05-26-2017, 11:41 PM
That's funny, I also was under the impression to get lifelong updates, but:
https://www.reikanfocal.com/#get-focal
They say, "Free upgrades for 12 months" which would be a short life.
And they also limit the number of licensed cameras you can use.
https://www.reikan.co.uk/focalweb/index....-overview/
Now, the tricky part is: If you "delicense" a camera you sold, this also counts as an act of licensing - they just don't tell that. Just like adding a new body. They behaved friendly, when my license was blocked and I asked "WHAT?", just a bit more diplomatic. After the rainy weekend I could not use to MA my at the time new D810 I got a reply. They have business hours, you know... I just had to run in this trap.
But my feeling afterwards was awkward. Also, when they told me "12 months are over, thank you for your help with feeding our database, but you can only benefit of it when you send over some more money." Interestingly, FoCal creates reports, but only the 75% more expensive Pro-version let you save them, so you could make your own statistics.
That was enough to add their address to my spam-rules. I understand they need to make money, new cameras to buy and test costs also, but I can do it fully manually with LensAlign without any additional annual costs. With Canon, the test runs automatically, with Nikon I always have to adjust AFMA to FoCal's voice commands (which are pretty funny in German
). They say "Fully Automatic mode", but they mean "Hands-free only for certain Canon Models, where FoCal even can adjust AFMA values - so Canon users just hit START and get the final result without any further user action.
LensAlign is much less elegant and doesn't have all those features like reliability check, check of the various focus-points, check for the sharpest aperture and more gimmicks features. But all these features are time-killers. And they act like a virus scanner - these apps go off for several reasons. Making the consumer believe he got some show for his money being one of the reasons. I had to redevelop some trust in Nikon's AF, which apparently is not up to Canon's standard, but also not total off.
What we don't see in the statistics: How many third party lenses were involved? FoCal does have the data, as the app is listing every bit of EXIF it can squeeze out of the lens.
https://www.reikanfocal.com/#get-focal
They say, "Free upgrades for 12 months" which would be a short life.
And they also limit the number of licensed cameras you can use.
https://www.reikan.co.uk/focalweb/index....-overview/
Now, the tricky part is: If you "delicense" a camera you sold, this also counts as an act of licensing - they just don't tell that. Just like adding a new body. They behaved friendly, when my license was blocked and I asked "WHAT?", just a bit more diplomatic. After the rainy weekend I could not use to MA my at the time new D810 I got a reply. They have business hours, you know... I just had to run in this trap.
But my feeling afterwards was awkward. Also, when they told me "12 months are over, thank you for your help with feeding our database, but you can only benefit of it when you send over some more money." Interestingly, FoCal creates reports, but only the 75% more expensive Pro-version let you save them, so you could make your own statistics.
That was enough to add their address to my spam-rules. I understand they need to make money, new cameras to buy and test costs also, but I can do it fully manually with LensAlign without any additional annual costs. With Canon, the test runs automatically, with Nikon I always have to adjust AFMA to FoCal's voice commands (which are pretty funny in German
). They say "Fully Automatic mode", but they mean "Hands-free only for certain Canon Models, where FoCal even can adjust AFMA values - so Canon users just hit START and get the final result without any further user action.LensAlign is much less elegant and doesn't have all those features like reliability check, check of the various focus-points, check for the sharpest aperture and more gimmicks features. But all these features are time-killers. And they act like a virus scanner - these apps go off for several reasons. Making the consumer believe he got some show for his money being one of the reasons. I had to redevelop some trust in Nikon's AF, which apparently is not up to Canon's standard, but also not total off.
What we don't see in the statistics: How many third party lenses were involved? FoCal does have the data, as the app is listing every bit of EXIF it can squeeze out of the lens.