How often do you calibrate your lenses?

[Colin Smale]

I would like to ask Nikon/Canon wildlife photographers who really use their gear a lot "how often do you need to calibrate your lenses?"
 
Colin Smale A.R.P.S.
WWW.FOTOLINCS.COM

[Steve Weldon]

I'm not sure I fully meet your high criteria to be allowed a response but..

Do you mean a factory calibration or a body/lens calibration?

I'm fortunate enough to live very close the Thailand Canon Service Center where I've cultivated a good relationship, and their cleaning/calibration service runs 350 baht with a CPS card (about $12 US) so I take advantage of it every year.  The same price is charged to clean bodies (inside, outside, sensor, mirror box, update firmware, run diags) and I do that as well. 

If I had to pack them up, pay shipping, and US service center fees, then I'd only do it when I noticed something wrong with them or every 3-5 years as needed.  But this is guessing. Often, such as when out on the water of Beung Boraphet or other wetlands the humidity is extreme, or the dust/humidity of Angkor Vat can be hard, and so on.. so after certain trips I might send them after each trip if I felt I couldn't clean them satisfactory myself.

Body/lens calibration?  After each factory calibration.  I just assume (perhaps wrongly) they changed a setting that would affect the body settings.

[Colin Smale]

Hi Steve

Thanx for your reply. I was aiming at folk who use their gear a lot, at least 4-5 days a week otherwise their lenses will be as last calibrated which may be over a year ago. Not really high criteria, just used rather than worshipped.

I meant calibrating each lens to your body or bodies. You are very lucky you are so near to a service centre, if I was I would take my gear in too.  I am getting the feeling that Nikon gear needs calibrating more often than Canon but not too sure on that yet.

[David Sutton]

I don't meet your criteria either, but here's my experience. I calibrate my canon primes to the body once and then wait until the body is upgraded. I've checked the body/lens calibration for primes after 6 to 8 months and it hasn't changed within the margin of error for my original calibration.
The zoom lenses are different. They seem much more vulnerable to vibration and rough treatment. The IS  and electronics fail every 3 years or so. They really need to be checked on average every 6 to 8 months for my usage.
David

[stever]

i assume you're primarily talking about autofocus calibration

my recommendation is to get a Lensalign and check them yourself periodically (and before and after you send them in for service) Nikon and Canon only adjust so the cameras/lenses are "within factory specifications" which appear to be pretty loose - at least compared to what's possible using micro-adjust

Art Morris is a recent convert to Lensalign and checks them frequently (perhaps more than necessary, i find it unusual for micro-adjust to change) - he is not easy on equipment and shoots 8 days some weeks

i (and others) have found converters to invariably be a problem - my Canon 1.4x was nearly off the micro-adjustment scale and i sent it to Canon for calibration - it came back requiring about half as much correction (but still quite significant)

i believe mis-aligned camera lens mount/sensors are not a big problem with long lenses but often a problem with wide lenses - several months ago Lloyd Chambers (diglloyd.com) described his multiple Nikon returns - i think he addresses this issue in "making sharp images" -subscription site

a couple years ago i invested in Imatest software and target for tesing resolution, distortion, ect.  i use it for testing lenses and cameras before buying and if i have reason to suspect a problem - not cheap, and requires a bit of time to do the testing, but pretty cheap compared a few service visits or selling a bad lens at a loss

[Steve Weldon]

I'm curious how many wildlife photographers, or any photographer not sitting in a commercial portrait studio, out there really do shoot 4-5 days a week?

During a good month I'll work 6-7 days a week, but I'm not shooting 4-5 days of that.  Usually 2-4..

The rest of the time I'm traveling (and my equipment is bumping along with me), processing, doing admin work, cleaning gear, writing articles/reviews, maintaining my website (not as time consuming at it might appear if set up properly, a bit like having a concrete lawn..), meeting with clients, and other aspects of my work.. but 4-5 days of shooting on a regular basis?  Nope.. that's a lot.