When I conceived LensAlign, there were several "test charts" available on the web. They all were useful in that they were free of charge, but they all suffered from one or more issues when it came to testing for AF back/front focus issues. Late in my design process, when all of the strategic design goals had been met, I came across Jeffrey’s Autofocus Test Chart.

Clearly Jeffrey had done his homework, and bested all of the previous charts and techniques that I had come across. And better yet, he was honest and scientific about the shortcomings of his own design and open to a better mousetrap. But he was out of time for his home-brew project.

Who better than Jeffrey, then, to poke holes in my design if they existed. Although I had not heard of Jeffrey, it turned out that we had more then lens testing methods in common. I had been helping the Adobe design team with Adobe Lightroom 1.0, and managing the transition of RawShooter from Pixmantec to Adobe. and it turns out that Jeffrey had just signed on with Adobe to do Lightroom software project in a consulting capacity. Also, I had used Regular Expressions in a software product I designed a few years back for the Pro Audio market, and it turns out that Jeffrey literally wrote the book! And of course we are both enthusiast photographers, and tech geeks, and love our families.

Jeffrey explains what happened from there in today's post on his blog [link].

Thanks, Jeffrey!

In other LensAlign news:

• Pro shipments begin today.
• 2nd production run on schedule (so far) for next week (complicated a bit by Xmas)
• Lite shipping still slated for Jan 10 or so
• Lite may gain a tripod socket (no promises)

Thanks to all who have ordered so far.