LensAlign: User Guide and Distance Tool Posted

The first version of the official LensAlign User Guide is now available on our LensAlign Support Page.

Also posted is our new LensAlign Distance Tool.

This interactive web based tool allows you to enter your test parameters (camera, lens, aperture), and the tool will display the recommended LensAlign-to-Camera distance along with the expected Depth of Field for those parameters and distance. We hope that these new support materials are helpful to you whether you have or are considering purchasing a LensAlign Focus Calibration System.

We have opened a discussion thread for the manual and new Distance Tool. We would appreciate you to share any questions or suggestions for either or both on this thread at our support/discussion forum.

Thanks for your kind support.

MT

Jeff Ascough : photographer

Image copyright Jeff Ascough

I have been following Jeff Ascough's work and am always been impressed by his relentless attention to detail in all that he does and creates. As you can imagine, I was quite pleased when I saw that he had recently posted a blog about his first experience with LensAlign.

I calibrated three 1DsMK3 and two 5DMKII camera bodies and five lenses in an afternoon. Which wasn't bad at all. So far I've been thrilled with the improvement in the accuracy of the autofocus; I have an 85LII lens which was always a bit temperamental on a couple of bodies, but now it is like having a new lens!!

You can read his entire LensAlign post here.

Also, Canon Europe just posted a Masterclass about Wedding Photography featuring Jeff. No matter what you shoot, it is worth your time to take a look and see a master photographer in action.

Thanks Jeff. 

MT

Off to New York City

We are taking an R&D trip to NYC to meet with several companies and dealers to discuss LensAlign and the issues of focus (or lack of focus) with industry leaders.

Our skeleton crew here in Florida should be able to keep things running, but if emails, phone calls or shipments are a bit on the slow side, the trip may be affecting them. But hopefully all will go on as usual.

We will be back next week (Aug 31), and LensAlign LITES should be back in stock by then as well.

Thanks for all of your kind patience and support. See you next week.

BTW...I am looking forward to shooting in NYC again. It has been a few years and Grand Central Terminal is calling me!

Best..MT

LensAlign Status - Enumerator, LRK and new Website

LensAlign Pro with Standard Ruler

Sorry that it has been so long since the last blog post. Just busy (which is a good thing). Lots of good stuff happening at RawWorkflow, here are some quick updates:

• All LensAlign PRO owners received an email last week that discussed the release of the Long Ruler Kit (in case they had missed it), and the Enumerator Upgrade program. We received tremendous response to both. It’s confirmation to us that you’re using our products in your work. All Enumerator Upgrades and Long Ruler Kit (LRK) orders have been shipped.
• The bad (and good) news is that we were so overwhelmed with orders for the LRK that we ran out. So for the time being that puts the LRK and LensAlign PRO Plus on a 2 week delay. Parts are on the way and we should be shipping by August 15. You can place credit card "pre-orders" for the LRK or LensAlign PRO Plus now. We will not charge your credit card until we ship. PayPal users, please let us know via email that you want to place a pre-order. Because of the back-order of the LRK, the special intro pricing has been extended until July 15th, so get your pre-order in now to get the special priced.
• LensAlign PRO and LITE are shipping from stock.
• New User Guide is in the works, as are new videos.
• Also we are in the midst of a construction project here at HQ to provide a larger studio space for shooting videos, testing LensAlign and other products, and making pictures (yea!)

New Website

Our new website, which is linked from the LensAlign buttons above or go here provides a much better presentation of the product for photographers who have not seen LensAlign as of yet. Also the LensAlign reviews are very comprehensive and we must say, very positive from the industry cognoscenti. You will also find links to other valuable information such as various Quick Start Guides and blog posts on key topics.  The documentation, much improved with the new LensAlign website, will be complemented by updated videos and a proper user’s manual in the next few weeks. We very much appreciate your patience with us in this regard but are confident that when you see what we’ve got, you will be very pleased and your LensAlign will be providing even more value. (Kudos to Jeffrey Kracke over at JTVDesign for the great design work, as always).

Remember...here at LensAlign, "our focus is your focus"

MT

Great Marketing Moment - Olympus E-P1

 

Can't really get away from the hype on the digital Oly Pen retro Micro-Four-Thirds camera. I am excited about it and have mine on pre-order, with the 17mm pancake lens. Time will tell, but Oly seems to have done so many things right with this camera. You can read about the camera all over the web. I will point you to Imaging-Resource  and The Online Photographer  for a hands on and some commentary.  

Also of great interest to me personally (not that it will affect the pictures coming from the camera) is the great marketing campaign that Olympus has engineered. Please sample this if such things strike your fancy and you have 2+ minutes or so:

LensAlign Long Ruler Kit has shipped

LensAlign PRO Plus (PRO, Long Ruler, Large Focus Target, Enumerator)

We are please to announce that we have shipped the first production run of the Long Ruler Kit for LensAlign Pro. Shipments began this past Friday, continued Saturday, and will finish up Monday. As promised all who purchased the Long Ruler Kit were upgraded for free to the Enumerator which was included in the shipments. That is the good news. The bad news is that we are now sold out. Wow we got a lot of orders!

