Two questions

I have two questions I have been wondering about.

1) Do you shoot with one eye or both open? I have always shot with with the "unused eye" closed but sometimes that cause problems for me if I am shooting for an extended period. It is just one of those things I have always wondered about.

2) This is more technical question......What, if any, advantage is there in using all the AF points on instead of just the center? I have always used the center but wonder if I a missing something.

At least for the 1st question...

I keep both eyes open, especially after last weekend when I was at an off road race and almost got ran over a couple of times. Not to mention a weekend of keeping an eye closed gets pretty uncomfortable.

I only close my other eye if I am shooting macro and really working with close focus.

Strick wrote in post #4069501
I have two questions I have been wondering about.

1) Do you shoot with one eye or both open? I have always shot with with the "unused eye" closed but sometimes that cause problems for me if I am shooting for an extended period. It is just one of those things I have always wondered about.

Whatever's most comfortable for you really. You'll find that one of your eyes (most likely your right one) is the "master" eye, so when you look through the viewfinder with that eye, your brain understands what you're doing (and you won't suffer from parallax issues). You'll find that you naturally either keep the other eye open or close it.

Strick wrote in post #4069501
2) This is more technical question......What, if any, advantage is there in using all the AF points on instead of just the center? I have always used the center but wonder if I a missing something.

There's differing schools of thought here. Many people will get away with only using the centre focus point, but the detriment there is that the subject of focus is dead centre. Doing that is fine, but it can lead to composition problems.

In the "any AF point" mode, you can have issues where the camera will chose the closest best candidate (basically an area of high contrast/edge) on which to focus. This can potentially lead to problems where you'll uninentionally focus on something other than what you want to focus on (i.e something in the foreground or background).

An alternative is to get yourself used to selecting the AF point yourself when you take the shot. Thinking about the AF point will also help you to focus on the composition, and can give you a better shot than simply using the centre AF point and snapping at things.

I recently started shooting football games and found that keeping my unused eye open helps to let me know what else is going on on the field.
Also, it makes my mouth come up in the corner when I close it, so I look kinda dumb.

Pete wrote in post #4069741
An alternative is to get yourself used to selecting the AF point yourself when you take the shot. Thinking about the AF point will also help you to focus on the composition, and can give you a better shot than simply using the centre AF point and snapping at things.

I can agree with that. I learned with a manual focus years ago so I guess I am just used to the center point. I ususally use the focus lock and then recompose the shot if I don't want the subject in the center.

GM_of_OLC wrote in post #4069765
Also, it makes my mouth come up in the corner when I close it, so I look kinda dumb.

HAHAHAHAHA......best reason to leave it open right there.

Strick wrote in post #4069791
I can agree with that. I learned with a manual focus years ago so I guess I am just used to the center point. I ususally use the focus lock and then recompose the shot if I don't want the subject in the center.

Beware. Focus lock and recompose can cause issues in some circumstances. If you're going to do this, use the AF point that's closest to what you want to focus on, doing that will minimise any problems.

An example of newb focus-recompose issue (mine from a year ago when I knew little).

http://www.the-aperture.com/EE/photos​/normal/IMG_1605.jpg

I used centre AF point on the top of the cross, locked it and then recomposed. Doing this threw the focus off.

Pete wrote in post #4069806
Beware. Focus lock and recompose can cause issues in some circumstances. If you're going to do this, use the AF point that's closest to what you want to focus on, doing that will minimise any problems.

Focus and recompose only creates a problem in some circumstances. If a wide aperture lens is at/near wide open AND the recompose causes a shift of the frame more than 20 degrees. Less than 20 degrees, and even the shallow DOF of the wide open lens can compensate for change in plane of focus quite readily. And even that is at relatively close distances where the DOF is relatively shallower!

A 50mm lens on APS-C at f/4 and focused at 40' has 26' of DOF! At f/2 it has 12' DOF. Shifting framing by even 30 degrees, where the subject was at 40' focus distance, only changes the subject 6' due to the swing in the plane of focus, and you can see that f/2 DOF more than compensates for that!

A 50mm lens on APS-C at f/2 and focused at 6' has 0.26' DOF. Shifting framing by even 20 degrees, where the subject was at 6' focus distance, changes the subject 0.38' due to the swing in the plane of focus, and you can see that f/2 DOF just compensates for that!

Learn to select the focus point you wan't. While the 9 points are not enough, they will allow you to compose well enough to get what you are after. Don't focus and recompose, this will result in the issue Pete examples above.

Also, I wouldn't let the camera choose the focus point as it will run to the highest contrast parts of the scene which does not mean it is focusing on what you want.

Wow, thanks for starting this thread. I always select the center point and recompose. I never thought I would ever need all the other focus points on these cameras. I'll try to compose the shot and use the closest focus point from now on. Thanks for the tip!