FoCal 3.10 brings big updates to the Snapshots tool, fixes for File Mode cameras, Windows USB control, lens detection on Nikon mirrorless cameras, control of Canon mirrorless cameras and more!

What’s New?

[If you’re not interested in the details and just want to grab the release download info is here]

FoCal Mobile and FoCal Snapshots apps

Both FoCal Mobile and the Snapshots app have been updated with the above fix and all the latest Snapshots functionality.

The latest versions are:

FoCal Mobile: 1.4.2

FoCal Snapshots: 1.2.1

These should be available from your app store worldwide within the next day or so (as of 8th August 2023).

Headline Features

The Snapshots tool has been significantly improved, but there are also lots of little improvements and fixes in this release.

• Huge Snapshots tool Updates
• File Mode improvements
• Windows USB fix
• Nikon updates
• Canon updates
• Miscellaneous

The Release Notes contain a comprehensive list of changes.

FoCal Apps

Just a quick reminder that premium versions of the FoCal apps – FoCal Mobile and Snapshots – are available free of charge to anyone with a FoCal Pro (Desktop) license within their support period. See here for more information about the apps.

Snapshot Tool Updates

The big feature update of FoCal 3.10 is improvements to the Snapshots tool, bringing:

• Export to PDF
• Conversion to different cameras
• Order of properties much better matches the camera menu order
• Capture/restore Picture Control data
• and more!

Snapshot Tab

First up, the layout of the tool has changed a little, with a new tab added – Snapshot.

This should make use of the tool a little more intuitive. Each tab now does the following:

• Welcome: information about the Snapshot tool
• Camera: connect to the camera and capture a Snapshot
• Database: lists all saved Snapshots, allows you to delete, duplicate, export, apply and open a Snapshot
• Snapshot: shows the currently loaded Snapshot, allows you to adjust, edit, apply, save, export, save as PDF, convert and more
• Import/Export: allows importing and exporting of individual snapshots or the Snapshot database.

So, head to the Camera tab to connect to your camera, then you can either capture a Snapshot from there, or go to the Database tab and pick one to restore to your camera. When loaded, all the details, export options etc will be available in the new Snapshot tab.

Export to PDF

The FoCal Snapshot tool can capture hundreds of settings from your camera, and now you can export it as a document to keep a detailed copy of your camera configuration.

To see what’s included, you can download this PDF report of a Demo Snapshot for the Nikon D850.

Within FoCal, you’ll find the option to save a PDF in the Tools tab inside the new Snapshot tab. Clicking the Snapshot PDF Options title (which is collapsed by default) will show all the options available for you to customise the report (the example report above is generated with the default options shown):

Conversion of Snapshots to a different camera (BETA)

You can now convert Snapshots between cameras, making it easier to apply your carefully chosen settings to a new camera.

If you open a Snapshot that is not intended for the connected camera, in the Tools option of the Snapshots tab (underneath the option to save a PDF report), you’ll see a Convert button.

Click this and FoCal will capture a default view of the connected camera, and then do it’s best to convert all the selected settings in the Snapshot to your camera. For similar cameras – e.g. the Z8 and Z9 – this should be almost 100% successful. Where cameras are quite different, there may be more warnings during the conversion, for example:

The results are available in the new current Snapshot for you to review, edit and then save or apply to your camera as you choose.

The conversion function is a starting point for you to quickly get a base Snapshot for your new camera – then you can get going with customising and personalising as necessary.

Picture Control Data

One aspect of the camera configuration that was not captured in previous releases of the Snapshots tool is Picture Control Data – the details of those JPEG processing settings like Standard, Neutral or Vivid. That functionality has now been added, and you’ll see two new settings groups for compatible cameras: Picture Control and Movie Picture Control:

There are a few limitations to this functionality right now:

• You can’t edit the Picture Control data in FoCal yet, but it will capture all the Picture Control information in the camera when you capture a Snapshot.
• There’s no live monitoring of Picture Control changes at the moment
• HLG Picture Control (available on the Z8 and Z9 cameras) is not yet supported by FoCal

All of the above limitations will be addressed in a future update.

Show Unchanged Settings

Two new buttons have been added to the button bar in the Details tab for a Snapshot. The first, highlighted below with an orange border, shows all unchanged settings when enabled, which is the default state to keep things familiar. When the option is disabled (as shown below), only settings that have a different value to the factory defaults are shown, and the value column of the table will indicate what the factory default for this setting would be:

Restore Defaults

The second new button in the Details tab keeps with the factory default theme and is shown highlighted in orange below – this will restore ALL settings in the Snapshot to factory defaults:

If you capture a Snapshot from your camera then hit the factory default button above, all settings will be restored and you can then either save or apply the Snapshot to the camera.

A reset Snapshot can form a good starting point for different Snapshots for your camera.

