Back Button AF?

JWdlft wrote in post #18119899
Let me be clear then: when someone sees a function that they don't use themselves, and can't think of a use for it, that does not mean that others can't find a use for it. All it means is that that person can't, period. If that person then wants to tell the users that they are using 'kindergarten mode, for babies' then I may tell him that his use of the LCD -chimping!, or light meter -there's the sunny 16 'rule' that works, etc. is for rank amateurs who need those crutches.
To put it even more clearly, there are circumstances that I need the autofocus and licht metering under one button. Couldn't get the photograph I want otherwise. It all depends on your photography and your command of your camera, not your age or education level.
If you don't intend to be judgmental, don't be. Quite simple. If you are, don't be surprised if someone calls you out on it.

You're absolutely right. I was just trying to be funny when I said "kindergarten mode" but didn't mean to deliberately bash anyone who doesn't use BBF. I know there are many pro photographers who don't use BBF, and they're far better than I am.

Whenever I get a new camera, I immediately turn off the annoying focus beep, and disable focus on the shutter button. Those are the default settings right out of the box (which is kinda why I said "kindergarten mode"). It's not a matter of "this is better than that" but a matter of what works best for each individual.

I probably should have worded things differently.

Jared5 wrote in post #18120846
I probably should have worded things differently.

Me too.

Wilt wrote in post #18120524
Folks this debate about BBF use or not, and pros vs. amateurs vs. kindergartners...think of this actual situation shot by anyone...

When you PREFOCUS at a certain point in the scene, you want to be able to activate the shutter without worry about inadvertantly refocusing to a different plane. IOW, if you have focus on the shutter button, HOW does one take advantage of knowing the plane of focus and the DOF Zone is deep enough to render something important in the foreground will be in focus, as well as some far off background element in the shot is also in focus, when the lens refocuses as soon as you press the shutter?

There is NO way of ensuring this static unchanging plane of focus when you have the focus function activated by the shutter button...is there a way, other than to switch off the AF function on the lens?
If switching off AF on the lens is the way to do this, then you have to remember to turn on AF switch again if you wanted to refocus for any reason, and having to always remember is definitely a thorn in the side to have to remember...I know what a pain it is when I switch off AF on my Tamron simply to permit manual focus adjustment, and I later forget I switched it off and I am standing there wondering "why isn't this focusing ...oh duh, I turned if off"!

Except the only way to ensure the autofocus doesn't accidentally kick in IS to switch it off. One photographer I know, who does most of his landscape work in manual focus, actually goes in and turns it off in the control menu. Much harder to have some accident with the controls tripping a function if that function isn't even enabled. Yes, moving it to another button makes it much harder to activate if you aren't planning on it, but if the function is still enabled, then it can still be accidentally activated a whole lot easier than it could be if you turned it off completely.

In most cases turning it off or on is a flick of a switch, and is something that many photographers I know get into the habit of checking before they raise their camera to take a shot where they're planning to use it. Given that it is pretty easy for that switch to get flipped accidentally, it seems pretty reasonable to me to take the second to double check it on a regular basis.

Planning to not use autofocus for some shots, but like focus-shutter combo button? Flick the switch off and turn it back on. Makes far more sense than remapping it to the back button and then mapping it the shutter button again when you're done.

Disabling AF via switch indeed does prevent accidental AF usage (although it does not disable the focus ring from its connection)

However, there are those of us who think that taking the focus off the shutter button makes the AF camera behave exactly the same as the manual focus film camera...
you HAVE TO deliberately make use of the focus ring (or now, the AF button) to change focus, the shutter only determines metering and shutter operation.
Both film and AF digital have 'meter hold' buttons to hold metering so that shutter operates ONLY the shutter; but we do not have a 'focus hold' button to disable the focus function on the shutter. Better to have 'operate AF' button specifically, as we do not have a 'focus hold' button usually (unless we assign one).

Keeping focus on the shutter button means that you have to deliberately disable focus in order for focus change to not occur; yet that slows down use when you DO want to change focus suddenly...find the switch and change it.

