lens that that has a known A/F adjustment value of -3, do you need to reset the fine tuning or does the camera recognize the lens(es) and make the appropriate adjustments for you?

Thanks
Todd
 
I looked at this online. Looks very interesting, but I am curious...

Does the camera "remember" the A/F settings (now tuned to match your copy of any given lens) each time you mount that lens?
Once it is set it stays set.

Does the camera "remember" multiple lenses?
There is a limit of the camera but it generally is more lenses than most people have. It is a camera limit and not the software.

Does this software talk (thru a USB) to your camera and "load" the adjustments and have you had any issues with that?
The software tells you what to set the camera to and you have to manually set it. It will carry you through multiple settings and then plot a line and then tell you what the final setting should be

Thanks for posting this BTW, seems like a small price to pay to be able to check all the lenses you own, plus if you are shopping for anything "previously loved" it would be worth its weight in gold!

i really enjoy using it. I have done a few friends cameras including a pro that always told me that his high end Cannon was perfect from the factory. I convinced him to let me test his newer $5.000 camera and his $10,000 lenses. He could tell that the lenses were much sharper and then we did all his cameras and lenses. He bought the software to do all that.
 
Don,
Once you have established the correct + or - amount of fine tuning for any given lens, do you need to manually enter that value every time you use that leans?

To put it another way, you are shooting with one lens, that you have previously "fine" tuned to say... +3, you put on a different lens that that has a known A/F adjustment value of -3, do you need to reset the fine tuning or does the camera recognize the lens(es) and make the appropriate adjustments for you?

Thanks
Todd
]

Once set it stays and it remembers the setting for each lens.

Once and done.

Now I do go back every so often and run the tests again. I do think that things can change with use of the lens. Probably not much though.
 

todd7500

Senior Member
I dont want to hijack this thread, just like to say thanks for letting us know that there is software to help with fine tuning. I purchased the software mentioned, installed it, ran it on a couple of lenses and made some interesting discoveries. It might be more appropriate for me to start a separate thread.
 

Bikerbrent

Senior Member
I dont want to hijack this thread, just like to say thanks for letting us know that there is software to help with fine tuning. I purchased the software mentioned, installed it, ran it on a couple of lenses and made some interesting discoveries. It might be more appropriate for me to start a separate thread.

Yes, please do start a new thread about this software.
 
We have a thread dedicated to Reiken FoCal, though it dates back to 2015. Personally, I've had both good and bad experiences when using FoCal; I'm a bit on the fence about it these days.


The latest version has some nice features to tell you if you are at a good distance from the target. The standard before and still a good place to start is 50 times the focal distance.

50mm lens times 50 = 2500 MM or 98.4 inches.
 

06Honda

Senior Member
One last question regarding this: I don't own or use a tripod so would a solid wood table work in place of a tripod to do the tuning?
 

lokatz

Senior Member
Yes. I've done that several times. Just make sure the camera won't slide off between test shots, for instance by putting it on a rubber mat.
 

06Honda

Senior Member
There are a few options; some require you to purchase equipment and/or software, but others don't.

One way is detailed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zE50jCUPhM

Another way is to use a medicine bottle and focus in the middle of the label and use your observation skills to determine which shot is sharpest. You'll need to load the photos from your run through the AF Fine Tune settings on your computer and view them at or nearly at 100% to get the best results, IMO. Some use a larger cylinder, such as a 12 oz beverage can with writing on it, to do the test and focus half-way between the center and the edge of the can. You'll need to have single spot focus seta and I would only do this in AF-S mode.

I have used several methods and find that if you take your time and pay attention towhead you're doing and record what you see, any of the methods work. My first choice to fine tune my AF on any camera/lens combination is now to use FoCal software because it provides me with other information about my cameras and lenses.

Good luck in getting your gear setup optimized!

WM

I followed the fine tune method as explained this morning and found that my D7200 and the 80-400VR lense had focus from 0 to +20 and 0 to -20 for all values? Is that possible or did I do something incorrect. I shot indoors with my lense at the 400mm distance. Used the chart indicated also.
 
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Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
I followed the fine tune method as explained this morning and found that my D7200 and the 80-400VR lense had focus from 0 to +20 and 0 to -20 for all values? Is that possible or did I do something incorrect. I shot indoors with my lense at the 400mm distance. Used the chart indicated also.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying but the AF Fine Tune menu on all Nikon camera bodies show a range of focus correction from 0 to 20 in both positive and negative directions.

A slider value of 0 means NO adjustment has been made; the lens is at its default for Auto-focus.

Moving the focus adjustment into positive numbers, say +5, moves the focus further away from you.

Moving the focus adjustment into negative numbers, say -5, move the focus closer towards you.

The maximum you can adjust the focus in either direction is 20 clicks.
 
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