FoCal 2.9 Beta 1 – Release Notes

The first Beta of FoCal 2.9 is now available.

This post is a brief explanation of key improvements/differences from the previous version. There is a more descriptive explanation about this first Beta release available here.

Overview

Version Number: 2.9.3.5604

Channel: Beta

Platforms: Windows and Mac

Audience

This release is available for FoCal Pro and Commercial users who had an active Included Updates Period as at 1st October 2018 (We have back-dated the applicability of this release).

Changelog

The following links contain the release notes for the Alpha builds:

Alpha1, Alpha 2, Alpha 3

The following is a list of significant changes from Alpha 3:

• Fixed a crash on startup if no license installed
• Added Camera/Info panel
• Added “Status Bar” with camera, battery and control state display.
• Added About panel to main window to replace About window.
• Improvements to transfer of images from both Nikon and Canon cameras to improve reliability and allow display of progress.
• Proper handling of camera power down/disconnect
• Collapsible table improvements
• Fixed duplicate information in reports
• Fix to handle settings restore case for Nikon where focal length has changed.
• Fix to conversion and report of Nikon focal lengths
• Fix to operation of AF points on Z6/Z7
• Modified Aperture Sharpness operation to show comparison data and wide open shot earlier in the test.
• Change to Nikon hotkey – it now matches Canon hotkey. In order to action the hotkey, you need to change the aperture value (it will be restored appropriately before the test continues).
• Various Z6/Z7 fixes
• Fixed Typical Comparison panel display
• Fixes to Canon EOS-1D Mark III and 5D Mark II/1D X running early firmware.
• Fix to Aperture Sharpness comparison data display
• Fix to properly operate in RGB analysis mode (historical data is correct, but display of this data had a problem)
• Improvements to referencing comparison data to improve accuracy and reliability
• Added new lens definitions
• Changed window modality to match between Windows and Mac. Some windows (e.g. Target Distance Tool) can be used while tests are running now.
• Added tooltip functionality to main window for battery level and controls enable/disable operation.
• Fixes to D700 and other early Nikon cameras.
• Fixed distance calculation error for some Nikon cameras.
• Fix base ISO for Z6
• Show alert if commercial license will expire within 30 days.
• Fix to camera information in Preferences window
• Fix to Nikon camera settings save/restore operation
• Fixes to Windows installer to stop multiple instances of FoCal being reported in the Add/Remove programs list.
• Various reliability fixes to Mac camera interface
• Detect and warn if EOS Utility 2/3 is running on Mac (was already reported on Windows)
• Added file info display to Camera/Info panel
• Fixed Dust Analysis test
• Fixed Dust Analysis test filename for reports
• Fixes specific to Nikon D7200/D7500
• Correct operation of FoCal menu on Mac (About, License, Quit)
• Reimplemented low and exhausted battery warning
• Corrected use of mirror lockup in some instances
• Warn about not being at end of zoom range after first shot (rather than part way through the calibration)
• Fixed voice output on Mac
• Correct handling of failure to autofocus on older Nikon cameras
• Fix to stop setting both Wide and Tele values at end of calibration on Canon 6D and 80D.
• Fixes to text scaling – mostly affected non-Retina Mac, but fixes for all platforms now.

Known Issues / Missing Functionality

The following are the main known issues with this release:

• Semi Auto mode calibration is not present.
• MultiPoint Focus Test is not present.
• There is no documentation for this release.
• There is an issue with some message boxes not being able to be closed on macOS Sierra and earlier. This does not affect High Sierra (10.13) or Mojave (10.14).
• With Overlapped Capture & Analysis enabled, failure cases (e.g. incorrect AF Microadjustment set in the camera, target not found etc) are not always handled correctly and may require you to quit the test and restart. If this is a problem, please disable Overlapped Capture & Analysis in the Preferences | Advanced tab.
• Dark Mode on macOS is supported but needs some more love…!

Getting this Release

Pre-release versions will be available to FoCal Pro and Commercial users (that are within their Included Updates Period). You can get the software in one of two ways:

• Go to the About > Update Check option in the software, and making sure the Update Channel is set to Alpha or Beta (FoCal 2.9 onwards). From here you can hit the Download button to get the software.
• By logging in to the LMS at lms.fo-cal.co.uk.  You should see a “Pre-Release Downloads” section – click this to view the available downloads.

It’s worth just checking the pre-release software FAQ to make sure you know type of software you’re getting.

Feedback

Beta releases are close to Stable releases of FoCal but require a wider testing audience. We would love for users to try out this Beta release and let us know what you think!

We’ve added a Send Feedback button in the About panel of the application.  Any bug reports, feature improvement, suggestions and general thoughts are very welcome.

Please do use the Send Feedback button in the software to send information back to us.  This ensures the feedback is sent to the right place and that we have the right information about the version being tested.

We will read all the comments you send us, but please note that for pre-release software these are NOT handled as support requests and we won’t necessarily be able to reply or follow up.

We are going to be pretty active with pre-release updates during this period, so please send feedback and there should be a new version with fixes/improvements along soon.

Thank you!

For those that download, use and provide feedback – thank you very much for your support with FoCal.  This sort of user testing and feedback really is invaluable – it helps us to focus on the things that are important to you, and make sure we deliver high quality software to everyone.