Where did my GREEN focus box go?!

[Casey615]

Hi all! I am an SLR newbie and have come to my first and most frustrating feeling of being "stumped". Here's the problem, I have a Canon EOS Rebel T3 which I have been shooting with for a solid two months now. I have not done anything different lately, nor changed any settings. I am an avid Viewfinder user, and almost never use the Live mode. However, for some reason when I starting taking pictures the other day, I noticed I no longer see the green focus box that always shows up when I look through the Viewfinder and hold the shutter half way. I can hear it and see it focusing, but there's no lovely green box showing me exactly what it's focusing on! I have searched the internet and read every part of the manual, but have found nothing. When I am in live mode, I do see the green box. I am under the impression that it's called the "magnifying" box or something similar? I mostly keep my camera on the Manual exposure or No flash setting when taking pictures, I am always on AF and Quick mode. Can anyone help me get my little green box back?

 

[ralphh]

Green? In every camera I've had it's been red... green in live-view though.

Anyways... (some/most/all) canons don't display the active focus point in AI-servo mode. Try setting the focus mode back to 1-shot

BTW, quick mode only applies to live-view, not the viewfinder if you're talking about the setting I think you are.

 

[Overread]

Have you shifted to using spot focus - that would mean that only a single selected AF point is active and thus it only shows the little red dot. The square will be for other focusing modes which will have various selectable areas of the screen which will be active (the larger square showing all the active AF points which are running with the AF points within that block then showing the red dot when the focus lock is under them).

 

[ralphh]

Have you shifted to using spot focus - that would mean that only a single selected AF point is active and thus it only shows the little red dot. The square will be for other focusing modes which will have various selectable areas of the screen which will be active (the larger square showing all the active AF points which are running with the AF points within that block then showing the red dot when the focus lock is under them).

Really? The T3 has a additional green overlay on the viewfinder? Learn some new every day...

 

[TCampbell]

I don't have a T3, but if I understand this correctly then I think you may be confused by what you saw and when you saw it.

On my Canon bodies, if I switch to "live view" mode (something I almost NEVER do) then there's a large white rectangle in the screen showing the focus target. If I half-press the shutter and let it lock focus, then that white rectangle will switch to a GREEN rectangle (indicating that focus did lock to the subject in the box.) This ONLY happens in "live view" mode.

When looking through the viewfinder (not live view) you get the array of auto-focus points which, for most Canon's, are normally black but will go red when that AF point locks focus (some of the newer cameras such as the 1D X and 5D III work a bit differently.)

 

[Pallycow]

Yes it can be easily changed. Read your manual. Not being a smartass, seriously...read it. There is a button, one of the directionals...the right one I believe, that can quickly change it, or another button to select the spot points is next to the function (star) button in upper right that can easily change it. Also, you may have inadvertantly switched to AI servo which might be why you didnt "hear it " as you stated in your first post. It acts differently when in servo as it is trying to "track" things.

read up on your manual and its various focus modes....very handy to learn them for quick switching while shooting. I change my spot focus point all the time while looking through the viewfinder, my fingers know which buttons to press from muscle memory....without having to look at them. lol.

Here is a link to the manual for ya.

http://gdlp01.c-wss.com/gds/0/0300004730/02/eosrt3-eos1100d-im2-c-en.pdf

 

[Casey615]

Have you shifted to using spot focus - that would mean that only a single selected AF point is active and thus it only shows the little red dot. The square will be for other focusing modes which will have various selectable areas of the screen which will be active (the larger square showing all the active AF points which are running with the AF points within that block then showing the red dot when the focus lock is under them).

I don't believe it's on spot focus, because the AF points will automatically change depending on where the closest subject is, and they all flash the red dot. However, is the spot focus something that can easily be shifted? Is it something that is changed individually with each shooting option? Maybe I somehow (not sure why/when/how) accidently shifted something unknowingly...I amaze myself like that sometimes.

 

[Casey615]

Green? In every camera I've had it's been red... green in live-view though.

Anyways... (some/most/all) canons don't display the active focus point in AI-servo mode. Try setting the focus mode back to 1-shot

BTW, quick mode only applies to live-view, not the viewfinder if you're talking about the setting I think you are.

Now that I think about it, it very well could have been white or red, and it may have just shown the 4 corners of a square, not a full fledged white square like the live mode shows. Just one of those things that you don't really pay much attention to until it's it's gone. The focus mode is at 1-shot, so I'm stumped- how else can I change the focus modes? The last setting it was on before I noticed the missing focus box was on Flash Off. In this setting, I am unable to access the AF function. I'm almost always on this setting, so I don't know if that helps narrow down where I could have possibly changed something unknowingly.