Eye Control on DSLR?

[FlyingPete]

Any ideas why you never see the Eye Controlled focus in DLSR's? I could take it or leave it personally.

[scottbergerphoto]

Probably because the switch to digital and having to learn about monitor calibration and color management has left many of us cross eyed! :lol: :lol: :lol:
Scott

[drisley]

:lol: :lol:

[steven]

Eye control has not become very popular.

I try to avoid too much technology.

As well as I've found the auto focus selection is not all the I would want it to be and thing that would be the case for the eye control.

[Motorsports Photo]

I enjoyed the eye controlled autofocus on my A2E.

I do wish they would put it back on a digital body, but I'm guessing there werent enough of us that liked it for them to fit it into a new body.

AFAIK, it IS quite popular in video.

-Pete

[Alan Neilson]

It was one of the features I liked on my eos5 and took a bit of geting used to not having it when I got my 10D, but now just press the button and select which focal point, I can even do it with out taking my eye from the viewfinder now. ( well most of the time)

But I do agree with Scott, about going crosseyed though! :)

[ScottE]

I had eye control auto focus on my EOS 3. I spent a lot of time getting it calibrated when I first got the camera. Then I turned it off and never used it in a serious photography situation. I just found it too fiddly and gimicky to bother with.

It is the thing I miss least after switching to digital and don't care if Canon never puts on another camera that I buy.

Then again, I assign AF to the * button and still manual focus much of the time so maybe I'm just old fashioned.

[roanjohn]

How is this different from just making all focus points active??

..........I think its the same thing no??

Ro1

[ScottE]

No.

If all sensors are activated, the camera will generally choose to focus on the one which has the closest subject.

With eye control focus you look at a specific point in the view finder and the focus sensor nearest that point will be the only active one.

Generally you find yourself composing so that a sensor is over the point where you want critical focus (such as the near eye) and stare at that sensor mark. If the camera is calibrated properly and you have the camera positioned properly on your face, that sensor will light up to show it is active.

I did not find that to be very reliable and preferred to just activate the centre sensor, point that at the critical point, push the shutter part way down (or the * button if I am using CF 4) then recompose and shoot.

My D20 is still on back order, but I understand that the new joy stick has much the same function as the eye control, but will probably be much more reliable.

[pradeep1]

My Elan IIe has eye focus and I liked it. Many people derided it as a gimmick, but I thought it was useful, especially in AI Servo mode. I also liked the way DOF was enabled by looking at a corner. That was really useful.

[Andy_T]

Maybe because it's difficult enough to get a photo properly focused even without eye focus? :twisted:

The number of rants about front- or back-focusing Canon DSLR's would suggest that to me...

Best regards,
Andy

[KennyG]

I had it on one of my film bodies and it was nothing more than a useless toy. A lot of we sports photogs shoot with both eyes open. You often catch action with the eye not on the viewfinder and start looking that way as you swing the camera. It made eye control simply useless.

I'd rather not have it, minority interest, more to go wrong and would probably push the price up.

[johneo]

I've got it on my Elan 7NE and the first number of rolls of film it was great to use, but thinking about it, I used it because it was more of a novelty. Those rolls were mostly for practice to get used to the camera.

The 7NE eye control is very fast and accurate but my problem is I have a tendency to focus on my subject and then look around at the framing and that does throw the focus out. Then when the lighting changes the eye control settings need to be changed (you can program a number of eye control settings).

I haven't used it since and I think that has more to do with my 10D not having it. I use the 10D a lot more than the 7NE so EC becomes more work than it's worth. Or a better way to say it would be it takes more getting used to it than it's worth.

I wouldn't mind have eye control on my digital camera but I do think it is more of a gimmicky thing than a real need. Hey, it sounded really great when I went looking and I paid extra for it. Now I hardly (only the first few days, maybe a week) ever use it.