FoCal 2.11 Beta 2 to all users.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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!
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:
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!”
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.