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Top Deck: Auto Focus

Lesson 5 from: Canon T7i Fast Start

John Greengo

Top Deck: Auto Focus

Lesson 5 from: Canon T7i Fast Start

John Greengo

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Lesson Info

5. Top Deck: Auto Focus

Lesson Info

Top Deck: Auto Focus

Next up is dealing with Autofocus, another very important aspect to photography. We have four different ways that the camera can choose where it is focusing: The 1 Point, the Zone AF, the Large Zone, and the 45-point, and just by pressing this button, you'll be able to rotate through these different four options. There's another important button, but it's located a little bit on the back corner of the camera, and we're gonna be using that button as well when we're activating the focusing system, so both of these buttons are pretty important. The camera has 45 focusing points that it can use. If you want to move one of the focusing points, you can press this button on the back of the camera to activate and turn on the system so that you can make a change to it. If you want to change the mode, you can jump to step two directly if you want to, and then if you want to move the point around, you can do that with the cross keys on the back of the camera. We have four different options. We ha...

ve a single point AF, when you want to be very precise about where you are focusing. That's good for stationary subjects. We have Zone AF, which is a larger group of points, and this is good for subjects that are moving a little bit more erratically, and so, great for moving subjects. General at sports photography. Now, if your subjects are very erratic, you're gonna need a little bit bigger box, and so you can use the large zone to use the left, middle, or right, and if you need to, you can use all 45 at the same time for something that is extremely erratic in there, and so let me give you a little demo on the camera right here in front of me. All right, so if you want to just hit the top button, it's gonna cycle through the four different options, and it's very easy. The first button just simply activates the system, tells you where you're at. You don't like it, you can just hit it, and it cycles through the different options. Now, whereas a contrast, when you press the button... Oh, don't want to knock the camera over. Press the button on the back. We can press that to see where things are, and then we can press the top button if we want, but if we just want to move the point around, we can now move the point to any one of the different 45 points around, and so if you just want to change focusing points, you probably just want to go with the back button. If you said, "I want to change how many points I have," then you would probably press just the top button, and so, pretty easy to navigate through all these. You can move the nine boxes all around to many different positions, depending on where you want your action to be tracked, and so if you are in the point area where it's the auto area selection, it's choosing whatever is closest to the camera, and that may or may not be what you want, which is why you don't want to have it in that all the time. Perhaps there's a referee or somebody else crossing in front of you. That's why you want to be as tight of area as you can, but still be able to control where that subject is moving around. There's a lot going on with these focusing points. Let's talk a little bit about what's going on here. We do have 45 different points, and they are known as f/5.6 Cross-type AF points, which means f/5.6, they work with all lenses that have apertures 5. or better, which means letting in more light, and so that basically means it's gonna work with all available Canon lenses right now. What it means also, if you have a lens that is an f/ and you stick a doubler which loses two stops of light and becomes an f/8 lens, it may not work with that lens, and so it's gonna work with all natural lenses, but it may or may not, depending on what sort of converter and what sort of lens you have it attached to. The Cross-type point, by the way, means that it is looking for vertical lines of contrast and horizontal lines of contrast. There are some cameras with focusing points that are only looking at horizontal or vertical, and so this is the benchmark that most photographers want. They want Cross-type AF points, and it has these on all 45, and many of these will work at f/8 with some lenses. You may need to dive into the instruction manual to see exactly which lenses it will and will not work with, 'cause there's a complicated list of those lenses. Now, the center point is a special focusing point. It is a Dual Cross, which means it is also looking for diagonal lines as well, and so it's a little bit more sensitive on picking up Autofocus areas, and so, if you had to choose one point that was the most accurate and sensitive, it's going to be that center point, and it is also known as a High Precision point as well, which means that when you have a lens that is at a 2.8 aperture, it's gonna use that dual cross, and it's gonna be a little bit more exacting on where the focus point is, and that's exactly when it needs to be more exact is when you have a 2.8 lens that has shallower depth of field. Furthermore, it's gonna be able to focus down to EV -2, which is a ranking of brightness levels, which is basically really, really dark. It's like one 60-watt light on in a small room, and so it's gonna be able to focus under very, very low lighting conditions. You'll be using those two buttons. To be honest with you, you may not be using that button on the back thumb of the right shoulder of the camera that much. Most Canon cameras have that button, the AF Points button, in that location, and they've put it here so that it's continuous and the same on all the cameras. Up front, the AF area selection button, I think, will probably be used more frequently on this type of camera.

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