Ralph Conway wrote:
I myself had to train a new way of shooting, too. Camera was "nailed" to my eye and I had to learn that if I did not see everything in the whole VF the sensor did not see always where my view was pointing to. But that was a matter of two days and after it worked excellent. Of course I ignored it completely when I turnd the camera away from horizontal format. EOS 5 was not able to recognice that ... - EOS 3 and follow up consumer bodies where ...
Ralph, there is a fairly simple user mod to EOS 5 so it can do ECF in either orientation. You may already know this. Here is the link.
ECF worked perfectly for me on my Elan IIe ... and it was incredibly useful for the concert photography I did back then. I've missed having it on the progression of digitals that I've owned since that time.
I think they decided it was hard enough to get auto focus to work accurately enough without the extra frilly element of it. My bet some Canon exec personally hates it and killed killed killed it, probably banishing anyone that mentions it again something Steve J at Apple would have done.
For me it mostly worked with glasses. Mostly means not perfect but was handy at times. That was in 4x6 or 8x10 print times, now with 100% view sort of thing likely a disaster.
jwin wrote:
Ralph, there is a fairly simple user mod to EOS 5 so it can do ECF in either orientation. You may already know this. Here is the link.
- no, I did not know that! Thank you. I stopped using the EOS 5 nearly 10 years ago.
Never again shot film after I switched to digital (except some tests of Mamiya medium format).
But that information would have been a great help 10 years ago!
molson wrote:
I wear glasses, and for me the Eye Control on the EOS A2E and EOS 3 was a complete failure - it never worked properly, no matter how many times I calibrated it. The Elan IIE (50E) and 7E did work a lot better, but it still wasn't totally reliable.
That correlates exactly with my experience. (I have a strong astigmatism, no myopia. Contacts didn't provide stable vision, so glasses are a necessity.) I loved the overall feel and operation of the EOS 3 so much that I kept it and simply didn't use ECF. I still hope for an improved ECF for DSLRs, and would certainly give it another try.
Worked fine on my old film camera. Imagine what it could have been like now had they persevered with it - would just need to keep your eye on a bird flying across your viewfinder and it stays in focus or quickly composing a subject off centre!
Remember auto focus was poor when that was a new technology but they kept going with that and for those who didn't want it like many other options in a camera, it could be switched off. It's an amazing opportunity missed by camera manufactures.
Yes. And I do not see, why. Defining it by your view is the more natural way of choosing an AF point, compared to switch to one using a wheel, a stick or even manual focusing.
Todays technologie should make it possible to find out, where your eye points to whenever (and however) it covers the VF.
Problems with eye control here too. My girlfriend slaps me every time we go to the beach.
ECF always works fine for me though. If you wear glasses, it still works with them off, unless your eye is oblong or something.
I wear glasses and I loved it on my A2E (EOS 5). It was harder to control on my EOS 3, but still useful.
Using it took a bit of practice, though, in holding your eye in the same place each time.
In general, lots of people loved eye control focus and lots of people hated it. I think it was that disjoint that caused Canon to lose interest.... I wouldn't mind having the option again.
I loved it. When I talked to a Canon Japan bigwig back in 2005 and told him that it's the one feature I miss the most, he looked at me like I just fell from the sky.
EB-1 wrote:
Meh. ECF did not work well for me with the 45 points.
EBH
The EOS 3 had "area focus" when in 45 point mode. I didn't care much for that rendition. But when reduced to 11-point ECF it activated individual points accurately for me. The 2004 Elan 7NE was the ultimate refinement of ECF and it was a joy to use. Too bad it used film...
In another forum a long time ago I was just starting in photography, and the ECF intrigued me enough that I almost dropped Nikon for Canon. It was overwhelmingly popular and worked very well for most Canon users. I was always surprised Canon stopped offering it.
ECF worked perfectly for me in landscape orientation, but not portrait orientation on my EOS 3.
The ECF would have a threshold, so if you were constantly moving your eyes around the scene it would not keep moving focus. You needed to look at a particular point in the scene for a short time for it to acquire a focus lock.
Gochugogi wrote:
The EOS 3 had "area focus" when in 45 point mode. I didn't care much for that rendition. But when reduced to 11-point ECF it activated individual points accurately for me. The 2004 Elan 7NE was the ultimate refinement of ECF and it was a joy to use. Too bad it used film...
Sure but 11 points defeated the whole purpose for me.
- no, I did not know that! Thank you. I stopped using the EOS 5 nearly 10 years ago.