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04-12-2013, 08:50 PM

http://www.sigmaphoto.com/product/sigma-usb-dock ?

Rainer · 04-13-2013, 08:34 AM

Quote: ?

I take this as a "what is this good for?" rather than a "does anyone use it ... is it good?"

I principle, this is not a bad idea. Rather than have people sent their new lenses to

Sigma and have Sigma adjust the lenses on Sigmas cost (under warranty), Sigma sells

a device to calibrate yourself. It will allow you to adjust the stuff that is adjustable

with firmware changes. (It will not repair mechanical faults, of course).

So, I see this more a marketing idea (quite clever though) than something

I would want to use. On the other side, the capabilities are better than what you

can do with microadjustment in-camera. So, it is indeed not senseless.

I assume, it will only work with the latest lenses of Sigma.

Just my thoughts ... Rainer

04-13-2013, 10:08 AM

Quote:I take this as a "what is this good for?" rather than a "does anyone use it ... is it good?"

I principle, this is not a bad idea. Rather than have people sent their new lenses to

Sigma and have Sigma adjust the lenses on Sigmas cost (under warranty), Sigma sells

a device to calibrate yourself. It will allow you to adjust the stuff that is adjustable

with firmware changes. (It will not repair mechanical faults, of course).

So, I see this more a marketing idea (quite clever though) than something

I would want to use. On the other side, the capabilities are better than what you

can do with microadjustment in-camera. So, it is indeed not senseless.

I assume, it will only work with the latest lenses of Sigma.

Just my thoughts ... Rainer

well, it would address a lot of issues that people have complained about with Sigma lenses, i.e. the off focus (especially if your body can't do microadjust), sometimes lens firmware incompatibilities when new bodies come along. Then it seems one can tweak other settings too for optimal use like the OS, where maybe it might make sense to have different parameters for FF and crop sensors?

Brightcolours · 04-13-2013, 10:42 AM

It isn't actually sold yet...

popo · 04-13-2013, 11:07 AM

I'm in two minds about this. I think I would love to have the capability to tune lenses if I want to, but on the other hand I'd rather like it to work perfectly as delivered from the manufacturer too.

For correcting the focus of a zoom lens, it sounds like to do a good job you would need to determine 16 correction values... testing at infinity might be fun... wonder if FoCal could help automate this in due course?

04-13-2013, 12:34 PM

ta all, yes i was wondering if anyone here knew how far it would go and how automatic it might be - so far as i could see the software to do whatever adjustments it will do doesn't appear to be available yet -

the salesman at the shop for my 35 had mentioned this was coming and should do micro-focus - just wondering how....and will it magically re-centre an iffy lens too ;-)

04-13-2013, 01:55 PM

Quote:It isn't actually sold yet...

but it seems soon in May, for 40 pounds, which is not excessively expensive (think Canon lens hood ;-) )

http://www.sigma-imaging-uk.com/index.ph...news_id=19

04-14-2013, 06:48 AM

We will have to wait and see how comprehensively one can adjust focus settings, is there the possibility of individual adjustment at different focal lengths with zooms, close and distant corrections etc if so, it's the way to go!

04-14-2013, 05:03 PM

A lot of people on the net discuss about the AF fine tune, but I don't understand how come it would be handy if I have to find the adjustment value by myself before entering it in the interface application... Would it be different than testing and entering the appropriate value with the camera's own interface?

Serkan

popo · 04-14-2013, 06:18 PM

By adjusting in the lens, it would work on any body you connect it to, including those which do not offer body adjustment. Also the body based corrections are currently still quite limited. On the latest Canons you can set different adjustments for each end of the zoom range, but that's it. The Sigma dock seems to allow you to set 4 focal lengths at 4 focus distances, which is much more comprehensive although finding 16 correction values doesn't sound like fun to me.