Diy Calibration For A D90 (Or Any Non Af Fine Tune Capable Camera) Tried And Tested

[No Crust Racing]

Hi guys, just wanting to share this as I found it useful. Short version is I found this link, followed it and had success.

http://buckscorner.com/home/nikon-d90-autofocus-calibration/

Backstory.

I bought my missus a D90 a few years back when it was considered a good camera.

On a holiday we had the camera in the boot of the car (in a decent lowerpro bag) but somehow it got lose of where it was packed and it must have taken a fairly solid knock.

The 18-55mm kit lens then started showing some binding issues on the focus ring and pics out of the camera didn't seem as crisp, I assumed it was the damaged lens and as the other lens was a 70-300 it was hard to test them back to back to confirm.

I recently got jack of struggling with the 18-55 and its lack of low light capability (f3.5 at best) and how it was costing me shots of our new bub. So I bought a 35mm 1.8G DX for it and was disappointed that shots still looked average.

I'd suspected the camera may be at fault too so started doing some reading.

As there's no place locally to calibrate lenses I knew I'd have to send it to Melbourne so thought I might as well have a go myself and if I got it wrong it was already being sent away.

I ran through the focus tests and found it was back focusing noticeably. I made tiny adjustments on the screws as per the article and tried my best to mimic those changes on each of the 3 screws. Took about an hour or so.

My result was quite good, faster focusing and much sharper images. I would say that I think it may not be 100% as I suspect that there's some "soft" focus around the edges (at higher F stops so it's not a DOF issue) so the camera may be calibrated anyway, but in the meantime, until I can get down to Melbourne, I'm much happier with the shots coming out of the camera, as is my partner (which is probably even more important...).

Keep in mind this is only useful for Cameras that dont have AF fine tune adjustments built in, so if you have a D7000 or something you can make adjustments from the config menu and do not need to be fiddling with screws.

[CLNSKY]

Great find,

Definitely going to attempt this on my D90, my shots where coming out soft as well. I thought it was time to upgrade cameras...

Maybe a last hurrrah before that happens

[No Crust Racing]

Everything I've read suggest back focus is a common issue on D90s.

Further down in the comments, on guy explains which direction to turn depending on if you've got front or back focus issues.

Even if you do end up with a new camera, a second body could be handy if it's working well

Good luck.

Edited September 4, 2013 by ActionDan