In a method for adjustment of a shim device of a magnetic resonance apparatus before an image acquisition in a body region that has a volume of interest, a field distribution is measured in a region encompassing the volume of interest produced with a shim device set according to a basic shim data set. A shim data set that is optimized for the volume of interest is determined by a control device starting from the basic shim data set, dependent on the field distribution; and the optimized shim data set is used for adjustment of the shim device. The basic shim data set is selected from a databank of body region-specific input shim data sets.