CPA with CPS?

[atolk]

I signed up for CPS Gold and, while I look forward to my 5 lenses/cameras cleaned, what I am really after is CPA: Canon Precision Alignment of my two main lenses to my main body. I do have a backup body, but assume that asking to align two lens to two bodies does not work. Please correct me if I am wrong on this.

How do I know if I need CPA, how do I know how much it will be, and how do I request it? I do live near service center, so I am temped to walk in with all my gear and ask for clarifications there, but I get an impression that they only physically accept orders, but all arrangements must be main online.

Is CPA considered a repair, and do I just get 20% off from my Gold CPS membership?

I tried going through the steps of requesting CPA, and I got:
$239 for one lens
$239 for another lens
$89 for the body
before discount.

At no point did I see the option to specify that I want two lenses calibrated to one body, or any "package discounts". Am I really looking at $567 to calibrate my gear? I don't even know for sure that I need it. I have a 20 year old 70-200mm, which is my workhorse and fairly sharp, a newish RF 100-500, which seems to have a lot of focusing/sharpness issues, but could also be user error, and an almost new R6 Mk2 to go with them.

Do I want to go through CPA? Is it possible to send them all for free maintenance and request an answer whether they need CPA? Or do people only do CPA when there are clear focusing issues?

Thanks!   

[johnrmoyer]

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@FloridaDrafter wrote:

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@atolk wrote:

I guess I will hold off on messing with the lenses (or cameras) and shelling out the $$ until I see an actual issue that needs correcting.

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What I've noticed with my R's (R5, 6, and 6 mark II) is that, when zoomed in in post, they are a bit soft (I use all RF L glass), not terrible and probably not noticeable to most, but noticeable to me at 100%+. I handle it to my satisfaction by tweaking unsharp mask, and by adding a little contrast and clarity in post (I use DPP 4). I found this tip somewhere, probably in one of the many books I have, to overcome the low pass (AA) filters on these sensors, and it seems to work for me.

Newton

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If using Canon DPP as you and I do, and using a Canon lens, then Digital Lens Optimizer in DPP seems to me to work well. The DPP manual ( https://cam.start.canon/en/S002/manual/html/UG-04_EditImage_0040.html ) says that unsharp mask should be applied after DLO.

DLO seems to me to mostly fix small aperture diffraction blur if the ISO number is not too large, the camera too warm, or too much noise from another source. The manual says DLO helps correct loss of detail due to the Anti-Aliasing low pass filter.

Digital lens optimizer

Various aberrations from lens optical characteristics can be corrected, along with diffraction and low-pass filter-induced loss of resolution.

Note that Digital Lens Optimizer requires RAW images captured using lenses listed in the [Add or Remove lens data] window.

For best results, set [Sharpness] or [Strength] for [Unsharp mask] to 0 for RAW images you will edit with Digital Lens Optimizer.

Caution

• Use of this function requires installation of EOS Lens Registration Tool (version 1.4.20 or later).

• Digital Lens Optimizer is not available for the following images.

  • Images from EOS 20D/20Da, EOS 10D, EOS D2000, EOS D6000, EOS D30, EOS D60, EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT/350D, or EOS DIGITAL REBEL/300D
  • Images captured using EF Cinema (CN-E) lenses
  • Multiple-exposure RAW images created on the camera

Note

• Digital Lens Optimizer can be applied to images from the EOS 5D with firmware version 1.1.1 or later and the EOS 30D with firmware version 1.0.6 or later installed.