To hold or let go of metering and AF start when taking a focus stack

[david689]

I am just learning how to use my new Canon R6ii. I have been doing some focus bracketing but there is one part of the procedure that I am not sure about. My settings are:

AF area - whole area AF
Whole area tracking Servo AF OFF
AF operation - ONE SHOT
Stills - Shutter button half press - Metering start
Stills - AF-ON button - Eye Detection AF
Stills - AE lock button (*) - Metering and AF start
AF-3 -> "Preview AF" set to "Disable"?
Focus bracketing - enable.
Number of shots - often set to around 200
Focus increment usually around 4
Exposure smooting enable
Depth composite enable
Crop depth comp. enable

Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 L IS USM attached via Canon EF-EOS R adapter. AF/MF switch on AF, stabilizer on.

Procedure:

Hand held I press the * button to achieve focus on the point nearest the camera. I then move backwards slightly and then press and hold the shutter button fully and hold it down until I see that focus has gone past the most distant part of the scene that I want to be in focus and then I let go of the shutter button and then I do a final full press of the shuuter button.

Sometimes I hold the * button pressed for the full procedure but sometimes I let go of it before moving back slightly and fully pressing the shutter. I'm not sure which is correct as sometimes doing so seems to work and sometimes it doesn't.

Should I be letting go of the * button or should I be holding it down until I have finished taking the stack?

Thank you to anyone who reads this far and comments.

 

[drsnoopy]

I am just learning how to use my new Canon R6ii. I have been doing some focus bracketing but there is one part of the procedure that I am not sure about. My settings are:

AF area - whole area AF
Whole area tracking Servo AF OFF
AF operation - ONE SHOT
Stills - Shutter button half press - Metering start
Stills - AF-ON button - Eye Detection AF
Stills - AE lock button (*) - Metering and AF start
AF-3 -> "Preview AF" set to "Disable"?
Focus bracketing - enable.
Number of shots - often set to around 200
Focus increment usually around 4
Exposure smooting enable
Depth composite enable
Crop depth comp. enable

Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 L IS USM attached via Canon EF-EOS R adapter. AF/MF switch on AF, stabilizer on.

Procedure:

Hand held I press the * button to achieve focus on the point nearest the camera. I then move backwards slightly and then press and hold the shutter button fully and hold it down until I see that focus has gone past the most distant part of the scene that I want to be in focus and then I let go of the shutter button and then I do a final full press of the shuuter button.

Sometimes I hold the * button pressed for the full procedure but sometimes I let go of it before moving back slightly and fully pressing the shutter. I'm not sure which is correct as sometimes doing so seems to work and sometimes it doesn't.

Should I be letting go of the * button or should I be holding it down until I have finished taking the stack?

Thank you to anyone who reads this far and comments.

You’re using back button focus. You only need to press it once, that fixes the focus point then the camera advances the focus from there. However you don’t need 200 increments, usually 10-20 is more than enough.

Thinking about it, for users who have focus on the shutter button, the camera must ignore the button for focusing once the sequence has started, so it probably doesn’t actually matter whether you press that star button once or keep it pressed!

 

[david689]

You’re using back button focus. You only need to press it once, that fixes the focus point then the camera advances the focus from there. However you don’t need 200 increments, usually 10-20 is more than enough.

Thinking about it, for users who have focus on the shutter button, the camera must ignore the button for focusing once the sequence has started, so it probably doesn’t actually matter whether you press that star button once or keep it pressed!

Thank you.

Because you have to have the lens set to autofocus I wasn't sure whether the camera went on to refocus for the first shot of the stack or not. So I guess the camera takes over adjusting the focus after taking the first image of the stack.