What’s New in FoCal 6.0

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What’s New in FoCal 6.0

Welcome to FoCal 6!

FoCal 6 is the biggest update to FoCal in years. It turns calibration into a Kit Health Check: FoCal now keeps track of how every camera and lens is performing, and tells you when something needs attention.

Key Enhancements

  • A completely new look on Windows and macOS, and FoCal starts up faster.
  • Kit History and Analysis (FoCal Pro). FoCal looks back over every test you’ve run, shows how your cameras and lenses are behaving over time, and tells you when something needs attention.
  • The new Compare tab (FoCal Pro). It replaces the Typical tab and shows, score by score, how your results compare with other users of the same camera and lens.
  • Much faster image processing. The way FoCal reads and works with the images from your camera, and draws its result charts, has been rebuilt: far quicker, even on slower computers, and it uses much less memory.
  • More reliable camera control, especially on Nikon and Canon. Tests are faster, Wi-Fi has been completely revamped and is much more reliable, a pulled cable is handled cleanly, there are fewer lock-ups, and putting your camera settings back after a test is now rock solid.
  • Better reading of image files and more accurate lens identification.
  • Tools for commercial users: customers, job sheets and your own logo on reports.

System Requirements

FoCal 6 needs a 64-bit Windows PC or a Mac:

  • Windows: Windows 11 (24H2 or later). Windows 11 23H2 and Windows 10 22H2 may work, but aren’t officially supported.
  • Mac: macOS 15 Sequoia or later, including macOS 26 and macOS 27. macOS 14 Sonoma is the minimum FoCal 6 will run on, but isn’t officially supported. Intel Macs are supported up to macOS 26.

Full details are on the Tech Specs page.

New Look

Every page in FoCal has been redesigned with a cleaner, more modern style. Menus, pages and buttons are still where you’d expect to find them.

  • Faster start-up. FoCal shows its new start-up screen almost immediately, with clear progress as it gets ready.
  • New Reduce Visual Effects setting (Settings). It turns off the translucent effects and animations, which helps on slower computers. FoCal also respects your system’s “reduce motion” setting.
  • Live View and running tests use a solid background, so fast-updating images stay crisp and responsive.
  • Long lists scroll instead of splitting into pages. The column headers stay in view, and History results are grouped by month.

Kit History and Analysis (FoCal Pro)

The History menu has a new set of tools that use the results you’ve already collected, so there’s nothing extra to do. The more you test, the more FoCal can tell you: run a Kit Health Check every few months (calibrate, then run FoCal’s other tests while you’re set up), and after a knock, servicing or a big change in temperature, and these tools show how your kit is holding up.

Kit Status

  • An at-a-glance view of every camera and lens pairing: when it was last tested and calibrated, and whether anything needs attention.
  • View it by camera or by lens, or focus on a single camera or lens. It’s available from the Home page, and from the History menu on the Camera page for the connected camera and lens, which also opens Analysis for them.
  • Maintenance Watch highlights pairings that are drifting, becoming less consistent, losing sharpness or overdue for calibration.
  • Zoom lenses are tracked separately at their wide and tele ends.

Analysis

  • Analyse a camera, a lens, a camera + lens pairing, or your whole set of bodies.
  • Lens Personality and Camera Personality charts summarise sharpness, AF consistency, AF fine-tune stability, calibration freshness, stabilisation and more, with a plain-English explanation of the scores.
  • AF fine-tune drift over time, with any sudden changes marked on the chart, and the likely cause when the evidence points to one, such as a knock to the camera body.
  • Sharpness over time and sharpness vs aperture, including the sweet spot, wide-open performance and where diffraction starts to take over.
  • AF consistency, sensor dust, Stabilisation Test and CalCheck results over time.
  • Calibration stability and body focus bias: how steady each pairing's AF fine-tune is, and whether a body consistently needs more or less AF fine-tune than your other bodies with the same lenses.
  • Body / lens matrix: a grid of every lens against every body. Click any cell to jump to that pairing.
  • “More insights as you test” tells you what to run when a panel needs more history, and “Tests you haven’t tried yet” explains what each unused test can tell you about your kit.
  • PDF reports for a camera, a lens or a camera + lens pairing, from the Analysis page or from Manage Kit.
  • FoCal Comparison Data bands on the charts for a single camera and lens, showing the typical range for that kit.

