How to CALIBRATE your lens PERFECTLY. Reikan Focal Review.

[Music] what's up guys how you doing welcome to another video so today quite excited about this one because this is all about checking how well our camera gear is performing quite an important one for us right we want to make sure that things like our autofocus with different lenses that we use on our cameras is up to par calibrated correctly to make sure that we're getting sharp images now there is a piece of software out there that a lot of you guys might have heard of called focal and it's by ryken technologies it's a piece of software i was aware of i'd heard of it before but i've never really looked at it and actually quite a few of my viewers commented and sent me messages saying that i should check it out in particular a friend of mine pascal from our facebook group if you want to find out about the facebook group go and follow the patreon link in the description it tells you all about it there pascal said that he'd used it and he got some good results so i was really interested to try it out and that is exactly what we're going to do today we're going to run through the whole process with focal we're going to see how the calibration works going to test it on one of my cameras and my lenses and see what we think of the results probably should jump in at this point and say this video is not sponsored by ryken technologies not sponsored by focal i did however get in touch with them told them what i wanted to do and so they very kindly sent that over to me for free for me to try out not a sponsored video but i didn't actually buy the software probably important that i let you guys know that so we're not going to go through every tiny technical aspect of the process in this video because that might be an hour-long real-time video instead i'm going to show you kind of the setup how it works and most importantly we're probably going to focus on the results few little bits that you need for the setup of course you're going to need your camera and lens that you want to test and for this today we are testing my 1dx paired with my canon 70 to 200 just for absolute clarity this is the f 2.8 is mark 1 lens now my very first initial observation of this software is that it's really easy to set up it gives you a quick guide that you can go through and it tells you exactly what you need to set it up it tells you how to do it before you actually start so you feel really confident you are set and ready to go the few key things that it tells you you're gonna need of course your camera and lens you're gonna need a sturdy tripod i have one of those right here in the background so we are good to go we're going to need a tethering cable to tether my camera to my computer which i already have fortunately enough and we need to print off the target that they give you with the software you just print this off on a piece of a4 this is the focal target that we're going to be calibrating our lens with something else that's really cool within the startup guide is it shows you the distance away that you want to be from your camera to get this test to work efficiently now at 200 mil with my lens it's going to be 18 feet recommend doing it indoors so that there is no weather interference or wind that could possibly move your target however i don't really have a straight 18 foot stretch of space in my house so we are actually doing it outside well we're kind of doing it half outside because we're going to do it from here in the conservatory out the door to the fence across the garden which is about 20 feet away i've picked today because it's a bright day but with no sun really so it's nice even light and there's no wind at all so we shouldn't really have any interference with the target even just in case i'm going to pin it down quite efficiently to make sure slightly different video for you guys today because we're going to be up and walking around they're going to show you this process we're not just going to sit here in chat so look let's go get this set up and then we will get into the software itself let's go okay so for the setup itself the first thing we're going to need is the camera set on the tripod which we've done got it balanced really nice and tight and it is tethered to the computer over here so we are actually doing this on my desktop not for any particular reason just that my desktop is right next to where i need to do it so i didn't need to worry about doing it on my laptop to make it more mobile okay then the next thing i need to do is make sure that it is tethered from there directly facing towards the target over there make sure the target is really nice and secure look at that we have used these awesome duck pins you can't go on with duck pins got that really secured well to the fence there'll be no movement from that if we do get a tiny little tuple of breezes and we are positioned about 20 foot away from our camera which is in there okay so at this stage we basically are going in to the program itself we've opened it up on the computer i've done all that physical setup stuff now we go into the program and we actually go through so i've done a bit of screen recording going to show you guys how it works let's get stuck into it and see what results we get let's have a look just going to go through this is really great right it gives you all the real good setup details so usb we've done um sturdy tripod focal target all set up here we go at the right distances so to start with we're testing this at 200 mil we're going to do it 70 mil as well but 200 mil 5.5 meters or 18 feet and mine is actually about 20 foot away so i think that should be good remind you to make sure we've got good light which i've done as we go through the other thing it says we need to do is to make sure that we have got the target set up with the center of our auto focus points now i have done exactly that so i'm comfortable that is all set up correctly now this is interesting the next thing it says to do is to make sure that the eyepiece is covered now actually the 1dx comes with a switch where you can just close the eyepiece which makes this really easy but if you don't have that you'll need to better cover it yourself like they've done with the example here it says we need to make sure the camera is set to av mode or aperture priority and set to one shot and then if you've got even image stabilization that is turned off and i've done all those things so basically we are ready to fire up focal which