Are your images a little “soft”? Do you feel like you’re missing focus in your portraits? You may be in need of a lens calibration.

As seen in the images above it is not unusual for a lens/camera body combination to either “Back Focus” of “Front Focus”. Adjustments can be made in a DSLR camera’s software to correct for these focus errors.

A clue as to whether or not you have focus issues is to zoom in on a shot of a face. Typically the focus point would be on an eye. If your image shows the eye out of focus with the nose in focus, that is front focusing. Conversely, if the eye is out of focus and the ear is in focus that is back focusing.

These focus errors typically become more apparent as you increase (widen) your f-stop from f/2.8 down, with the errors extremely apparent at f/1.8 to f/1.2.

Our lens calibration consists of photographing a scientific target, see above, at the lens’ maximum aperture, usually between f/2.8 and f/1.2. Once an error is discovered the adjustments are made in the camera’s software. For Canon this is AF Microadjustment and for Nikon it is AF Fine Tune. Similar menu items can be found on Sony and other makes. No mechanical adjustments are necessary.

The cameras will take adjustments and save the corrected values for as many as 12 different lenses. These will be recalled as you change lenses so long as you have the AF adjustment feature turned on.

Not all DSLR cameras have this calibration capability. Be sure to check your manual before making an appointment.