Home Page and Manage Kit

  • The Kit Insights panel on the Home page summarises what needs your attention.
  • Manage Kit (under History) lets you retire cameras and lenses you no longer own, so they drop out of your analysis, and export PDF reports for each item.

Results Database

  • FoCal now stores the key figures from each test, so Analysis is quick even with a large history. The first time FoCal 6 opens your history, it updates your database once; on a large history this can take a little while.
  • History backup and import show their progress, and FoCal warns you before you reinitialise your history.
  • A new database compaction option keeps your results file tidy.

The Compare Tab (FoCal Pro)

The Calibration, AF Consistency, Aperture Sharpness and CalCheck tests have a new Compare tab, which replaces the Typical tab. It shows your results against FoCal Comparison Data:

  • One row per score, showing where your result sits compared with other users of the same camera and lens, with a link to the full score card.
  • A “Worth knowing” section with notes about your result.
  • For Calibration, the spread of AF fine-tune values other users have, with your value marked.
  • How much comparison data is available for your camera and lens.
  • Results update as soon as the comparison data arrives.

AF Consistency now has a Scores tab, showing consistency of focus, image motion and astigmatism.

Clearer, fairer scores.

  • Score descriptions now say where your result sits (“better than most other users of this camera and lens”), and only suggest a fault when results are repeated.
  • When the comparison data doesn’t cover a measurement, FoCal uses its standard scoring instead of giving the worst possible score.
  • Calibration and Aperture Sharpness results are now measured the same way as the comparison data, so your score compares like with like.

More dependable comparison data. Data FoCal has already downloaded is always used; FoCal spaces out its requests to stay within the server’s limits; activating a licence takes effect straight away; and a network problem is reported as “unavailable” rather than “no data”.

Faster Image Processing

  • Much faster image handling and lower memory use, even on slower computers, and especially with high-resolution cameras.
  • Smoother, faster 3D charts with proper shading and lighting.
  • A more modern chart style in the app and in PDF reports.
  • Images with transparency and greyscale images are handled correctly.

Reading Image Files and Lens Identification

FoCal’s image-information reader has been brought up to date and checked against thousands of real images. This matters for tests run from files and for Image Info, and it also affects tethered tests.

  • More robust with damaged or unusual files. Files that used to cause an error are now read or rejected cleanly.
  • Nikon: AF point information is read correctly on the D5, D500, D850, D3400, D3500, D7500, D6, D780 and earlier Z bodies.
  • Nikon Z: focus distance is more accurate.
  • Canon: lens serial number is now read on bodies such as the 7D and 1D Mark IV.
  • Pentax: PEF raw files are identified as PEF rather than DNG, and some older Pentax, Ricoh and Casio files now open.
  • Lenses that share an ID are now told apart by the lens name the camera records, for example the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II and III. Improved lens names also appear for results already in your History.
  • The lens database has been updated with recently released lenses, and teleconverters are shown correctly.
  • Better lens names for Nikon, Olympus / OM System, Canon PowerShot and IXUS, Fujifilm, Sony and Ricoh files.

Nikon

The Nikon camera code has been thoroughly reviewed against Nikon’s specifications for every supported body and tested on real cameras.

  • Z series, D6 and D780: AF failures are now detected, so an out-of-focus shot no longer gets into your test. Live View AF failures are reported properly on all Nikon bodies.
  • D850: shots are about 1 second quicker.
  • D6: the correct AF point is used in Live View.
  • Live View starts faster on the D6, D780 and Z bodies.
  • High ISO settings (e.g. Hi 2 on a D850) are set correctly.
  • Putting your camera settings back is now rock solid, at the end of every test and even when a shot fails or focus can’t be found. The AF-S priority setting is restored, and the D850 and full-frame Z bodies are no longer left in DX after the Stabilisation Test.
  • Fewer hangs: long test sessions are more robust, failed downloads are retried instead of giving corrupt images, and a camera that fails part-way through connecting is closed cleanly.
  • D3, D300, D300S and D700: fixed a test hanging on the shot after Live View had been used, and your AF-S priority and exposure delay settings are put back after a failed shot.
  • Stabilisation Test: measuring the light level now works when the camera is set to highlight-weighted metering, and your metering mode is put back afterwards.

