#Calibrate sigma lens without dock for free
#Calibrate sigma lens without dock how to
#Calibrate sigma lens without dock pro
#Calibrate sigma lens without dock trial

Still, it took me about and hour and a half. It helps to do this with a tethered capture in LR: it was a lot faster.

#Calibrate sigma lens without dock trial

Then, using trial and error, I adjusted the lens. Using the tripod, I first took a sample shot using live view focus to get a sense of how sharp the image is at each of 50, 60, 85 and 100mm. I personally used a brightly coloured concrete block with some graffitti on it that is conveniently located about 70 m from my balcony. If you manually focus the lens to where the red line is in the dock software, it is not hyperfocal. There is a lot of contradicting information, especially with regards to the infinity settings. I just went through the calibration process myself.

#Calibrate sigma lens without dock how to

It was a fairly tiring process, to be honest. The dock is a great idea but Sigma does not seem to have any detailed information on how to properly use it. The infinity adjustments did not seem to have affected them at all. I re-tested the other FL adjustments afterwards. Luckily, for all FLs, my adjustments ended up being either +5 or +6. It becomes a bit easier once you detect what the 'right' direction of the adjustment is, i.e. I did take a few shots for each incremental adjustment. I compared how sharp the images were to the initial ones taken using live view.

I shot from a tripod using the wireless remote and the mirror up. Still, it took me about and hour and a half.īefore each test shot, I manually moved the focus ring to either extreme (infinity or 0.95 m). I personally used a brightly coloured concrete block with some graffitti on it that is conveniently located about 70 m from my balcony. There is a lot of contradicting information, especially with regards to the infinity settings. How do you recommend to do the inifite distance? Is it best to set the distance to the hyperfocal distance? Or even further away? What are your experiences? If you start with too large values, it quickly becomes confusing. But it is always better to start adjustments with smaller values.

Maybe my results help you to do it quicker. All in all I needed about 5 iterations for each distance, about 1h for each distance. At FL 100mm: 1cm backfocusing => Correct with -2 pointsĪs you can see there is no linear correlation of backfocusing distance and the points in the sigma tool.At FL 85mm: 0,5cm backfocusing => Correct with -1 point.At FL 60mm: 3cm backfocusing => Correct with -2 points.At FL 50mm: 3cm backfocusing => Correct with -3 points.At FL 100mm: 0,6 cm backfocusing => correct with -6 points.At FL 85mm: 1,0 cm backfocusing => correct with -9 points.At FL 60mm: 1,1 cm backfocusing => correct with -6 points.

#Calibrate sigma lens without dock pro

At FL 50mm: 1,5 cm backfocusing => correct with -12 points in Sigma Optimization Pro.

I found out this to be important, because my lens focuses consistently in 90% of the cases, but if you calibrate with a picture out of the remaining 10%, you will have to redo everything. This way I was able to average the sharpness of my shots. I took 3 pictures for each FL, overall 12 pictures. For me the product with the fancy name 'SpyderLensCal' worked out very well: Since you will spend many hours doing the fine-calibration, it definitely makes sense to use a better tool. Lens calibration with Datacolor SpyderLensCal:

This setup worked well, but it was a bit unstable, so I upgraded my toolkit. On the 45° ruler it was easy to see the back- and front-focusing. At the intersection point of both rulers I attached a paper with crossed bars to give the AF a good target. I put the to rulers in the miter box, one at 90° the other at 45°. I did the calibration first with a more simple approach and then with a much better one. If you haven't calibrated your copy, I can really recommend it.

#Calibrate sigma lens without dock for free

But I was lucky, the shop, where I bought the lens, gave me a Sigma USB Dock for free and now I have a nicely calibrated lens, at leat for the first 2 out of 4 distances. Then I realized that the lens backfocuses on my 80D. Using the lens for the first time I was a bit dissapointed: Photos were great (color, bokeh) but always a bit soft. I just want to share my experience with autofocus calibration of my new Sigma 50-100 f/1.8 using the USB Dock and Optimization Pro.