Are you struggling with getting tack sharp images? Do you feel like your images are too soft and that you’re consistently missing focus? Then keep reading!

Today I’m going to talk you about just ONE reason why you might be struggling to nail focus, and that’s due to your lens needing calibrated.

Before we start though, I should start out by saying that most of the time, our images are soft due to user error, not our equipment. There are so many factors that go into getting a tack sharp image (and can stop us from getting one) that it’s far more likely that you have gotten one of them wrong, rather than the lens be the problem.

That said, if you are not consistently getting the sharp focus you want, it might be an idea to quickly test your lens, that way you’ll know whether you have a problem with your equipment or not.

If you do, then you can calibrate your lens to fix the problem, or if you don’t, at least it will put your mind at rest that your equipment is fine and you simply need to learn the strategies that will help you get tack sharp focus!

Can't nail your focus? Here's how to check and fix lens focusing issues for sharper images.

Why your lens MIGHT need calibrated

To understand why you MIGHT have an issue with the focus on your lens, let’s start by looking at how this happens.

All cameras and lenses are manufactured to be with a certain range of accuracy. So, for example, your camera may back focus ever so slightly, but it’s within an acceptable margin. (NB This margin is usually very, VERY small!) It could also be the same with your lens - it could front or back focus ever so slightly, but be within that “tolerance”.

However, when you put two items together that are each out of that “acceptable range” by a small amount, you end up with a bigger problem. So if your camera back focuses every so slightly (but still within the quality range) and then your lens back focuses ever so slightly, when you pop them together it’s enough to take you out of that acceptable range. In other words, both on their own may be fine, the issue only happens when you put them together.

Of course, it could simply be that the lens was shipped out without focus being in that acceptable range. This is very rare with high quality lenses due to their higher levels of quality control, but of course, nothing is infallible. (Cheap lenses are a slightly different story - they simply don’t have the same stringent quality controls)

When to check if your lens needs calibrated

If you are not having any focus issues, then you probably don’t need to check! You can go off on your merry way taking beautifully tack sharp images. However if you…

Recently got a new lens and you don’t feel it’s as sharp as in the reviews
Are consistently missing focus in the SAME ways (i.e always slightly behind where you focused or in front )
Dropped or knocked your lens and since then it’s felt a bit off
You used to get sharp focus….but now you don’t.
You get sharp focus with most of your lenses - it’s just ONE lens that you feel gives your problems

You’ll see that it’s mainly about consistency - if you get sharp images most of the time, then there is no issue! Or if you always used to get sharp photos, but now you don’t, then that’s another clear sign to test your lens.

But if you are consistently missing focus, but in different ways, then the problem is far more likely to be you, not your lens. That’s because if you have a lens problem, the issue will always be the same (i.e focusing to the front OR to the back, not both!)

For that reason, unless you were getting sharp images and now you’re not, wouldn’t recommend spending a lot of money testing your lens, because (as much as I hate to say it) the problem is probably you :)

But the good new is, you can do a quick and dirty test on your lens that won’t cost you a dime….

A simple way to test whether your lens needs calibrated!

If you think you need to test your lens, then there is a simple check you can do to tell you whether you have problems, and you can do this for free with a set of batteries, or if you have $10 to spare, with a cheap and cheerful lens calibration tool like this one that I used.

For the batteries option, you simply need to line these up in diagonal line, each one going slightly behind and to the side of the other, making sure you leave a small space between each battery too. Then, with your camera on a tripod, select focus on the CENTRE battery.

I’m not going to go into how to do this here, but only because you can see exactly how to do it in this blog post I wrote a while back!

As I mentioned you can also use a lens calibration tool which looks like the image below. In this instance, you can follow the same steps as when using the batteries, but this time you are focusing on the QR code instead of the middle battery, and you should see focus land on the 0.

If focus lands BEHIND the 0, then your lens is back focusing.

If the focus lands in FRONT of the 0, then your lens in front focusing.

If the focus lands on or very near the 0, congratulations! Your lens is focusing perfectly.

How to calibrate your lens

If your lens DOES need calibrated, then you have two options available to you :

1) Send it in to get calibrated. This should cost somewhere between $25 - $100 (you will also need to send in your camera)

2) DIY it with a lens calibration tool which costs from $10 - $35

Here are 2 suggestions for you if you want to get your own Lens Calibration Tool - one at $6 and one at $35. The $6 one is the same one we used for our test so for $6 it’s a bit of a bargain :)

However, please note that not every camera will allow you to calibrate, or you’ll find you need an additional piece of equipment like a tuning dock, so if you want to go the DIY route, check you have that option available to you first.

Grab your camera manual or get into the camera settings menu, and look for something called AF Microadjustment or similar.

Here’s what they’re called for different manufacturers:

Canon – AF Microadjustment
Nikon – AF Fine Tune
Sony – AF Micro Adjustment
Olympus – AF Focus Adjust
Pentax – AF Adjustment

What this does is allow you to finely adjust the lens focus, or rather calibrating the lens and the camera body so they are perfectly in tune with one another.

So for example, if the lens was front focusing, using the microadjustment feature is basically telling the camera to pull focus 5 increments back from where it was focusing, so that is compensates for that front focusing. Make sense?

One final thing to note - this fixes ONE lens by matching it to the camera. You would need to repeat this for ALL your lenses!

You’ll get instructions with your chosen Lens Calibration Tool on how to use it, but essentially you will need to:

Find a room with lots of natural light
Put your calibration tool on a flat, steady surface
Pop your camera on a tripod (so that you are not moving the camera when you focus and it will stay on the same spot)
Ensure that the camera and ruler are level with one another, exactly perpendicular and at the same height.
Set your lens to the widest aperture.
Focus on the area designated on your lens calibration tool and take a photo.
Check where the focus has fallen - was it in front? Or behind? (It’s recommended to do this on a computer rather than on your camera’s screen)
Use your camera’s AF adjustment setting to fine-tune your focus, before taking another test shot. (You will need to check your manual to how to do this specific to your camera make and model)
Repeat until focus is landing on the right spot!

Closing thoughts….

If you do go and calibrate your lenses, don’t expect this to be the magic pill that means all your images will be sharp! Good focusing techniques coupled with using the right focusing modes and strategies will help far more that making small micro adjustments with your lens focus. Having a calibrated lens but not doing other things that contribute to sharp focus is like closing a porthole on the Titanic.

Even with calibration, it also won’t be as hyper specific as you may think - once you change your aperture value that could mean that there is a small adjustment away from 0 (and you can’t calibrate for multiple apertures) so this isn’t a fail safe for getting sharp images - it’s just one little element of a whole arsenal of strategies that you need!

(Want to know how to get tack sharp images? Then be sure to check out our Auto to Awesome program - we. have a whole module on it in there for you!)

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