Canon

The Canon camera code has had the same thorough review and real-camera testing.

  • Faster tests: each setting change is about 0.2 seconds quicker, and putting your settings back at the end of a test is over a second quicker.
  • Putting your camera settings back is now rock solid, after every shot and even when focus can’t be found or a shot fails, including drive mode. FoCal checks that each setting, including AF Microadjustment, has really changed.
  • Fewer hangs: one unexpected message from the camera no longer stops FoCal talking to it, FoCal gives up on a missing shot after 90 seconds instead of waiting for ever, and failed downloads are retried.

Wi-Fi (Nikon and Canon)

Wi-Fi has been completely revamped, and it’s much more reliable.

  • Nikon: cameras on your home or office network are found automatically. Turn on Enable Nikon WiFi in Help › Settings (General tab) and leave the IP Address empty. See Nikon Network: Infrastructure.
  • Faster image downloads: a RAW file downloads about 40% faster on a 5D Mark IV.
  • Wi-Fi connections cope much better with network hiccups, long transfers no longer fail while data is still arriving, and a dropped connection is reported straight away.
  • Cameras that announce both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses now connect.

Windows

  • No more freezes when a camera stops responding over USB. FoCal reports the camera as disconnected after a minute.
  • Fixed an occasional hang when reconnecting a camera over USB (Nikon and Canon).
  • Fixed a rare hang of the FoCal window when a camera was plugged in while FoCal was busy.
  • FoCal no longer freezes if you close it during a test, and recovers if its display engine (WebView2) crashes.
  • FoCal’s program files are now digitally signed.
  • Installer: upgrades move FoCal from the old “FoCal 4” folder to “FoCal”.

macOS

  • Fixed reading camera responses over USB, which affected image downloads from Nikon cameras.
  • A problem in camera communication or device detection no longer closes FoCal.
  • FoCal recovers if its display engine crashes, and un-minimising FoCal no longer reloads the page in the middle of a test.
  • FoCal no longer blocks logging out, restarting or shutting down.
  • Updated for current macOS: file dialogs, alerts and Photos access use the current system features.

For Commercial Users

These features are for FoCal Commercial licences (see Using FoCal Commercial):

  • Customers page. Tests are grouped into visits. See visits by month, filter by customer, or view the whole shop.
  • Customer prompt when you connect a camera, so that camera’s tests are tagged with the customer.
  • Job sheets: a PDF for each visit, summarising every lens at a glance, followed by every test.
  • Your own logo on PDF reports (Settings › Commercial).
  • Customer names stay on your computer. They’re never uploaded, and are left out of exports unless you choose to include them in backups.

Other Improvements

  • Each test’s help has been rewritten, covering what the test is for, how to run it, how to read the results and when to run it.
  • The user manual and the Setup Checklist have been updated for FoCal 6.
  • Updated third-party components to address known security vulnerabilities, and FoCal’s built-in servers only accept connections from your own computer.
  • The “Don’t configure White Balance” setting now works.
  • AF Consistency’s horizontal and vertical consistency figures are now calculated correctly.
  • Fully Auto no longer fails with “Invalid calibration focus mode” after switching between a DSLR and a mirrorless camera.
  • Many smaller fixes and wording improvements throughout the app.

License Requirements

FoCal 6.0 is available to all users with an active Included Updates Period as of 5th November 2026.

  • Am I eligible? If you purchased FoCal or renewed your support within the last 12 months, you’re all set!
  • Need to renew? If your support has expired, log in at reikanfocal.com/account to purchase an additional 12 months of updates at a discounted price.

Renewing gives you:

  • 12 Months of Updates: Access every new release (and you keep the final version forever).
  • Comparison Data: See how your gear stacks up against the wider FoCal community.
  • Mobile Premium: Unlock full Premium features on our mobile apps – just log in with your FoCal Pro credentials.

Version Details

Component Version Type Release Date
FoCal – Windows & Mac 6.0.7.26308 Gen Availability 5th November 2026

Known Issues

  • There are no known issues with this release.