i've done right here so first thing it says um a bit of info up here i won't bore you with all that right now camera let focal take control of your camera that's what we want to do which camera do we want the 1dx let's try connecting to that and see what happens okay we are connected and that's interesting up here on the right look it tells us actually which lens we've got connected to it as well which is cool so set up it reminds you to do the different bits which we've done yet we're all good target setup check your camera and environment is ready for testing oh wow that's cool actually shows us the target on the screen which says is just a little bit off so some of the checks could not be tested the length settings oh this just came up uh because it said that i had um aputure uh range settings enabled which i do but it doesn't limit until you get to um to an aperture of like 32 so i'm not worried about that interfering with the test he's happy with the target placement the distance the focal length lighting everything else is good so fine we can stop that for now come out of there okay calibration check let's do this it's really interesting so it's um i can hear the camera clicking in and out and the shutter's clicking so it's doing a whole load of stuff it's really interesting it's really kind of taking control of the camera and it is analyzing all sorts of different information showing us the live view on the side those both look pretty out of focus so it'd be interesting to see what it what it says here it's really interesting so it's now come up saying your auto focus system is not performing as well as it could calibration is recommended which fine that's the whole point of why we're doing this right that's really interesting that's interesting the further into this test we get the more it is saying that the autofocus is actually performing poorly so this is going to be a really interesting test for me okay so it's finished doing the analysis so where it's ended is actually smack bang in the middle it's saying that it's worth checking the calibration so that is exactly what we're gonna do and for that we come over here to the calibration section of this system so let's go into it and hit the start button okay and we are back to analysis again let's see what this comes up with okay so it's done some tests and now it is asking me to change the micro adjustment setting of the telephoto mode in the lens to minus 20. that's that's a big shift so this is actually going to be really interesting so let's do that now and then we'll see what happens let's go so those you guys who aren't fully familiar you basically can go into the autofocus micro adjustment on the 1dx and you can change the settings you can do it all by the same amount which basically means then you've calibrated it for every lens the same or you can do it by um lens amount which is what we're going to do so this is adjusting it just for this lens and you can change the wide end or the telephoto lens it wants me to change the telephoto end to minus 20 so that's what we're gonna do okay so telephoto end to minus 20 this is a huge adjustment now we come back in to continue and see what happens and again it's doing more analysis and it's clicking in and out and all sorts so let's see how this goes okay so now it wants us to change it to plus 20. so let's go do that again i won't show you i'm just gonna go do it and then we will continue okay that's been done so continue let's go just carrying on with the analysis here we should see what this does okay so now two minus ten so let's go again okay done let's continue and off we go again with a bit more analysis well something positive is saying result confidence excellent up here so that's what we like we like excellent okay now change again to plus 10 there's a theme here let's do this one okay now i want us to change it to plus four so let's do that okay so result stabilizing it says the result appears to be setting on the value of plus three and plus four would you like to finalize the test now or continue to see if the value changes with more data choose no well look we might as well get more data right let's press no see what happens uh set the thing to -12 all right let's do it so tell do rather than you guys watching every tiny micro adjustment i'm just going to play this through and then we will come back once this is finished and we will see how we get on okay and we are there we are finished so interesting so it's decided that the micro adjustment result that i need is plus six and you can see here it's giving you a before and after image now look the after still doesn't look great it looks a bit soft but i'm also aware that this is a tiny piece of a piece of target on an a4 piece of paper that is 20 foot away on like at least 100 crops so i wouldn't expect this necessarily to be pin sharp with detail it certainly looks better than the before result so i'm going to press accept on here um plus six okay okay so saying the calibration at 200 mil is done if you haven't recently calibrated 70 million is advisable to do so which we will so let's give that a go okay so i won't bore you with watching the entire thing but i'm going to go through and do the calibration again at 70 mil so let's see how we go with that and the results are in so just like that we have finished the whole process gone through i did the full calibration at 200 mil and then i went through and did the full calibration at 70 mil i did a couple of other checks as well which i will talk to you guys about in a second so first of all my initial thoughts are that it is a really really great piece of software it's really clever i mean it literally takes control of your camera you can see the settings on the screen changing as it's going through and doing the different tests once it's finished doing the calibration it gives you a report and by report i mean like this thing is like a thesis it gives you so much information you've got graphs and charts and and all sorts and i'm not going to try and analyze all that information for this video because it would take us three hours but it is really really interesting the amount of info that you get back from doing that calibration i think the really important thing for us and of course the calibration results that it gave us and then it got me to adjust the uh the lens so at 70 mil so on the wider end of this lens it wanted me to adjust my micro adjustment by -3 whereas on the telephoto end it got me to