[software] FocusTune... My quick review.

TheLost · Nov 7, 2012

First let me say i have no relation to Michael Tapes Design... I bought this product to help 'debug' some camera/lens issues i was having..

When i first heard about this product on a photo blog (i don't even remember what site) i didn't pay much attention to it. It's from the makers of 'LensAlign' and my opinion of that product (LensAlign) hasn't changed over the years... Who would spend $80 on a focus chart when you can print your own for free?

It wasn't until i was trying to figure out if i needed to send my lens or body (or both) in for repairs that i thought 'what the heck'... and forked out $30 for FocusTune.

To make a long story short.. My D7000 has started back focusing a bit. If i compare focus charts i took when i bought my D7000 (2 years ago) with those of last week there is a noticeable shift backwards in focus. Both Nikon and a 3rd party repair shop i talked with say its common for AF to go 'out of whack' (my term... not theirs) over time and a quick trip in for routine maintenance (and $120) will have it back to factory specs.

So... enter FocusTune... If i'm forking out the money i might as well make sure my camera is 'out of whack'..

How it works...

Using FocusTune is simple (works on both PC and Mac):

Print out a test target or use their LensAlign product.
Set your AF micro adjustment to -20 and take ~5 pictures.. drop your AF micro adjustment to -15 and take ~5 pictures.. repeat until you get to +20 (skipping by 5 each time). I was testing my center focus point, but you use any focus point you want (hear that D800 owners! ). I re-focused every shot by moving the focus point to the left, focusing off the target, then moving it back to center and re-focusing on the target.
Load those ~45 images into focus tune.
Mask out your focus target (bottom left corner).
Select AFA (Auto Focus Adjustment) from the 'Process Control' drop down (FocusTune does more then.. well tuning focus.. more on that later).
Click 'Process Files'

Focus tune will then spit out a PDF graph/chart showing you where your sharpest focus is... for me this was -20 (* surprise!*)..

You then take a smaller range of test shots skipping by 1 this time. For me, i did 4 shots each at -20 to -15 (-20,-19,-18... etc). I then processed those files and *double surprise .. it said -18 was my sharpest adjustment. I was a little shocked... i assumed -20 would be my sharpest but looking at the chart it was obvious that -18 was sharper then -20. I did a 2nd test to confirm this.

So far I've ran two lenses through FocusTune. My Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 needs -18 adjustment and my Nikon 50mm 1.8 is -15. I thought both would need -20

FocusTune also offers:

AFA - Auto Focus Adjustment
AFC - Auto Focus Consistency
FP - Focus Point Comparison
APE - Aperture Comparison
SC -Shot by Shot Comparison

Would i buy it again?
Maybe.. come on, its only $29.95. It is kind of cool knowing you are getting the most out of your lens/body combo. My pictures do seem a bit more 'crisp' (but again.. it could be because i want them to be sharper

)

The software is still in the early stages and it shows. I couldn't get it to load the EXIF data on my Windows 7 x64 machine. I had to install it on my Mac for it to work. Looking in the support forums it sounds like my Windows issue was a permissions bug that has been fixed (however other people didn't have a problem on Windows 7). Until its had a chance to 'harden' you should probably expect some bugs. However... come on... its $29.95. You are getting what you pay for

What are your opinions on this type of software? waste of money? cool? a must have? I'm still on the fence (even though i bought it

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