Different styles of usage, different strokes for different folks. Spending 30+ years without AF available means a more traditional style of usage makes more sense to me.

nqjudo wrote in post #17836037
So based on your listed gear I'm guessing this would be with your 7D2 and the 100-400? What do you do when you put the 1.4x TC on and are locked to the centre point? Or do you bird without the TC?

I see that I never responded to your question. I've tried the converter but didn't like the IQ. It stays in the bag until I upgrade my lens. When I did use the converter, the subject was far away, so there was plenty of dead space that cropping could be done in post. Most of my images are cropped and ""recomposed" then. Now that I have a larger camera body I may give BBAF another try this fall and winter when the waterfowl return.

I'm sorry but I just don't get it. I've even tried it and it just seemed really hard to do so I went back to the shutter release button. Kind of like walking and chewing gum at the same time. Honest. I found it very hard to do. I would either be pushing the AF BB or the Shutter release at the wrong time. the AFBB is not a normal movement for my finger/brain.

As far as recomposing, I have never had one issue with recomposing by simply using the shutter release button half way down, focus, hold and recompose.

I just don't get it. I would like to get it but it's just hard.

dhornick wrote in post #18121165
I'm sorry but I just don't get it. I've even tried it and it just seemed really hard to do so I went back to the shutter release button. Kind of like walking and chewing gum at the same time. Honest. I found it very hard to do. I would either be pushing the AF BB or the Shutter release at the wrong time. the AFBB is not a normal movement for my finger/brain.

As far as recomposing, I have never had one issue with recomposing by simply using the shutter release button half way down, focus, hold and recompose.

I just don't get it. I would like to get it but it's just hard.

You could do it if you practiced it. Its like anything that's new...it takes time to get used to it.

dhornick wrote in post #18121165
I'm sorry but I just don't get it. I've even tried it and it just seemed really hard to do so I went back to the shutter release button. Kind of like walking and chewing gum at the same time. Honest. I found it very hard to do. I would either be pushing the AF BB or the Shutter release at the wrong time. the AFBB is not a normal movement for my finger/brain.

As far as recomposing, I have never had one issue with recomposing by simply using the shutter release button half way down, focus, hold and recompose.

I just don't get it. I would like to get it but it's just hard.

I tried it a few years ago and had a similar experience. I ended going back to "out of the box normal" after a few days. This was on a 60D. I started doing more and more bird photography when I added some lenses and got a 70D. I thought I might as well try this again as so many people here and in books I've read suggest it for wildlife and birding.

I'm not sure what happened, but it started working for me. It didn't click at all on the first attempt, but the second time around, probably because of the subject matter, it made things easier. You sort of get in the habit of hitting the back button to focus repeatedly as you are tracking a bird in flight. It's more positive than trying to push the shutter button down half way: you either have it pushed or you don't.

That said, I don't use it for landscapes.... or anything where I'm not in AI Servo. If I'm in one shot, I'm usually on a tripod and using a shutter release so it makes no sense to me in that situation. That said, when I'm shooting stationary birds, I'm often on a tripod in AI Servo so I do use BBF in that scenario.

Van Gogh wrote in post #18120558
I use back button focus exclusively for so many reasons that it will take too many sentences to list
And there is no way I can go back to using shutter button for focusing once I got used to back button focus.

This is me.

As a general rule I find BBF works best for stationary subjects, which is what I do the vast majority of the time. I will occasionally switch to shutter button focus with action shots, but when I do it's not intuitive anymore.

dhornick wrote in post #18121165
I'm sorry but I just don't get it. I've even tried it and it just seemed really hard to do so I went back to the shutter release button. Kind of like walking and chewing gum at the same time. Honest. I found it very hard to do. I would either be pushing the AF BB or the Shutter release at the wrong time. the AFBB is not a normal movement for my finger/brain.

As far as recomposing, I have never had one issue with recomposing by simply using the shutter release button half way down, focus, hold and recompose.

I just don't get it. I would like to get it but it's just hard.

