I’ve been watching this piece of software go under development since Richard first announced it back in October 2011. I had downloaded the software and was planning to try it out, but never got around to test it. Call me lazy. Then a few alpha versions later I was told that it may not very stable and was causing some problems with cameras. So I postponed trying it out all together until further notice about the beta version.

Well I received word last week that a very stable beta of the software was finally released from Richard on January 16, 2012. Went to the site and decided to buy the Pro version. It’s 79.04 USD as of this writing and that’s a pretty good price for this software. To my surprise it had been significantly updated and works precisely as he states on the site. He certainly has put a lot of work into this baby. He doesn’t have automated ordering in place yet, so you may have to wait a few hours to get your download link and license, in my case the next morning. Not a bad thing, but would be nice if he streamlined that process in the future so his customers would get it automatically. Instead of making them think he took their money and ran. I had faith, as he is a reputable man.

The camera support is very small right now and it was only released for the windows platform. Richard states that more cameras and a mac/linux release are already in the works. I have no doubt they will come quickly. I especially can’t wait for the mac release because while I have a PC desktop, I also have a macbook pro laptop and I can’t move my PC around. The USB cord to connect my 5dmk2 to my PC wasn’t long enough to reach our hallway, which is where I calibrated my lenses. You need a lot of space to do this depending on your focal lengths. So I had to install the software on my mom’s laptop and use it. The good thing about this software is you can install it on any computer (provided it’s PC for now) and the license validates off of your serial number for your camera not the platform you install it on. Props to Richard for doing it this way!

Upon ordering the software you’ll receive a license and download link to the software. Download and install the software and enter your license as he instructs you in the guide. Start the tool up with your camera plugged in via the USB cable and it automatically refreshes the software until it finds your camera.

Now if you didn’t buy the pro version you will have options disabled in the program making you have limited use of the software. This is the main reason I bought the pro version because I wanted the software to do the calibrating for me and not have to do the semi-automatic calibrating myself as well as get the analysis information. The standard package is just the semi-auto calibration, and the plus package has the fully auto calibration with no reporting and analysis. The pro has everything. After reading the instructions on how to semi-calibrate the lens you might feel really confused or even scared to try it out yourself. It’s a very tedious process, but still fairly easy. Richard gives you two targets to print out to test with the software. The big one with the small target is for longer focal lengths or macro lenses. The medium size target with just one target is the what you’ll want to use for 17mm to 200-300mm focal lengths.

Setting up camera and target is a little tedious, but it needs to be done in order to get accurate results. The software requires a lot of light available on the target so I setup my AB1600/800 and pointed them at the target with their modeling lamps on full power. The target should be perpendicular to the camera and on a flat surface. The camera must be in AV mode, with the AF mode at one shot, center focus point selected, IS off on any of your lenses, and take off your battery grip if you have one attached. The camera should be placed on a tripod to test this, and at a distance of 50 times the focal length of your lens. So for instance for my 85L, I placed it at 13ft 11 inches (4.25m). There is a distance meter in the software, but Richard says it may not be completely accurate. Also put your camera to focus on half press of the shutter button if you have it currently on dedicated back AF button.

Start the software up, select your camera, and go to the tools sections. Click on show tools and then click target setup. Click start, then target search to see if you have the target aligned properly for testing. Follow the live view icons to get it aligned properly if it is not.

Once that is done close the target setup and click on fully automatic calibration. Click start and it will run through tests to see if your camera is setup properly and warn you if it’s not. Once the software starts running it will take multiple shots. The first one being what your lens is currently set at so you can see the before shot. The after shot will (should) be a sharper image of the target after the algorithm has applied its suggested micro adjustment fix to your lens. If it is not sharper then when the warning message comes up to apply the settings select no. Run the test again to see if it will fix it this time. If it does not then you might have to run the semi-manual test to get it right. I have not had an experience yet with it not fixing a lens. It did have trouble finding the correct values with my 50mm f/1.4, but it eventually found that +3 was the correct fix.

Here are the results for my 85mm f1.2 L. My 85 required a -8 AFMA back adjustment. Very surprising to me! I thought it was already tack sharp.

Here are the results for my 50mm f1.4. While not as noticeable as the 85mm charts you can still see it needed some adjustment. +3 AFMA front adjustment.

Below are analysis reports you get with the software if you have the pro version.

85mm f1.2 L Analysis Report 50mm f1.4 Analysis Report

I think the software was worth the money. I have yet to shoot with the lenses on a subject to test the shots as compared to my archived images with the lens. Just judging by the before and after shots on the target they seem sharper, so in theory the lens should perform a little better. I did not cover the semi-automatic calibration as I have not tried it. To be honest I don’t have any interest in spending that much time in calibrating my lenses which is why the fully automatic works just fine for me.

You should mainly use this software for prime lenses. You can use your zooms with this, but it won’t be as accurate. You’ll get different results at each focal length for zoom lenses and the only recommendation for using it with zoom is to adjust it at your most common focal length on that lens. So you may get -4 at 17mm and -10 at 70mm; you then would have to decide where you want to set the AFMA in between or at one of those extremes. The camera will store multiple lenses AFMA, but if you have two of the same lenses then you can’t store multiple lenses of the same type.

As a UI designer myself, I think there definitely needs to be some UI improvements throughout the whole software, but as a performance evaluation I think the software is well on track to being successful for Richard.

Richard has uploaded a youtube video demo you can watch on how to use the software.