Hi,
Years ago, Canon had this really neat focus system in the EOS 3. You basically look where you want to focus on and the camera will focus there. From what I read, it is very accurate too.
Why is Canon not implementing this on its digital SLRs? Even the 1d-series doesn't have it. Instead we'd have to manually select the focusing points.
I used to have a EOS3 and it was indeed pretty cool. I remember reading some comments about it not working for everyone due to differing eye geometries and optics as well as having a higher learning curve. I think there was some postulation about its cost, but I don't remember any convincing evidence or data of that.
deepbluejh wrote:
Can you imagine how many complaints we'd have about autofocus with this feature on digital cameras? It's bad enough with fixed AF points.
The EOS3 actually uses the usual "fixed AF points." Eye focus was just meant as a faster way to select the appropriate focus point rather than scrolling through with a dial. The camera wouldn't focus anywhere on the screen; it would just select the regular focus point nearest where you were looking (and flash the focus point marker in the viewfinder so you could tell where the camera was focusing, same as with manual focus point selection).
Ghost wrote:
Hi,
Years ago, Canon had this really neat focus system in the EOS 3. You basically look where you want to focus on and the camera will focus there. From what I read, it is very accurate too.
Why is Canon not implementing this on its digital SLRs? Even the 1d-series doesn't have it. Instead we'd have to manually select the focusing points.
Maybe it is because the eye control wasn't all that popular. I owned it and wasn't all that impressed with it. Norm
I was wondering about the same question earlier. Even the old eye focus system used conventional AF spots, it would be so much easier to select the corresponding focus area just by looking at it. I am sure that nowadays this system could even be improved compared to the old one. Why is it not implemented yet? Business decision to go for a system like anybody else has it? Who knows. I hope they are working on an implementation of such AF system for DSLRs!
There are also some previous thoughts "from the time machine" that we can revisit, if you're interested in where an earlier discussion went, pros, cons, etc.
The A2E I used to have, it wasn't nearly as responsive as I'd hoped, and was more gimmicky than anything else, sadly. In fact I turned it off because that was back in the days when upper-tier SLRs used 2CR5s that cost about $12 a pop in 1993 dollars (ouch) and it seemed to me that the battery lasted longer when you didn't use ECF.
Oddly enough it seems that C2CR5s are cheaper today both on price, and inflation? I'm curious...
I'm sure ECF improved "lots" by the EOS-3, though I never used one.
I owned most of the ECF cameras: EOS 5, EOS 3, Elan 7E & Elan 7NE. They all worked well for me and sure beat using the joystick for selecting AF points. The 2004 Elan 7NE was Canon's last new film camera design and the ECF implementation was amazing: fast and basically a 100% hit rate for me (the EOS 3 was maybe 90% & the EOS 5 about 80%). I recall feeling like I had returned to the stone age when I bought a new 20D and tried to select AF points! Whatever you may think about ECF, it was like most other Canon features: you could deactivate it you didn't like it and choose several other methods of selecting AF points. I wish my 7D and 5D2 had ECF but meanwhile I've gotten pretty good with the joystick but still much slower than using ECF on the 7NE.
I don't know about the eos film cameras but back in the mid 90's Canon had eye focus in the ES5000 Hi8 video cams that you had to program to your eye. It would indeed focus any where you looked. Pretty cool stuff for the time.
Considering the estimate I recently got to transfer my tapes to DVD I sorely regret selling that camera.
It works great for me on my eos3.....if it was easy enough to implement in a digital body then why not put it there, I mean we had the direct print button for long enough and by all accounts very few used that!