It takes practice, and may simply not be something that affects/is noticeable in your own way of shooting.

That said, even in your example, if you shoot "out of the box", and focus/recompose, the half-hold of the shutter button is only good for the next shot you take. Any subsequent shot, you have to redo all of the same steps because AF is triggered again the next time you being pressing the shutter button. So, you're focusing on the eye, reframing to get the whole head, snapping the shot, going back to focus on the eye, reframing, snapping the shot each time you go around.

Whereas, with AF taken off of the shutter button, you can focus, frame, shoot, adjust frame, shoot, etc. until you want to focus elsewhere and not have to, needlessly, refocus.

Additionally, say you want to meter off of two different areas of the frame without changing location of you or your subject. With "ootb", you have to meter/focus where ever in the frame you want to take your setting from, dial in your exposure, then reframe for where you want focus to fall (and potentially recompose from there), take the shot, then lose your current focus in order to re-meter somewhere else, re-focus, maybe re-recompose, shoot, etc.

With BBF, you would simply meter where ever you want to start, focus (recompose if needed), shoot, re-meter elsewhere, recompose for composition, shoot, etc. Note that there is no step now for re-focusing because you didn't change your focus by re-metering.

Or, if you simply want to recompose your shot for a different framing after the first shot. "ootb" requires that you refocus before taking each framing, whereas BBF allows you to meter/focus once and then reframe as many shots as you want. So, instead of focus, frame, shoot, focus, frame, shoot; you get focus, frame, shoot, frame, shoot.

Sarcasm is hard to read on forums sometimes.

Certain people do not understand sarcasm at all.

A prodigious use of smileys can help a lot.

I never use smileys

I find it really annoying that you have to switch the AF back to the shutter button in order to use a remote release. It is pretty simple to construct a wired remote with separate buttons for focus and shutter and given how popular BBF is I'm surprised that you can't actually buy one configured with separate buttons, After all the double press buttons they use are simply wired as two switches, with a common return line. It seems that Canon chose to hard wire the remote shutter button in parallel with the actual shutter button in the camera, rather than have it connected to it's own logic inputs on the controller. Personally it would be much better if they just looked at the remote release pins, and used them to operate the focus and shutter systems as a direct override to whatever is set on the camera.

Alan

BigAl007 wrote in post #18121515
I find it really annoying that you have to switch the AF back to the shutter button in order to use a remote release. It is pretty simple to construct a wired remote with separate buttons for focus and shutter and given how popular BBF is I'm surprised that you can't actually buy one configured with separate buttons, After all the double press buttons they use are simply wired as two switches, with a common return line. It seems that Canon chose to hard wire the remote shutter button in parallel with the actual shutter button in the camera, rather than have it connected to it's own logic inputs on the controller. Personally it would be much better if they just looked at the remote release pins, and used them to operate the focus and shutter systems as a direct override to whatever is set on the camera.

Alan

Interesting idea. I would love it if they did that.
Although I'm sure it would confuse lots of people, and they could charge extra for the new remotes!

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BigAl007 wrote in post #18121515
I find it really annoying that you have to switch the AF back to the shutter button in order to use a remote release.

I don't think that you do have to switch AF back to the shutter button. I have the AF set to the back button on both my 5D, my 50D, and my 1D4, and I use a remote release on all of these bodies and it works fine and I have never set the AF back to the shutter button.

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Tom Reichner wrote in post #18121645
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have the
I don't think that you do have to switch AF back to the shutter button. I have the AF set to the back button on both my 5D, my 50D, and my 1D4, and I use a remote release on all of these bodies and it works fine and I have never set the AF back to the shutter button.

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I think this is correct. I have used a set of Phottix triggers as a remote and they worked fine. But I usually just use the delay timer. If I haueve live view enabled, the mirror is already up and everything is still, so I just use the shorter delay time. And, if I am plugged up to my DSLR Controller app, I have the big display on my phone or tablet and a remote shutter release right on the remote screen. Couple that with the short delay and it's hard to beat.