Focus with Shutter or * [AF ON] button? -READ ME-

Half pressing the shutter isn't supposed to do anything in M mode. Remember that in M mode you are locking the exposure not by half pressing the shutter button but by setting your aperture and shutter speeds. So if you meter off a scene, set your aperture and shutter to say 4.5 and 400 respectively to centre your needle, that's your locked exposure when you recompose. The recomposed shot will show your needle has moved off centre but you will still be shotting at your 4.5/400 exposure setting.

Contrast

Yeah that's what I'm saying. So I was trying to figure the advantage moving focusing off of the shutter button would be for me since I only shoot manual (for the most part).

I decided that focus lock may be useful in some situations.

HJ,

This has helped tremendously just in the couple of days I've been using it. I have an Opteka BG on my XT and the shutter button isn't as crisp as it is with the Canon BG on the 20D, so I've developed a tendency to depress harder on the XT, and that's carried over to the BG on the 20D, which isn't necessary. Long story short, I sometimes got a little camera shake/blur. Now, once I focus with * I know I'm able to go all the way with my shot. Ta Da! Camera shake gone.

This could be a mental type of problem but I take my pills every day.

Thanks, again.

Oops my bad. Yeah focus then recomp is the only scenario I can think of. There may be others though.

I just literally switched. Hopefully I will get used to it, and not miss any good photos.

x2x3x4x5x wrote:
I just literally switched. Hopefully I will get used to it, and not miss any good photos.

Hopefully you will get some good photos you would have missed if you hadn't switched.

I was walking around today, and I've gotten used to it much faster then I would imagine, and I now prefer it to the shutter focus. It's much better for moving subjects as well.

WOOHOO! ANOTHER CONVERT!!!:p:p

The only reason I change back is if I'm doing a panorama and I can use one shot and the * is exposure lock again.

You could of course use the shutter button to lock AE, with CFn 4-1

But you need to release the shutter button to take the next shot in the pano.

No. Just keep it half pressed...

Cool.
That works

I use CFn 4-3 usually which sets the exposure for every shot.

Conventional wisdom generally recommends Manual mode for panoramas to ensure the same exposure with each shot.

Hi all,

I found this thread this morning and have been reading it with much interest. The reason for the interest is to try to minimize exposure issues when shooting fast moving action - preframed at a spot - i.e. prefousing on a spot that the action will move through and firing when the frame is filled with the athelete (to insure that I have things framed with a background, rather than trying to squeeze off the picture while panning in AI Servo and missing the background framing that I desired.) I have been doing this in One shot mode and missing too many exposures when the subject exposure settings are too different from the background, but now realize that Custom Fn 4 will give me some new options to try here. (Shooting manual or AE locking are usually not practical, as I am hopping around from shooting location to location and have a hard enough time getting my pre-focus and framing done correctly in the time available.) So the question that I did not see fully addressed: does shooting with C Fn 4-3 in Servo mode create any appreciable shutter lag with the meter at full press? i.e. Will I just be trading missed shots for exposure for missed shots from timing in C FN 4-3?

Great thread!

Andy