January Update

28th January 2020

A month into 2020 already!

As usual, time flies and we're almost a month into the new decade!

There's been exciting announcements from the camera industry, and here at FoCal HQ we've been working hard on Reikan FoCal and FoCal IQ.

Industry News

The year has kicked off with exciting news from CES about the release of 2 new DSLR cameras - the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III and the Nikon D780.

Canon EOS-1D X Mark III

Well this one is a bit of a beast! With a 20MP full frame sensor, this camera has the same output file resolution as the previous incarnation, but the AF system brings huge improvements.

Canon EOS-1D X Mark III

From a 61 point (41 cross type, 5 dual cross type) system in the 1D X Mark II, the upgraded body jumps to a massive 191 points (155 cross type and 1 dual cross type).

However, the Mark III also uses a new AF sensor which is composed of a grid of pixels rather than conventional line sensors. This brings a significant improvement in AF resolution and should improve detection and accuracy of focus on lower contrast subjects. We’re really excited to test this camera and find out just how well this new system works!

We’ve confirmed that the 1D X Mark III does offer AF Microadjustment and we’ll be adding support to FoCal as soon as we can get a camera to validate against.

If you're interested in technical information about the stills capabilities of the new 1D-X Mark III, Canon have released the Canon 1D-X Mark III Stills Whitepaper.

Nikon D780

Described by DPReview as “a Z6 in a familiar body”, this replacement for the D750 brings a 24MP full frame sensor along with a hybrid AF system.

Nikon D780

Viewfinder AF brings the 51-point AF system along with a higher resolution metering sensor tied to the scene analysis algorithms and AF system of the D5 which should improve AF performance.

From the Nikon website we’ve also confirmed that this camera does have AF Fine Tune, and we’ll be adding support to FoCal as soon as we can.

With on sensor PDAF pixels, live view focus should be at Z-camera level (which should be a decent improvement over current Nikon DSLRs).

Reikan FoCal 2.11 Beta 2 Released

We've just released FoCal 2.11 Beta 2 to all users.

FoCal 2.11 Beta 2

The 2.11 version integrates FoCal IQ into the FoCal software, so you can quickly jump to information about the lens you're using from the Camera Information screen.

FoCal 2.11 Beta 2 - FoCal IQ Integration

The second beta also addresses a number of macOS connection issues that affect some users, as well as fixed support for macOS Catalina privacy permissions.

Although it's a beta, it's very close to being a final release (due within the next couple of weeks) so we'd love it if you could give it a try and give us any feedback.

FoCal IQ Updates

In December we launched FoCal IQ - this very site - for comparing performance of lenses and cameras through our bulk analysis of the FoCal results uploads.

Since launch we’ve improved the filtering and search facility and updated the information a few times. We process the data off-line and upload to the site at the moment and typically update the data a few times each week. We don't post about every update, but when there are significant new lenses or information available we'll highlight these in a blog post.

The help documentation for some metrics is a bit basic at the moment, and we're looking to improve that significantly over the coming month or so. This will include examples of how to properly interpret the data in the context of real-world performance.

FoCal Data Updates

The FoCal Comparison Data (fed back to FoCal to allow you to compare your camera/lens performance with other users) has been updated a bit sporadically in the past, but with the launch of FoCal IQ we have tied the processes together and will now updated much more regularly (we’ve just updated all the data now).

Reikan FoCal Comparison Data

The Lens and Camera definitions are also updated when we fix any issues in the databases and FoCal users will pick these up automatically when the software is started. Due to their nature of the updates they will usually only be applicable for the latest version of FoCal (i.e. lens name updates won’t propagate back to older versions), so make sure yuo keep up to date with FoCal!

What’s Coming Next in Reikan FoCal?

There’s been a lot of development going on with FoCal and within the next few months we hope to release the fruits of all this work!

Without giving too much away, we’re aiming to bring you:

  • A faster, easier to use and far more comprehensive calibration and analysis tool
  • Official support for a lot more cameras
  • A solution for remote operation
  • More tools for analysis of cameras and lenses
  • Support for more image processing formats
  • FoCal on more platforms...

Most of the internal work for the above features (and more) is already complete, but as they say in engineering “it’s 90% done, just 90% left to do!”

Feedback

As ever, we'd love to hear how you find FoCal IQ and if you have any comments/suggestions. It's a new project for us, so feel free to comment below or drop us a message through the contact page.