adjust it by plus six so quite different results at 70 mil and at 200 mil now on that before and after chart you can see there is a difference now it's a bit deceptive that chart because when it's so far away of course it's never going to be 100 clear on a crop that detail but just doing a few little test shots around my house here i certainly feel like there's an improvement and it's not like i was unhappy with the sharpness of the lens before but i'm hoping now we're gonna get some really good results and actually i'm shooting a game tomorrow so i'm excited to see how we get on now one thing that was interesting for me is that overall it kind of showed me that actually the autofocus on this lens is not fantastic i was not getting good quality sharp results at any of the adjustments and and i don't mean bad results i mean not the best so for example also away from the video i did some calibration on my other lenses as well i didn't record those bits but for example i did a calibration on my 2470 and i was getting some really good results right up there in the green on those graph charts whereas with the 70 to 200 i didn't quite now that got me thinking actually i've recently managed to acquire um a mark ii version of this lens so the 70-200 f 2.8 is mark ii as i said earlier this is the mark 1. i think it's going to be really interesting to do the calibration on that lens too and see how the difference compares between the two because actually it'll be really good measure of the quality of focus with this lens compared to that new one so that's going to be a future video keep an eye out for that one of course whereas this video was primarily about the calibration i did a couple of other tests as well really interesting one that i did is where it will go through for you and tell you where your lens is sharpest at different apertures literally goes all the way through to some test shots using the same target at all different apertures really interesting for me my lens came out being sharpest at f 5.6 it said it was the softest at f 32 fine don't you think i'm ever going to shoot at f32 what was a bit concerning for me was that it was not so sharp at f 2.8 which is where i need to use this lens quite a lot now actually with football recently i've been testing some wider depths of field to make sure i get a few other players in focus when i'm photographing groups so actually for the football that might be less of a worry but for my indoor sports like basketball i'm using this at f 2.8 all the time again that's going to be really interesting when we do the comparison with the other lens to see how this performs at 2.8 versus that one that'll be really interesting to do i also did a quick check on the sensor the system allows you to do a dust check on your sensor now you guys are going to find me out here because basically i don't think i've ever cleaned my sensor and oh my goodness the results were not good you can see from this diagram right here it said i have more than 300 spots of dust on my sensor now 300 might sound drastic it also gives you a percentage of coverage and it's like naught point naught something something so not the end of the world but i think we probably have a sensor cleaning video coming up real soon based on those results so look as a bit of a summary i am really really impressed with this focal software as i said the video is not sponsored they've not like paid me to do the review so i can give my absolute honest opinion and i really do think it's great i intend on going through and testing all of my other lenses with it now one thing which might be a question which i'll quickly address but but not massively is that obviously my other camera body my r6 you don't calibrate that in the same way because it's a mirrorless camera and in fact the good news is is that you don't need to calibrate in the same way you don't need to go through that same micro adjustment process because it is a mirrorless camera so of course i won't be doing the same test with my r6 but i will do my other lenses my 17 to 40 my 50mm all of my other bits with this camera and also with my 7d mark ii as well if you guys are interested in this piece of software if you want to find out more about it i'll put all the relevant links in the description where you can go and check it out for yourself i really really encourage you to do so worth checking out again not a sponsored video my honest opinion before i actually got in touch with the guys over at raiken technologies i looked on the focal website there's loads of info frequently asked questions lots of little bits that i found useful there so i'm sure you will too go check out that get all the info that you need make sure you guys keep an eye on my instagram page because i'll be posting all my sports photos from there maybe you might notice a difference in the sharpness with those new photos in the next few days versus the previous ones see what you think check those out at robsports where you can find me go follow me over there comment on something say hello tell me you came from youtube is always cool to see if you guys enjoyed this review if you're interested in checking out focal at all make sure you do me a favor hit that like button because it helps me out loads and loads on my channel i've said it before i say it again youtube basically judges how good i am and making videos by how many of you guys press that like button which is why it helps me so much youtube put quite a bit of waiting on that like button thank you for hitting it for me if you're new to my channel and you haven't subscribed think about it loads of other videos to come on my channel that you might find interesting and in the meantime guys i think that just about rounds us off thank you very much for watching and i will see you on the next video

Channel: Rob Sambles

Views: 3,257

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: sports photography, photography, sports photographer, photography vlog, camera reviews, camera tutorial, photography tutorial, camera gear, camera equipment, sports photography gear, sports photography equipment, camera, how to calibrate your lens, how to calibrate your auto focus, lens calibration, auto focus calibration, reikan, focal calibration, reikan focal, reikan focal review, how to calibrate your camera, canon lens calibration, af calibration, reikan focal calibration

Id: IbKDt5RrOJo

Length: 18min 0sec (1080 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 12 2021