But it does go to show that being fractions of a millimeter out on the focus ring can change your AF Fine Tune result by quite a few steps. In real use this is quite an extreme example as you can easily see that the image on the back of the camera for the imperfect focus shot above is obviously out of focus. Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 focus position difference for 26.5 pt AF Fine Tune difference So, for this 50mm f/1.4 lens, a focus ring shift of just over 1mm can give a change in the D500вЂ™s automatic AF Fine Tune result of 26.5 AF Fine Tune steps ! This shows just how critical that initial вЂњperfect focusвЂќ step is. The white dot near the top of the image is around 1mm across. So, how much is this shift in real terms? Well, the image below is a close up of the zoom ring, showing the 2 positions of the lens side-by-side with a red arrow shown at the same position on the lens focus ring in both shots. We then moved the focus ring by a tiny amount, and ran another 10 D500 automatic calibrations and took the median value. We then ran the D500вЂ™s automatic AF Fine Tune 10 times in a row, and took the median value. With good lighting on a high contrast target, and the D500 on a sturdy tripod we carefully achieve what we believed was the best focus possible using magnified LiveView with our Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lens (unlike FoCal, thereвЂ™s no feedback on the quality of the image as you shift the focus). This method is really quick, but as we found with the FoCal TurboCal test, that initial perfect focus step really is important. Then it has all the information needed to set the AF Fine Tune value вЂ“ to adjust the cameraвЂ™s view of where it should focus to match your view of where it should focus. We donвЂ™t have any insider knowledge from Nikon on how their automatic AF Fine Tune feature works in detail, but the big clue is in the need for perfect initial focus, and this leads us to believe the calibration method is the same as the TurboCal test in FoCal (which is only available for Canon cameras in FoCal).Д«y setting the focus to the best possible focus you can achieve manually, the camera is able to compare the internal phase detect autofocus result with this perfect focus.

You have to go intoВ the Setup menu and open the AF Fine Tune setting to actually see what value was written which is a bit annoying, but other than that itвЂ™s quick and simple to run the procedure once. When you hit the OK button, the calibration is performed, LiveView will stop and the result is written to the AF Fine Tune setting: D500 Auto AF Fine Tune completed YouвЂ™ll then see a message on the screen: D500 Auto AF Fine Tune Make sure the centre focus point is selected then hold down the focus mode button (by the lens mount) and the record start button (by the shutter button) for a couple of seconds. You can use contrast detect autofocus as a good starting point, but itвЂ™s worth moving the focus dial on the lens back and forth a bit at 100% magnification in LiveView in order to ensure you have the best possible focus. This is a critical step (weвЂ™ll show just how critical later). The next step is to fire up Live View and obtain the best focus possible on the target.

This should have strong high contrast edges, and for the testing weвЂ™ve been using a FoCal hard target. To use the D500вЂ™s automatic AF Fine Tune feature, you need to have the camera on a solid tripod and aimed at a target suitable for calibration. Using the D500 Automatic AF Fine Tune system Read on for details about how we came to these conclusions. Otherwise (perhaps not surprisingly) weвЂ™d recommend to use FoCal! If you want to get your AF Fine Tune in roughly the right area without a computer handy, the D500вЂ™s auto AF Fine Tune is great. The need for absolute perfect focus before calibrating introduces a large amount of variability to the results and the lack of consideration for the overall autofocus system (mechanical, optical and electronic together) leads to suboptimal choices by the camera. In reality, however, the need to manually repeat calibrations to iron out variability in results extends the time taken. On the surface, the D500вЂ™s automatic AF Fine Tune system does a fair job of quickly calibrating the autofocus system. ThereвЂ™s a fair amount of detail in this blog post, so I wanted to give a summary of the initial findings.

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