84 — Back (rear) button autofocusing

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #84 is based on a sin­gle com­ment by Richard from our forum where he men­tions rear-button aut­o­fo­cus to aid in sharp­ness. This tech­nique was devel­oped by Canon about 20 years ago but I first heard of this tech­nique on the MPB pod­cast (link in shownotes — thx for find­ing it for me Mar­tin!) about two and a half years ago. Basi­cally this tech­nique REMOVES aut­o­fo­cus­ing from the shut­ter release but­ton and assigns it to a but­ton on the back of the cam­era. Espe­cially when track­ing a mov­ing sub­ject, this is a great tech­nique and will likely get you more keep­ers. It will also STOP your aut­o­fo­cus from track­ing things that you don’t want it to.

Finger positions for rear button autofocus

Fin­ger posi­tions for rear but­ton autofocus

Ducks

Ducks — Even though ducks are entering/exiting the scene, aut­o­fo­cus is not lost on the cen­tral duck which I was track­ing. The aut­o­fo­cus­ing can­not ‘hunt’ for any other duck because I am track­ing and lock­ing focus on only 1 duck.

Links /resources men­tioned in this podcast:

Excel­lent Rear but­ton aut­o­fo­cus arti­cle by Canon
Rear but­ton aut­o­fo­cus dis­cussed on the Mar­tin Bai­ley Pod­cast
July 2010’s — Per­spec­tive and/or Lead­ing lines assign­ment
Publicphotograpgy.orgCel­e­brat­ing the rights of pho­tog­ra­phers -Publicphotography.org — Flickr groupPublicphotography.org — Face­book group

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Thanks to Jackie Sheen, Jason and Glenn Euloth who posted a blog com­ment about our last pod­cast. Thanks as always to every­one that sent com­ments by email about our last pod­cast. Although ALL com­ments are appre­ci­ated, com­ment­ing directly in this blog is pre­ferred. Thanks as well to all the new mem­bers of the bul­letin board.

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