I can not use the Back Button

Hello everyone, Reading these responses here in this forum I have a question for you.
In using my 7D I can not use the 7D in the BB way. I had a stroke and my right side is numb and I can not feel my fingers so I using the back buttons well not work for me. I use a wired remote used in my left hand. With the remote, am I using the 7D like you use the BB way (I think)? I hold the shutter on the remote until I release the shot or shots.

I think about that a lot and in the responds here I thought some of you might help me answer this.
Joe

Joe M wrote in post #15255741
With the remote, am I using the 7D like you use the BB way (I think)?

not really, the reason to use back button is to seperate the two functions so that you can focus away at anything, and fire the shutter seperately. Using a wired remote would just move the shutter button to another place and operate the same as the shutter button would.

Joeseph, I thank you for your response.
Joe

joeseph wrote in post #15255844
not really, the reason to use back button is to seperate the two functions so that you can focus away at anything, and fire the shutter seperately. Using a wired remote would just move the shutter button to another place and operate the same as the shutter button would.

It's getting pretty late, and I'm running on less than 4hrs sleep, but isn't the purpose of back button focus to separate the AE and AF functions? In other words, allow you to focus/re-focus without having the camera meter/re-meter the exposure of the scene?

It's the other way around. The purpose is to allow you to meter and trigger without focusing. You can never focus without engage metering. You have to lock metering if you want to focus after metering, without affecting the exposure. Or use manual mode, since that's always "locked".

apersson850 wrote in post #15259157
It's the other way around. The purpose is to allow you to meter and trigger without focusing. You can never focus without engage metering. You have to lock metering if you want to focus after metering, without affecting the exposure. Or use manual mode, since that's always "locked".

Of course you can, if you have it set up correctly. Half pressing shutter locks exposure. Recomposing and using back button then focuses without changing exposure. Everybody knows this...

Which is exactly what I wrote, if you cared to read the whole passage you quoted. But it still stands that you can't avoid engaging metering whilst focusing. Easy to see in M mode with any camera. Exposure is by default always locked there, but the meter will keep on moving as soon as you are using the AF. You can see it in a 1D-series camera too, if you lock a spot metering result, since these cameras have the same type of spot metering offset scale as was introduced once with the T90.

apersson850 wrote in post #15259157
You can never focus without engage metering. You have to lock metering if you want to focus after metering, without affecting the exposure. Or use manual mode, since that's always "locked".

Is what you wrote Anders. I appreciate you're not a native English speaker, but I can't understand this any differently. Separating the two functions means you can set exposure without focusing and focus without setting exposure. I appreciate that you have to maintain pressure on the shutter release to set exposure. So what have I not understood?

Edit... I think I see what you're getting at Anders. AF-on always meters, but doesn't lock exposure, so using shutter to lock exposure, the effect is the same as the two functions being separate.

Yes, I tried to tell that the camera is always metering along with focusing. However, when the metered result is used to set the exposure, that changes with the circumstances. It can be at the moment when you take the picture (like when using center-weighted metering, Av mode and no exposure lock), never (like when in M mode), or when exposure is explicitly locked. You probably thought about metering and setting the exposure as the same thing, but it really isn't.
But metering continues, and in some modes/with certain cameras you can use that fact to compare the current metered result to the previously set/locked exposure.

The other way around is perfectly doable, though. You can meter without focusing being activated.

I appreciate your understanding for me not being a native English speaker. I do my best, and participating in forums like this one is rather educational as well.

It was the word "engage" that tricked me. AF-on activates both AF and the meter but does not lock AE, which need a half press of the shutter. In effect, both functions are separate.

And your English is as good mine - and a lot better than my Swedish!

You don't have to have exposure lock on half-press either, if you don't want to. You can let that stay with the * button.

Or you can do as I do with my 7D, when I use back button focus together with Servo AF (for sports).

I have shutter release and metering only on the trigger button.
AF-ON is used to start focusing with the currently selected AF-point (often an expanded point).
* is used to start focusing with a pre-registered point (HP, Home Point).
M-Fn is use to do exposure lock, if I really feel that I need that.
DOF button is used to call up a different set of AF parameters, aimed specifically at being useful when a runner comes up very close to me.

Due to the reasonable programmability of the 7D, you can move around some of the functions across a number of keys, to set the camera up in a way which suits you.

Skål!

I have my bodies - 7D/5D2/50D and occasionally 30D - set up in a fairly standard way, although I have experimented with various alternatives. A bit boring, but after forty odd years with SLRs, it just seems to work for me. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

Cheers 'n' beers!