Simple Yi cam teardown, adjust lens for better focus (pics)

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reposted from chinese thread

http://bbs.xiaomi.cn/thread/index/tid/36334/

1. remove glue in red circle carefully

hmlxzvTl.jpg



2. turn the len around for better focus, you might need attach hdmi to your TV for details.

HvwGbAIl.jpg


3. Sample photo taken
Code: 
http://imgur.com/LpZ7yW7.jpg

4. Before, after, compared with GoProHERO4

Code: 
http://imgur.com/ipfdnQ0.jpg

150621144585b8f8cfc395160f.jpg
 
Last edited:
Hi,
I recently bought a yi Z23L.
I see that many yi have a problem of focus. I will try to adjust the way here, and in other sites, it is indicated.
There is something that puzzles me:
Xiaomi made a good camera at an unbeatable price, they made some improvements in the different releases I presume (Z21...22...23). For example I noticed they modified the microphone a bit (simple, but it implies a piece of work) which is consistent maybe with the problems of noise.
The puzzling question for me is:

most of the cameras have the focus problem (which I suppose they know) and they do not do the simple work of turning the lens two mm clockwise (or opposite)?
It seems strange.

Is it not possible that the problem resides on more complicated reasons than turning the lens? And that it can not satisfactorily solved simply turning the lens?
 
scuola said:
Hi,
I recently bought a yi Z23L.
I see that many yi have a problem of focus. I will try to adjust the way here, and in other sites, it is indicated.
There is something that puzzles me:
Xiaomi made a good camera at an unbeatable price, they made some improvements in the different releases I presume (Z21...22...23). For example I noticed they modified the microphone a bit (simple, but it implies a piece of work) which is consistent maybe with the problems of noise.
The puzzling question for me is:

most of the cameras have the focus problem (which I suppose they know) and they do not do the simple work of turning the lens two mm clockwise (or opposite)?
It seems strange.

Is it not possible that the problem resides on more complicated reasons than turning the lens? And that it can not satisfactorily solved simply turning the lens?
Click to expand...

I guess there might be two reasons:

1. tons of unsold batches, maybe next few batches would be properly tweaked.
2. QA/QC is ****. Yo know, it's made in China after all.
 
I think the reason is they planned to use it for selfie, so they set the focus for close pictures.
 
I wrote to the Xiaomi Europe Customer Service Center saying It seems to me that the focus distance of my camera is about 20 cm, or even less.

They answered:
".....Generally, you can take precise pictures as long as the distance of focus is above 10 cm."

I f I understand what reported in the thread "Hyperfocal distance" after fixing the focus at 112 cm we have all the objects from 56 cm to infinity... enough for a selfie, at least with a stick.....
 
here is a YT example I did with two Yi, one with the focus fixed and the other one no. You can see the difference at 0:26 on the white tree

 
Thanks for the video you can see big diffrent! do you think my camera needs this fix as well? im not sure....
 
Thanks David for the video,
I am not sure about the procedure of focus fixing.
Did you fix the focus pointing at an object at 112 cm or ...how?
 
Thanks,
here
https://dashcamtalk.com/xiaomi-yi/#Out_of_Focus
It seems they turn the lens clockwise. In other sites they say to turn the opposite.

....5) Check the focus and continue to readjust until it the image is focused

The image is focused ....I suppose you have to adjust the focus on a specific object at a fixed distance...
Here in the thread "Hyperfocal distance" it is determined that distance to be at 112 cm if you want the focus field to be from 56 cm to infinity.
Is it correct?
 
scuola said:
Thanks,
here
https://dashcamtalk.com/xiaomi-yi/#Out_of_Focus
It seems they turn the lens clockwise. In other sites they say to turn the opposite.

....5) Check the focus and continue to readjust until it the image is focused

The image is focused ....I suppose you have to adjust the focus on a specific object at a fixed distance...
Here in the thread "Hyperfocal distance" it is determined that distance to be at 112 cm if you want the focus field to be from 56 cm to infinity.
Is it correct?
Click to expand...

here is link
https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/hyperfocal-distance.12235/

anyone can answer my question?
"
Thanks for the video you can see big diffrent! do you think my camera needs this fix as well? im not sure....
"
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it needs focus fix.
Once again, paste raw screenshots from videos. It's really hard to judge quality looking at YT sclips.
 
Is it advisable to focus the lens? bcoz mine was still in factory settings,
My question is, do i need to focus the lens for much better sharpness?
 
how far a focused object should be away from cam to know its perfectly focused?


just bought the cam and noticed the focus issue . but i dont understand the fix example . are you focusing on close object? isnt THAT the issue ?
 
Last edited:
as said many times - it depends on your intended usage of teh cam.

selfies - keep it as is.
Anything else - refocus to 115cm.
 
Andy_S said:
as said many times - it depends on your intended usage of teh cam.

selfies - keep it as is.
Anything else - refocus to 115cm.
Click to expand...


thank you ! definitely not selfies !

btw , do i need to glue it back or is it stiff enough to hold in place after removing the glue ?
 
better safe than sorry, use atleast hot snot or something easily removable.
 
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