p.1 #1 · Oh, AF-ON... where have you been all my life?
I never really tried AF-ON before. At least, I never gave it a fair shot - I tried it off and on with my D300, but I wasn't used to it, so when I would miss a shot or find some quirk, I would just revert back to shutter release focus.
A few weeks ago, I was shooting a bird in a tree and kept losing focus to the surrounding branches when I'd half press to engage VR/metering, so I decided to make a concerted effort to give the AF-ON method a chance.
I'd say it's been nothing short of a revelation. I guess I had never considered how many times I was forcing the camera to refocus despite not actually needing it, and how many times that has caused a misfocused image. Additionally, I would often not attempt to shoot BIF because I couldn't leave the autofocus set to continuous during static shooting, and changing over was often not easy during a quick transition.
So I'm now a fan. I know there are some other advocates of AF-ON around here, have any of you tried it and disliked it? Why?
p.1 #2 · Oh, AF-ON... where have you been all my life?
I find it difficult to shoot without the focus decoupled from the shutter release now. I won't buy a camera without an AF-On button now (I also use the AE-L button for AE Lock).
p.1 #7 · Oh, AF-ON... where have you been all my life?
sjms wrote:
I use it as I need/want too. Just another tool.
I will say, despite the silliness of the mode dial on the D600/D7x000 compared to the button layout of the D300/700/800/etc., I do like that I can rapidly switch between U1 and U2 settings in a visible way. It lets me use AF-ON and the typically associated settings (continuous AF, 9-point area, spot metering) and switch out during less purpose-specific times... or when my girlfriend wants to use the camera, since she hates the AF-ON workflow.
p.1 #13 · Oh, AF-ON... where have you been all my life?
binary visions wrote:
I will say, despite the silliness of the mode dial on the D600/D7x000 compared to the button layout of the D300/700/800/etc., I do like that I can rapidly switch between U1 and U2 settings in a visible way. It lets me use AF-ON and the typically associated settings (continuous AF, 9-point area, spot metering) and switch out during less purpose-specific times... or when my girlfriend wants to use the camera, since she hates the AF-ON workflow.
I do agree the u1/u2 positions are actually more useful to me then an af on button
p.1 #17 · Oh, AF-ON... where have you been all my life?
I could never get the alleged manual override feature of AF-S lenses to work. The camera always fought back against my attempt to focus. I switched to AF-On only and the camera and I made peace.
p.1 #18 · Oh, AF-ON... where have you been all my life?
Vox Sciurorum wrote:
I could never get the alleged manual override feature of AF-S lenses to work. The camera always fought back against my attempt to focus. I switched to AF-On only and the camera and I made peace.
What do you mean about not being able to get it to override?
I mean, I manually override fairly frequently... but as soon as you half press the shutter again, the camera takes back over. Isn't that the point? You can grab the focus ring and override the camera at any time but if you ask the camera to start focusing again, it will dutifully start focusing again.
p.1 #19 · Oh, AF-ON... where have you been all my life?
Vox Sciurorum wrote:
I could never get the alleged manual override feature of AF-S lenses to work. The camera always fought back against my attempt to focus. I switched to AF-On only and the camera and I made peace.
Alleged? You mean you were doing it wrong, don't you? The override feature works great!