Shipments should resume with the second production run of the Long Ruler Kit around July 5. Pre-orders at the special introductory price will be accepted until June 30. Those of you who already own PRO and wish to upgrade your PRO with the Enumerator will receive an email with a special link, that will allow you to upgrade for just a $5 processing fee. All LensAlign PROs will begin shipping with the Enumerator effective immediately. Sadly, that also marks the end of the introductory pricing. The normal $179 pricing is now in effect.

Click here to Pre-order the Long Ruler Kit. Shipments resume first week of July.BTW...Long Ruler Kit Quick Start Guide now available. [click here] 

That's it for now. Thanks for your patience and support.

Atlantis returns home

After bad weather here in Florida on the designated landing days, the Space Shuttle Atlantis had to land in CA at Edwards Air Force base. But since Atlantis and all of the Shuttles live here in Florida, she had to hitch a ride on one of NASA's 747s to bring her home. Quite a sight. Here is a link that describes the travel process to bring a shuttle back to the Kennedy Spacer Center.

Space Shuttle Atlantis flying by Patrick Air Force Base before landing at the Kennedy Space Center 10 minutes away. (Photo: Michael Tapes - Nikon D300 - 500mm f4 +1.7TC)

Atlantis after it's fly-by at Patrick Air Force base beach. (Photo: Michael Tapes - Nikon D700 - 70-200f2.8

LensAlign Status: Long Ruler Kit - May 29 Status

LensAlign Long Ruler production samples under review (Camera: Lumix ZS3)

All approvals were given last week so that the production of the Long Ruler Kit can finally be finalized (finally! <g>). My apologies for the delays. When we announced the Long Ruler Kit, all *had* been approved, but the pre-production approved samples and the production samples did not match which is what caused the delay. Hopefully all is under control now, with re-engineered production techniques developed by our vendor to assure production to production run stability.

I estimate the shipping of the Long Ruler Kits to be around June 8 15th or before. I will update *this* post if the date changes. Thanks for your patience.

Review:

• Long Ruler Upgrades to ship June 8 15
• All LRK upgrades will ship with the Enumerator upgrade (at no charge)
• Enumerator upgrades will be available ($4.95 processing fee) around the same time frame. An Email with purchase link will be sent to all PRO owners at that time. No added charge for shipping.
• Current pricing on PRO will be extended until LRKs ship.

Thanks to all.

Update on Fri, May 29, 2009 at 2:06 PM by Michael Tapes

Based on new (and what we believe to be final) info from our vendor, the LRK ship date has been changed to June 15th as now reflected in the above edited post.

We deeply regret this delay. An email will be sent on Monday to all who have pre-ordered the LRK to confirm this new and hopefully final delay. Thanks for your kind patience.

LensAlign Status: Long Ruler Kit

The bad news...

I rejected the manufacturing run of the Long Ruler portion of the Long Ruler Kit. We expected Long Ruler sub assemblies to be shipped to us today for shipment to you this week. However, in getting a sample "printed" piece from the run (before other operations were performed on the ruler substrate itself), I rejected it as not quite up to our quality standards. I am not sure that anyone would have noticed, but I did, and cannot ship what I know to be substandard parts.

The cause problem seems to have been isolated by our vendor, and they have done some preliminary test runs. More work to be done today before I can confirm a new ship date. I am shooting for June 1, but cannot commit to that until I have more dialog.

I sincerely regret this circumstance.

The good news...

We are committed to making sure that LensAlign (as with all of our products) meet and exceed our stringent internal standards.  That is my commitment to you.

Thanks for your patience and understanding.

BTW...For you production geeks. We had already done a pre-production run of the Long Ruler and it passed with flying colors except for a few minor graphic changes both to the working portion of the top surface of the ruler, as well as the bottom non-working half. These changes required new "screens" to be manufactured for the printing process. We believe it is in these new screens where the fault occurred. Each time a new press run is set up there is potential for error and/or changes that will effect the product. So we must be diligent at every turn. Just part of the manufacturing process that many people do not understand, in terms of difficulty, time, effort, and effect on final price.

Again. Thanks for your kind support...

Update on Mon, May 18, 2009 at 12:32 PM by Michael Tapes

Also the special introductory pricing on LensAlign PRO will stay in effect until we are able to ship the LRK.

LensAlign: Neil van Niekerk

I like sharp. I really like images to be crisp.
Any softness in the image should be a deliberate choice on my part.

  

Photo Copyright:Neil van Niekerk

... and this simply isn’t good enough.

 Photo Copyright:Neil van Niekerk

And some people do not think this issue is real! I just stumbled across Neil's pragmatic remarks about LensAlign Pro. His presentation is down to earth and on-point. You can see his entire post here.

Thanks Neil. Could not have said it better myself. Happy shooting!

BTW...Say hello to Northern NJ! I used to live in Kinnelon before heading to FL. Great country up there. 

~MT~