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Initial thoughts on moving to the R3 from Canon DSLRs

Started 3 months ago | Discussions thread
cfieldgate Regular Member • Posts: 476
Re: Initial thoughts on moving to the R3 from Canon DSLRs
1

Paul JN wrote:

Falxon wrote:

Paul JN wrote:

I’m interested to know how accurate eye control is. Are you guiding a single point of focus or a zone or something inbetween?

I've tried both for a couple of hours each (roughly) and they both work really well. Essentially, eye control makes the location of the active point/zone irrelevant.

Basically, it works like this, as far as I can tell:

  • Set a focus point size (spot, single, expanded, zone)
  • Look somewhere and press AF On.
  • The point or zone will jump to that area, try to lock on (and start tracking in Servo mode)
  • So, if I want to place the AF point very intentionally, and not risk moving it, I just quickly toggle eye control off via the Set button in the middle of the back wheel, which is its default assignment. Then, the AF works like normal with no input from my eyeball.
  • Since the toggle is so fast and easy, it makes it super simple to leave engaged 90% of the time, and just turn off as-needed for tricky use cases. I do a fair amount of martial arts photography and with competitors constantly moving and rotating, I can see the eye control function being something I use almost always.

Does that make sense? Hopefully it comes across clearly.

Thanks. Not quote the game changer I was hoping for.

So, what were you hoping for? I’m not sure how much simpler to operate Eye Control AF could be.

That said, it doesn’t work for my poor, spectacled eyes, but I find the Smart Controller more than adequate for selecting where I want focus to be, whether using Subject Tracking / Eye AF or not.

 cfieldgate's gear list:cfieldgate's gear list
Canon EOS-1D X Mark II Canon EOS R3 Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM Canon EF 70-200mm F2.8L IS II USM Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM +6 more
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