What's the benefit of focusing using AF-ON on the 40d?

Whats the benefit of using this button to focus and then using the shutter button to take the picture?

Benefits of C.Fn. 4-1(3) were discussed to death in this forum.

-=ARTHUR MORRIS ON USING AI SERVO AND C.FN-04 =-

-=The CFN #4-1 Thread=-

Benefits of AF-ON button instead of * is that it leaves * button available for FEL.
With C.Fn. 4-1(3), focusing is assigned to * and FEL is lost.

I tried it. It felt super-awkward.

as said above its been flogged to death on that thread..

but its something i use all the time - esp for sport and motorsport.... my keeper rate has gone up by a huge margin. It takes a while to get use to it - but now i am use to it, it has become second nature..

Thanks for the link. I was unaware of the custom function.

in the 30d it was a custom function - the 40d has the button as standard.. nice touch canon -

now get rid of the stupid direct print button. please

Matt57 wrote in post #3885742
I tried it. It felt super-awkward.

Trust me, it's like that for almost everyone. I hated it at first, but now it's second nature.

Sometimes I still switch the AF back onto the shutter button -- but only when I need to mash down the shutter button and have the exposure start as soon as focus lock is achieved in One Shot.

Matt57 wrote in post #3885742
I tried it. It felt super-awkward.

I'm the exact opposite. I've been using * to focus for so long l feel "super-awkward" if I have to use the shutter release to auto focus and lock exposure.

Lord_Malone wrote in post #3886160
I'm the exact opposite. I've using * to focus for so long l feel "super-awkward" if I have to use the shutter release to auto focus and lock exposure.

Same here! Getting FEL back for me pretty much justifies the upgrade in itself as I shoot a lot of indoor events with flash where E-TTL is highly unpredictable. Spot metering will now be far more practical.

A bit like being forced to use one of those bonkers single-button Mac mouses...

Lord_Malone wrote in post #3886160
I'm the exact opposite. I've using * to focus for so long l feel "super-awkward" if I have to use the shutter release to auto focus and lock exposure.

I still use the star on my 40D did not see point of changing the way I worked

MaDProFF wrote in post #3886689
I still use the star on my 40D did not see point of changing the way I worked

I was heading down that route, until I found how to configure the AF-ON button so that it performed exactly the same as the Cust 4-1 with * used to on my 400D. The AF-ON button sits at a very natural place for my thumb, so no point in moving that function across to the *.