Focus point selection

I recently purchased a Mk IV and find the default AF Point Selection (the [ ] button on the back, to the right of the * button) that you press to have the AF Point matrix light up in the viewfinder, is difficult to press and only lights up for a few seconds. You really have to stretch your thumb to find it and it just slows things down during rapid shooting sequences.

 

What I am finding is that I forget that I have changed or moved the focus points and shoot many frames on the wrong focus setting. It seems impossible to set the function to another button and I'd like to know how others manage this issue. If it doesn't glow when you press the shutter button halfway, then its not reminding you how its set. As I said above, the button its assigned to show it in the viewfinder is just awkward. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't just return to manual focus for anything other than dead centre focus points.

 

How do others deal with this? How do you keep track/remember, especially if you are not an everyday pro shooter where it is welded into your memory?

Dug mine out. I have it set to "AF spot with surrounding auxiliary ones" (and the 70-200 "welded" on it). When I fire it up I see the black LCD marking for that AF spots cluster sufficiently boldly in my VF, although I did not bother to insert a for the current diopter setting needed -1.25 contact lens.

To me, moving my cluster around is part of the EOS drill.

If I wanted to go casual, tipsy or however you call the absent minded state, or planned to toss the camera to a random person, I 'd switch AF spots to automatic selection from all of them and dial in a DOF providing aperture.

I refresh my "AF spots (size) selection" muscle memory before every shooting.

Just to elaborate: I'm not an everyday EOS shooter. It also isn't my regular go to camera and heavy enough to use it successfully, if at all. I am aware of our issues (i.e. "my issues with it") .

Drill & muscle memory refresh are quite moderate. Since it lacks a switch to select continuous or single AF, I set the probably right thing at home* and try to memorize how to move and shape my AF spot, just to be sure I won't look like a fool, when I'll turn the camera on, in front of my subject.

That 's the same as looking at a borrowed BMW's handle bar and trying to get the location of "turn indicator off"- switch into your mind, before you'll start it. I know I'll honk by accident, once every 1st day but hope it 'll be after the 1st turn... As a makeshift automobilist I might try to get familiar with gears' and shifting stick's location, shutting down sat nav, lights and wiper, before I'll start. (And end hitting 4th instead of 6th gear with a GM box...)

 

If you shoot lenses that don't require tiny, manually placed spot AF; why leave that setting on, as a default?

Find out what works for you. - If you have very different lenses, maybe change AF settings together with them? - A dim ultra wide has different demands than a fast portrait lens...

• Take yourself serious, as 125% the fool you might be and prepare the environment accordingly.
  
• Make not leaving your camera in a dangerous (i.e..:"regular shots ruining") setting a habit.
  

Examples vary: My K100D has a books pirating / document digitizing preset. I sometimes do these jobs in small JPEG, so I must(!) make sure(!) the camera is set to my regular RAW default, before I go out.

If you can't sense activated exposure compenstation: Turn it off, as soon as you are done!

If you shot in the studio before, turn manual basic ISO and fixed flash WB back to auto & AWB + maybe your AE of choice...

 

Every mistake you once made (or preferably heard about), should lead towards some avoidance routine.

 

Some folks place cheap memory cards into every glove box or jacket. I recall a concert where an EOS guy left his one(s?) at home and I couldn't use mine, because my Pentax(!) shared the same fate. - LOL! (Leica M, carried as backup, made the day)

 

Overall I am not happy with the modern pseudo-automated features and the control load they burden on us. Back in the days with hand held meters, we set our exposure long in advance and knew it would be right, before we raised a camera, to just frame and focus. Now we lack that knowledge, read VF displays, ponder, adjust, double check if compensation is on, should care about AF spot juggling at the same time and so on. - Too much multitasking at once! So break it down into bearable chops. Rely on auto (almost) everything, the EOS' decent metering system and your RAW converter for a couple of first shots during a session in a location and try to focus (your as such self accepted scatter brain) on moving your LCD marked focus spot, keep it on the front eye and frame around that.

 

"Photography" is about problem solving (one at a time might be doable) and "routine" is based on "fake it, until you make it". Thinking and even dry swimming in advance are keys here.

 

Most cameras seem to demand something (be it just patience, with a point & .... wait...) The Mk IV has that AF spot placement need with faster glass. I don't see a big need for a flashing red spot indicator, as long as I am prepared and eager to shift the LCD blob.

 

*= Yes I know, I should drill back button focusing but TBH: Its not that easy to learn casually, on the side.

Thanks Jochan for the detailed reply and I agree with your sentiments. I spent 30 years with a Canon F1 film camera and manual focus lenses. I really miss the simplicity of checking the shutter speed, ISO and aperture dials between shots. They were simply obvious and easy to see at a glance and it was easy to flip up the camera up between shots to eyball the settings. The number of options on the MkIV is amazing, and I wouldn't want anything less as my work is so demanding and diverse, but its also confounding when starting out (even after using a MkII for years - which I now want to toss in a bin every time I try to use it as it is so limited).

 

I realise its a muscle memory thing but its not sticking. I even have a temporary label on the thumb depression area to remind me to check the focus, but even then, shooting events with multilple things at once on-the-fly I overlook it 30% of the time. Moving the focus spots around is fine if you have a few secs to pause, as the buttons need to be nudged into position, but when subjects need to move on then that's an extra time burden. It would be great to have a touch screen to move your finger over to move the focus points rapidly.

 

On the plus side I'm creating some flash cards to remind me of different things to be set, so I can quickly remind myself of the criteria needed for different shots and pre-load my memory so to speak. And when that's down pat, I'll set them to C functions.

There is option to make active focus point lit up every time when you half press shutter release button. And I believe Mark 4 has joystick to move focus point around.

I set mine to center after each shoot. I usually take a couple shots using the center focus anyway then play with it as I go. Rare that I use all points so center is my go to. But as soon as I am done shooting, I put it back on center because I would forget and miss a shot or two if I didn't.

Thanks wmweikel, I was reviewing the user manual last night and noted there was an option to flick the Multi-Controller straight down that takes the focus point/array back to the centre, so I gather that's what you're talking about. Its these tips I need to know about. There's so much to learn you temporarily become lost in the forest of options.

 

I set mine to center after each shoot. I usually take a couple shots using the center focus anyway then play with it as I go. Rare that I use all points so center is my go to. But as soon as I am done shooting, I put it back on center because I would forget and miss a shot or two if I didn't.