Settings Groups and Order

We’ve put a lot of work into the grouping and ordering of the settings withing Snapshots in this release, so you should see a good match between the order of the settings within the Snapshots utility and those on the camera menus.

Graphical White Balance Editing

The Snapshots app has had graphical White Balance editing since it was launched, and now it’s time to bring it to FoCal Desktop. You can now clearly see how the white balance is configured, and when in editing mode, simply click anywhere on the white balance grid to set a new value.

When in real-time monitoring mode and with the currently selected white balance, for cameras that show a Live View feed (e.g. Nikon Z-series cameras), you’ll see the display change in real-time.

Improved feedback when Applying a Snapshot

The summary information after applying a Snapshot has been improved, with a clearer indication of the original setting on the camera (Initial), the intended setting and the actual value that is on the camera once the Snapshot has been applied:

Any settings that didn’t apply correctly are shown with more information now as well, to give better reasons as to why the value has not been applied.

Default setting highlighted in options

In edit mode, for settings that offer a list of options, the factory default option is now shown in bold:

Other Snapshots Improvements

As well as all the above improvements, here are a few more miscellaneous updates:

• Fixed a situation where the timestamp would not honour the time zone
• Stop showing Snapshot as being modified immediately after it was saved to the database
• Fixed calculation error in Pre White Balance Gain
• Stop allowing connection to a camera that doesn’t support Snapshots
• Ensure the monitor icon is in sync with the real-time monitoring state
• Fixed an issue where text entries (e.g. bank names) would report as not being applied to the camera when in fact they were applied correctly
• Allow setting of conditional write values even if the camera didn’t allow them at the time of Snapshot capture

Snapshots Mobile App

The improvement to the Snapshots tool in the desktop version of FoCal will be available in the Snapshots app very shortly. We’ll announce on social media and on the blog when the update is available.

File Mode improvements

FoCal support tethered control of Canon and Nikon cameras, but you can calibrate and analyse cameras from many more manufacturers using File Mode.

We’ve re-validated our File Mode support, fixing a few issues with metadata decoding and adding support for more cameras.

Take a look here at the list (scroll down to File Mode cameras to see the supported cameras).

Windows USB fix

Our interface code on Windows has been the same for many years, but we’ve recently found a bug which could cause some commands being sent to the camera to fail unexpectedly.

This bug is now fixed in the USB Camera Interface version 3.2.0.12400 which is integrated into FoCal 3.10 (see Help > About > Component Information to check the version):

Nikon Updates

There was an issue with identifying native teleconverters attached to Nikon Z-series cameras which has now been fixed.

The Snapshots updates have led to some improvements in how all Nikon cameras are controlled, improving reliability and efficiency of several internal operations.

Canon Updates

There are some general updates to Canon camera control, in particular some fixes to erroneous warnings shown for Canon EOS-R series mirrorless cameras.

We’ve also addressed some issues that could cause an annoying loop of saving settings/restoring settings on opening Canon cameras in certain configurations.

Miscellaneous

There are always bugs to fix and things to improve, and here’s a list of a few notable miscellaneous updates:

• AF mode has been added to the camera information on opening the camera, and also to the information obtained using the File Info tool
• File Explore can now be used with cameras that don’t contain “essential” metadata, such as aperture, shutter speed and ISO.
• We’ve made information messages in FoCal a little clearer, and better explained the situation where FoCal reports issues updating your license after you’ve changed your password online.
• You can click on the camera model name in the About page to jump to a lot more information about that specific camera online.

Operating System Support

See below for information about which versions of operating system are supported.

Release Notes

There are more details in the changelog in the release notes for this release.

Thank you!

Thank you to all our users past and present who’ve used FoCal for their calibrations. An extra special thank you to everyone who’s got in touch with feedback, a lot of changes are driven directly by what you tell us!

Get Reikan FoCal 3.10

Download FoCal 3.10 for Windows or macOS by logging in to the account system via www.reikanfocal.com/account. Once logged in, you will see a download link to the software.

FoCal 3.10 is available to all users within their Included Updates Period as of 1st August 2023. You can get the software as shown below:

• By logging in to the FoCal Account system via www.reikanfocal.com/account
• Go to the About > Update Check option in the software. From here you can hit the Download button to get the software.

If you’re outside of the period above you can purchase 12 months of updates by logging in to the account system via www.reikanfocal.com/account and scrolling to Included Updates Period.

If you’re not yet a FoCal user you can purchase the software as a download or boxed product, as well as FoCal Hard Targets from the FoCal Online Store.

Get FoCal Apps

Information and store links for the FoCal mobile apps are available here:

• FoCal Mobile
• FoCal Snapshots

Reikan FoCal on Social Media

We regularly post news and updates on social media. You can keep updated, connect and follow us via:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram