FoCal 4.2 MR3 – Going Wireless!

FoCal 4.2 brings connection via camera built-in WiFi for selected cameras, analysis improvements, operation updates, security fixes, a few new looking screens and more!

UPDATE: FoCal 4.2 MR3 is now available with improved WiFi connectivity and camera control reliability improvements for tests. MR2 was released in with some improvements to WiFi functionality, support for the latest Nikon Z-series firmware and a few bug fixes

Establish WiFi Connection screen on Nikon Z f camera

How to get FoCal 4.2

FoCal 4.2 is available to everyone within their support period as of 12th April 2024 (so that’s everyone who’s purchased FoCal or a new Included Updates Period since 12th April 2023).

You can download it by logging in to your FoCal Account and choosing the download for your platform.

What’s New in FoCal 4.2

Camera WiFi Support

We’ve added support to FoCal for direct connection to cameras with built in WiFi!

The most up-to-date list of supported cameras is those shown with a WiFi icon in in the Camera Support page, but at the time of release, the following cameras can be directly controlled over WiFi from FoCal:

Canon:

  • EOS-1D X Mark III
  • EOS 5D Mark IV
  • EOS 6D
  • EOS 6D Mark II
  • EOS 7D Mark II (with W-E1 card)
  • EOS 80D
  • EOS 90D
  • EOS R (no AF Microadjustment)
  • EOS RP (no AF Microadjustment)
  • EOS R5 (no AF Microadjustment)
  • EOS R6 (no AF Microadjustment)

Nikon:

  • D6
  • D780
  • Z 30
  • Z 50
  • Z fc
  • Z 6 / Z 6ii
  • Z 7 / Z 7ii
  • Z 8
  • Z 9
  • Z f

Enabling WiFi in FoCal

Head to Help > Settings and enable WiFi for either Canon or Nikon. 

Reikan FoCal screenshot showing built-in wifi support for Nikon and Canon cameras
Enable Canon or Nikon WiFi support from the Settings page

If a warning is shown about data communications, make sure you Allow this – it’s required to detect and connect to the cameras:

Make sure you Allow this, otherwise WiFi won’t work!

 While you can enable both Canon and Nikon at the same time, it’s recommended that you don’t (at least while WiFi support is shiny and new!)

Connecting your camera

How you connect your camera to your computer (and soon, mobile device) depends on the camera model. We’ve tried to explain how to do it for each camera model in the WiFi Setup section of the camera specific pages on the website – head to Camera Support Page, choose your camera and scroll down on the camera page to see the information.

When the camera is detected, you’ll see it in the Available Cameras panel, just as if it was connected over USB:

Further Information

This is a new feature and while we’ve given it some thorough testing with both Nikon and Canon cameras, there may be some unreliability (especially around detection of cameras). Please let us know if you have any issues as we’ll be continuing to develop this functionality.

For Canon cameras, you can connect either with the camera in Access Point mode, or connect the camera directly to your home or office WiFi network and FoCal will correctly detect the camera.

For Nikon camera, you must use the Connect to Smartphone option (which creates an Access Point on the camera which you connect your computer to) – the Connect to Network option on Nikon cameras does NOT work at the moment.

RGBHV Display

When FoCal analyses the target, it measured the sharpness of the red, green and blue channels, both horizontall and vertically – we call this RGBHV analysis.

Generally, the analysis results are based on all this information combined using a measure of the lighting quality, but you can now view the results for individual channels, or horizontal/vertical analysis.

Head over to Help > Settings, scroll down to FoCal Pro Settings and enabled Show RBGHV analysis data.

When enabled, on the Details page of tests which support this analysis mode, you’ll see a dropdown to select the channel:

When you choose a different channel, an overlay is added to the Crops, and you’ll notice the shape of the analysis results charts changes:

You can use the RGBHV data to dig deeper into the results of your tests – for example, large differences between the colour channels, or the horizontal and vertical channels can indicate issues with your lens.

Other Updates

There are quite a few smaller updates in FoCal 4.2 which improve operation and usability:

  • Disabling of automatic subject detection, vignetting and distortion control on Nikon cameras automatically before testing
  • Better handling of failure to open cameras
  • Fixes to camera communications for various cameras
  • Removed unnecessary user interface code, reducing the size and speed of the whole application
  • Updates the WebView component for Windows
  • Improvements to the Windows installer to stop installation on unsupported version of Windows

Operating System Support

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

Windows

The following versions of Windows (64-bit) are supported

  • Windows 11
  • Windows 10 (20H2 and later)

FoCal can be installed and should work on the following versions of Windows, but as they are no longer supported by Microsoft we only do limited testing:

  • Windows 10 (pre 20H2) – Microsoft support ended 10th May 2022
  • Windows 8.1 – Microsoft support ended 9th January 2018
  • Windows 7 SP1 – Microsoft support ended 13th January 2015

Mac

The following versions of macOS are supported

  • macOS Sonoma (14.x)*
  • macOS Ventura (13.x)
  • macOS Monterey (12.x)
  • macOS Big Sur (11.x)

* Note: Due to a bug in macOS, cameras may not show for connection in FoCal on versions of macOS older than 14.2.1. Update to FoCal 14.2.1 (December 2023) and use FoCal 4.0.1 or later to fix this issue.

FoCal 3.x can be installed and should work on the following versions of macOS, but as they are no longer supported by Apple we only do limited testing:

  • macOS Catalina (10.15) – Apple support ended 12th September 2022
  • macOS Mojave (10.14) – Apple support ended 25th October 2021
  • macOS High Sierra (10.13) – Apple support ended 1st December 2020
  • macOS Sierra (10.12) – Apple support ended 1st October 2019

iPhone and iPad

FoCal Mobile will run on any device running iOS/iPadOS 12 or later.

Android

The Android version of FoCal Mobile can be installed on all devices running Android 9 (Pie) or later.

There is a huge variety of Android devices and we can only test on a small subset. FoCal is an intensive application and we recommend using newer mid- to high-end Android devices with at least 4GB of RAM.

NOTE: The free version of FoCal Mobile offers the ability to connect to a camera, Verify Setup and run AF System Check, so you should ensure that these all run reliably before purchasing a subscription.

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 4.2

FoCal 4.2 is available to all users within their Included Updates Period as of 12th April 2024. 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:

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