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Excuse the basic question, but on the Canon 10D I am having difficulty
understanding the advantage of having 7 AF points. I usually shoot in manual
mode and I am very happy with the results from this camera. But I would like
to understand more about the benefits of having so many AF points. Why not
just select the centre one, lock focus on subject, recompose and then shoot?
Why bother selecting the AF point that best suits the composition? I know
there must be a very important reason and I am missing something very
obvious. Any help appreciated.

>
>Excuse the basic question, but on the Canon 10D I am having difficulty
>understanding the advantage of having 7 AF points. I usually shoot in manual
>mode and I am very happy with the results from this camera. But I would like
>to understand more about the benefits of having so many AF points. Why not
>just select the centre one, lock focus on subject, recompose and then shoot?
>Why bother selecting the AF point that best suits the composition? I know
>there must be a very important reason and I am missing something very
>obvious. Any help appreciated.

About the only reason I could see is for following a moving subject while
manitaining focus. Other than that the camera is merely guessing at what it is
you want it to focus on. On my Canon Elan IIe I only used the center focusing
point and I would simply lock the focus with the rear AE lock button customized
to activate AF. I found it silly to have 5 focus points

bzbzb (zbzbzb) writes:

> About the only reason I could see is for following a moving subject while
> manitaining focus. Other than that the camera is merely guessing at what it is
> you want it to focus on. On my Canon Elan IIe I only used the center focusing
> point and I would simply lock the focus with the rear AE lock button customized
> to activate AF. I found it silly to have 5 focus points
>

Canon Elan IIe has only 3 AF points (check e.g.
http://www.canon.com/camera-museum/c...5_eos55_s.html)
so the amount of silliness is not too bad (only 2 AF points over those
actually needed).

Bye, Dragan

--
Dragan Cvetkovic,

To be or not to be is true. G. Boole No it isn't. L. E. J. Brouwer

!!! Sender/From address is bogus. Use reply-to one !!!

In article <bqfovh$j8n$>,
says...
> Excuse the basic question, but on the Canon 10D I am having difficulty
> understanding the advantage of having 7 AF points. I usually shoot in manual
> mode and I am very happy with the results from this camera. But I would like
> to understand more about the benefits of having so many AF points. Why not
> just select the centre one, lock focus on subject, recompose and then shoot?
> Why bother selecting the AF point that best suits the composition? I know
> there must be a very important reason and I am missing something very
> obvious. Any help appreciated.

I keep mine set on the center focus point most of the time but just this
past weekend I had a situation where the multiple points came in handy.
I was taking Santa pictures at a local children's store and I had my
camera mounted in portrait orientation on a tripod. I always focus on
the eyes and in this situation, the eyes weren't in line with the center
focus point, so I selected the point that did fall on the eyes and it
worked like a charm. With the camera on a tripod in basically a fixed
position, it would have been very hard to lock focus and recompose,
especially shooting pics of kids where timing is of the essence

--
__________________________________
Todd Walker
http://www.toddwalker.net
Canon 10D page:
http://www.toddwalker.net/canon10d
__________________________________

>Canon Elan IIe has only 3 AF points (check e.g.
>http://www.canon.com/camera-museum/c...5_eos55_s.html)
>so the amount of silliness is not too bad (only 2 AF points over those
>actually needed).
>
>Bye, Dragan

You are right. I also had an A2 which is the one that had the 5 points. Either
way it was silly for typical use.

Mike wrote:

> Excuse the basic question, but on the Canon 10D I am having difficulty
> understanding the advantage of having 7 AF points. I usually shoot in manual
> mode and I am very happy with the results from this camera. But I would like
> to understand more about the benefits of having so many AF points. Why not
> just select the centre one, lock focus on subject, recompose and then shoot?
> Why bother selecting the AF point that best suits the composition? I know
> there must be a very important reason and I am missing something very
> obvious. Any help appreciated.

The D100 has 5 points. I use the upper one for shooting people so there
face is not in the center of the shot. I use the two side ones for
situation involving two people side by side. The right one is handy
when shooting people in verticals. I haven't really found a use for the
bottom one.

I leave it on center most of the time but since it's really easy to
change from the back of the camera I do use the other points as the
situation requires. If I am going to be shooting a lot of pictures
where an alternate focus point will save time, I change it.

In article <>,
bzbzb (zbzbzb) writes:

>You are right. I also had an A2 which is the one that had the 5 points.
>Either
>way it was silly for typical use.



First thing I turned off with my C 4040Z (iESP)
Silly isnt the word for it.............
























"Only a Gentleman can insult me, and a true Gentleman never will..."

>>You are right. I also had an A2 which is the one that had the 5 points.
>>Either
>>way it was silly for typical use.
>
>
>
>First thing I turned off with my C 4040Z (iESP)
>Silly isnt the word for it.............

I also killed the 9 point AF in the A80 in the first few pics.

Mike wrote:

> Excuse the basic question, but on the Canon 10D I am having difficulty
> understanding the advantage of having 7 AF points. I usually shoot in
> manual mode and I am very happy with the results from this camera. But I
> would like to understand more about the benefits of having so many AF
> points. Why not just select the centre one, lock focus on subject,
> recompose and then shoot? Why bother selecting the AF point that best
> suits the composition? I know there must be a very important reason and I
> am missing something very obvious. Any help appreciated.

The advantage is that you don't need to worry about exposures because both
ambient and flash exposures are linked to the selected AF point. So, for
example, if you lock the focus and then recompose without using AEL/FEL
then in many circumstances you will get a poor exposure. If you let the
camera select the AF point then you should get better exposures.

This disadvantage of letting the camera select the AF point is that it is
slower and sometimes the camera will get it wrong. There is also a lack of
control (for example, if you are using a shallow DOF and want to focus on
the subject's eyes).

In article <bqgskq$7f8$>,
Christian <> wrote:

>The advantage is that you don't need to worry about exposures because both
>ambient and flash exposures are linked to the selected AF point.

You sure about the ambient thing? I'm pretty certain that partial metering
always uses the centre circle regardless. I don't know about Evaluative and
Centre Weighted, I never use them.

Actually, after the novelty of having 7 AF points wore off, I just disabled
the other 6. They just seemed to get in the way. Having dedicated buttons
for autofocus and FEL helps enormously.