Originally posted by zapp I feel like I am doing the job of Pentax quality control using the AF fine adjust function... It is a pain in the butt taking 21 shots shots for checking the optimum adjustment position, multiply by the number of lenses and settings you are testing. Please add a 21 shots fine adjustment function covering all steps from -10 to +10 assuming that the camera is fixed on a tripod. Pressing buttons repetetavily is tedious and may result in additional errors.
I appreciate your frustration, and I can totally sympathize. However having the camera do the "hard work" might not work as well as you think.
When calibrating a lens it's ideal to de-focus the lens between test shots at the various settings. I know that's very tedious, but it's the only way to actually test the AF with the lens at the particular custom setting. Generally, though, you don't need to use all 21 individual positions for setting the AF fine adjustment. When I suspect a lens of front- or back-focusing I will typically test only the first five negative positions, null (the default position), and the first five positive positions. In other words, -5 through +5. If it's very obvious from the beginning the problem will fall in the back-focus or front-focus category then I will only test the positive or negative numbers, whatever the case may be. Sometimes I have had to do two tests because a lens appeared to be fine at +5, for example, but then I'm nervous that just maybe 6 or 7 would work even better. *shrug* Such is life.
Nevertheless, simply having the camera go bang-bang-bang down through all the settings automatically isn't going to work. The process requires careful handling or else you simply won't get reliable results.
I will say it would be nice if Pentax automated the testing sequence somewhat. Perhaps they could have a test sequence that involved the camera prompting the user to take a shot at one setting; once this occurs, the camera would switch the AF fine adjustment to the next setting, prompt the user to de-focus the lens, re-focus with auto-focus, and then fire another shot. Once the sequence is complete the camera would have gone down through the line of all available fine AF adjustment positions. Of course, this would mean users with out quick shift focusing would have to do a lot of switching between auto-focus and manual. Come to think of it, maybe the sequence can include automatically de-focusing the lens by the camera, as well. At any rate, it sure would beat going back and forth between menus and all that fiddly button pushing!