beeboman82

Yes, good point on the UV/IR filter. I was too scared to try glass cutting and balked at pre-made ones costing 1/3 the amount I paid for the camera. That means that, at the moment, regaining autofocus accuracy and infinity focus is not useful for astro work with camera lenses (and was never needed for use with telescopes). At some point I may look into a clip-in filter, but the options are not as plentiful as for Canons. I do occasionally tinker with the camera with IR long pass filters for daytime work, so maybe sensor positioning was useful for that(?). For now, arguably gaining autofocus was more for fun than necessity, but I'm hoping also an investment in future flexibility. Brian

I previously modified my D5300 by removing the IR filter (no replacement filter), also following the Life Pixel tutorial (and some general experience from following Gary Honis' Canon tutorials). Just today I went back in to try to regain autofocus. Achieving infinity focus on Nikon lenses was actually my main goal, but I am hoping infinity focus will follow if I have autofocus. Ideally when you modified you used one or more methods to mark the original position of the spring-loaded sensor screws. This can include marking the height of the posts near the screws and marking a line that extends from one part on the screw onto the metal behind the screw so you know just where to line it up. I also found the depth to be about 5 full turns from the point that the screws threads first catch when installing. I've been assuming that as long as the screws are returned to the original location or are each rotated the same amount from that position then the sensor plane should be parallel to the focal plane. In the case of my modification with IR filter removal and no replacement, I found that an extra 3/4 of a turn clockwise/inward was enough to push the sensor far enough forward to get pretty close on autofocus. I perhaps needed just a little bit more, but 2 of the 3 screws seemed to max out around this point anyway, so I think I will leave it alone. If you installed some sort of replacement filter, you shouldn't needed to adjust so far and probably have more flexibility to dial things in to your desire. I have not ventured into any software to analyze sensor tilt, but it sounds like CCD Inspector or MaxSelector might be some options for that. If you didn't carefully mark original screw positions, perhaps software might help with recovering. Hope that helps, Brian

Just worked on my Nikon D5300. I confirmed the 0.5 mm pitch by visual inspection (2 threads per mm). For the 0.75 mm thick filter, I first tried about 7.5 points clockwise. As others have noted, consider my actual adjustments as only approximate. Autofocus was better, but definitely still too close. Since the empirical adjustment for a 0.6 mm thick Canon filter wound up about 6/5 = 1.2x larger than calculated, I considered trying a 1.2x factor on the 7.5 points up to 9 points. This is now doubling up on 1.2x factors, so not mathematically satisfying. I don't have a very fast auto Nikon lens, but best I could tell, 9 points (3/4 of a turn clockwise) got pretty close, but was maybe focusing just a tad too close still (probably good enough for my current lenses). Unfortunately, I couldn't physically turn 2 of the 3 sensor screws past 9 points anyway, so I think I will live with 9 points on each. I'm hoping I at least got enough for infinity focus, as that was my true goal with autofocus as nice to have. This has me thinking, if one considers autofocus as a must in a modification, that might be the best argument I can think of for installing some sort of replacement filter in front of the sensor. Otherwise, the price of these filters still seems steep if one is working with the budget of self-modifying an older/used camera. I can share some focus pictures if there is interest. I also may eventually try LPF-2 removal on my Canon 6D. Will post if I get to it...hoping it is the 0.6 mm = 6 points of the T4i/650D. Brian

Hi all, I know this is an older thread, but I'm hoping it is still useful for me to add another vote that an extra half turn (6 "points") clockwise/inward appeared just right to regain autofocus. This was on a T4i/650D testing with the EF 50 mm at f/1.8, which I think should be a pretty good test. My LPF-2 was also 0.6 mm thick. Initially I only returned the screws to their original positions for telescope use, but got the itch to use lenses and needed to get infinity focus back (haven't tested yet, but I'm assuming that if I got autofocus right then infinity focus should be possible). Wish I hadn't followed Gary Honis' suggestion to super glue the screw positions at that point... Many thanks to Kevin and Michael for doing the legwork! Now I need to find out the adjustment for my Nikon D5300. I removed the single filter that one has (full spectrum, no replacement glass) and measured this filter at 0.75 mm thickness. IF, it has the same 0.5 mm thread pitch as the Canons, then I guess that would be 7.5 "points" clockwise. Unfortunately, it is harder to find parts information for Nikons than for Canons. I have the part number for the D5300 sensor screw as 10C8J, but just can't find any details. Brian