I spent an evening shooting portraits with a Canon camera that had eye-autofocus, but I wasn’t aware before being given the camera to use. Drove me nuts trying to work out what was going on! But after a bit of googling, it worked pretty seamlessly.
I have a Canon film camera that can do this. I hate the feature and switch it off. I like to scan the frame while composing and having the AF point jump everywhere annoyed me.
Geoff D F wrote:
I have a Canon film camera that can do this. I hate the feature and switch it off. I like to scan the frame while composing and having the AF point jump everywhere annoyed me.
That's something I haven't taken into consideration before.
Now I'm wondering if you are able to turn it on and off when half pressing the shutter or by pressing a button (kinda like back button focus).
Edit: Spoke too soon. Looks like in the newer models you can turn Eye Control AF on and off by half-pressing the shutter button. Source
Edit 2 - Electric Bugaloo: Spoke too soon again. Someone else was having issues with Eye Control AF in the Canon section, and people chimed in with some fixes. Source
shinyobject wrote:
I spent an evening shooting portraits with a Canon camera that had eye-autofocus, but I wasn’t aware before being given the camera to use. Drove me nuts trying to work out what was going on! But after a bit of googling, it worked pretty seamlessly.
Can you not choose your focus point yourself? Why fo you want the camera to do it for you. It's not as if it's a bird in flight moving in three dimensions.
Seems to be pretty evenly split over people liking vs. hating this feature. I guess I'm old school but I like the focus point in the center of the frame, until I tell it to be somewhere else. I don't like using touch screen focus either, never seems to be quite right.
The eye-controlled AF on the modern R series Canon cameras is not the same as the 90's version. I have the R3 and the eye-controlled AF is a tool like any AF mode. I turn it on, in conjunction with Face/Eye AF, when I want to switch quickly to different people. I was photographing a play in a theatre recently and the combo of eye-controlled AF and Face/Eye AF allowed me to quickly switch to different actors while using the 70-200mm lens. I could keep the same composition and make multiple photos quickly of the different actors. Typically, I use the feature when using telephoto lenses and the depth of field is shallow.
EB-1 wrote:
So did I, but there have been a few advances since 1998.
EBH
This thread tells me not much changed since 1998. Works pretty good for some, only ok for others, and frustrating for the remaining. Just like it was in 1998.
It's different though and you have to figure out when to use it.
Many camera features are not as good as you want even after waiting, like the precapture.
