Back Button Focusing-Who is skilled at using it?

[paigew]

I use BBF, have for a while. I mostly toggle but sometimes recompose. I almost always shoot fast, randomly moving subjects (toddlers), + do so shooting wide open (2.8).

 

[Braineack]

I really just dont understand why you want to remove any AF/AE locks and set your camera up in a way that you can fire without hitting focus. I don't see any functional difference between pressing halfway and using BBF, except in one configuration I lose the ability to AE lock when spot metering.

 

[manny212]

BBF - 100% all the time .

 

[JacaRanda]

This explains pretty well why. Works for some, not for others.

3 Reasons Why You Should Switch To Back Button Focus - Digital Photography School

 

[Braineack]

This explains pretty well why. Works for some, not for others.

3 Reasons Why You Should Switch To Back Button Focus - Digital Photography School

if those are the three reasons why, then I don't see any reason.

 

[JacaRanda]

This explains pretty well why. Works for some, not for others.

3 Reasons Why You Should Switch To Back Button Focus - Digital Photography School

if those are the three reasons why, then I don't see any reason.

Yuppers. It's one of those things just like nearly every other thing about photography; works for some not for others.

 

[Derrel]

This explains pretty well why. Works for some, not for others.

3 Reasons Why You Should Switch To Back Button Focus - Digital Photography School

Okay, so, let me quote a passage from the above article:
No More Refocusing Every Time You Let Go of the Shutter
This was one of the most frustrating things I ran into when I used the ‘shutter half way down’ method of focusing. Sure you can lock in focus by holding the shutter half way down, then focus will stay locked as long as you hold your shutter in limbo. But then you have to hold your finger there! If you really think about it, doesn’t that sound absurd? If you let go or accidently lift your finger just a little bit, the camera will refocus as soon as you press it down again. Or press the shutter a little too hard and you will take a picture before you’re ready."
****************
Okay. Well, here's the OTHER SIDE of the coin! So, you can focus ONCE, and then shoot multiple images without re-focusing for each shot. yeehaw!!! What that allows you to do is to compose a nice portrait using a wide aperture for subject/background separation, and shallow depth of field. With your high-resolutuion 24- to 36-MP d-slr you can then proceed to shoot 10,15 frames, the first one definitely in-focus, but half of the other frames quite possibly being ever-so-slightly out of focus, as your subject MOVES an inch or two or three as they pose or refine their pose. SO, instead of EACH FRAME being carefully focused with each press of the shutter button, you get ONE "average focus" point at the start,and subsequent frames are basically shot UN-focused. Or should we say, shot to a point of average focus, based on the initial frame.

When using a 70-200 f/2.8 zoom, or a 70-300 VR lens, what the BBF method does is to disregard the absolutely CRITICAL nature of dead-on, precise, exacting autofocusing on real-world subjects in any kind of dynamic shooting situation.

There are often two sides to an issue...the author might just as well have entitled that point, "No more refocusing on high-MP captures, because, well, ONE time focusing is all you'll ever need."

And the idea that one might accidentally take a shot by pressing too hard on the shutter? An AD with digital? (AD= accidental discharge! lol)....uh, yeah...so what? This is not 120 rollfilm at $1.09 per click...I can shoot 850 raw frames before I need to reload...an accidental frame is like, nothing to me.

 

[JacaRanda]

I guess some dummy thought it would be a good idea and some other dummy implemented it.

Never should have given us the choice.

 

[Gary A.]

The worst part is that many of us dummies jumped on it.

 

[Derrel]

One thing that's interesting..the OP mentions the references BBF from the 2006 era...the 8,10,12 MP era. That was a different era, with much l lower resolution cameras and in many cases, weaker AF systems than we have now. That was the era of the 12MP $5,000 Nikon D2x and the Nikon D200, and the 8-MP Canon 20D...as I recall, that was the era BEFORE Canon consumer cameras even had a back button focus option direct from the factory; the asterisk button, you know the * button, had to be custom-function-adjusted to become the de facto back button for focusing...BBF was often touted as some sort of panacea, a way to give Canon users access to what was, at that time, only found in the professional 1D-series Canons.

As can be seen in the professional-level Nikon bodies, with separate AF and AE buttons with a five-option Custom Function menu, there are multiple ways to configure the dual-featured, combined AE-Lock AF-Lock button, and also the single AF-ON button. But when the consumer cameras from Canon copied Nikon and added a separate, direct-from-the-factory AF ON button, web based quickie articles spouted like psychedelic mushrooms after the first rains...

So, there are a lot of ways to set up a camera, but these quickie articles can't possibly encompass the whole gamut of what is possible to do as far as customizing the AF and metering systems. The basic idea of BBF is one thing, but the metering the camera uses, and how that is locked in is being ignored. Messing around with BBF and BBmetering can be a heck of a mess for people who are not 100% fully aware of how many options there are. Do you want a button to LOCK the metering AND the focusing while held? Or press to lock and stay locked until a second press? Do you want the focus locked but the meter allowed to move up and down, freely? Do you want the metering, and the focusing, tied to one another, or separately controlled? Do you want the focusing to be locked when the button is pressed and held IN, but the metering to run freely and locked by half pressing and holding the shutter button? Do you want to both focus AND meter, and lock both with one press and hold of the button? Do you want to have the focus, and the metering, AND the release all controlled by one,single,logical,unmistakable button--the shutter release button?

It's interesting that on the new Nikon D750, the combined AE-L AF-L button is there, but they have dropped the AF-ON button the pro bodies and D800 series uses. ZPR-NIKON-D750-BACK-600.JPG

 

[astroNikon]

I use the Back Button to Lock Focus as trying to catch a flying soccer ball for focus seems impossible as the AF likes to focus on the background.instead. So making a multi-picture of say 3 shots of someone kicking a soccer ball I get the person kicking the ball in focus and Lock it, to pan a bit to get the ball moving away.

That's one example of how I use the button but not a BBF, but as AF-Lock with the release button doing the AF as normal.

 

[BillM]

It's interesting that on the new Nikon D750, the combined AE-L AF-L button is there, but they have dropped the AF-ON button the pro bodies and D800 series uses. ZPR-NIKON-D750-BACK-600.JPG

Other than the new swivel screen it is a D7100 back. So they probably have the ability to program AF-ON to the AE-L AF-L button just like the D7100.


I switched to BBF as I don't have all the feeling in my fingertip due to a car accident, it is a big help to me.


This is a great thread, lots of good info. Keep it coming

 

[JacaRanda]

Hard to believe, but there are still stragglers out there that are not used to halfway pressing a shutter button to obtain focus. They just mash away.

 

[Gary A.]

Hard to believe, but there are still stragglers out there that are not used to halfway pressing a shutter button to obtain focus. They just mash away.

That would be me.

 

[CameraClicker]

I guess some dummy thought it would be a good idea and some other dummy implemented it.

Never should have given us the choice.

If we always all shot the same thing, one configuration would make sense. Since we shoot different things, the option to configure differently is nice.