I've read my A1 and 5D manuals probably at least 3 or 4 times over.
Every time I do it I learn some more or, more accurately, the
implications of some point begin to sink more deeply into my brain. The
manuals only tell you that, if you set control A, the camera will
perform function X. They don't necessarily tell you why you would want
the camera to do X and it's not always obvious.
On the point of setting exposure and focus on one area and then
recomposing I think you may find it easier to just switch to manual
exposure and also remove autofocus control from the shutter button.
When shooting with manual exposure control I usually operate by setting
the aperture first and leaving it (mostly) alone as though in aperture
preferred automatic. Then the only thing left to do is adjust the
shutter speed with the camera pointed toward your preferred exposure
control area. Then I focus on the selected area using one of the
buttons on the back of the camera body. That button (Auto Exposure
Lock) can be custom configured to control focus instead of AE Lock and
removes the focus control from the shutter button. Therefore the camera
doesn't try to re-focus when it's time to take the shot and won't
re-focus until you press the back button again.
The E3 provides the same capability and (in my electronic copy of the
English version of the E3 manual) is discussed on page 92. Resetting
the AEL/AFL button to operate in mode 3 vs mode 1 will cause the camera
to focus each time the AEL/AFL button is pressed and will remove focus
control from the shutter button. If you think about it a bit you may
come to ask yourself why the camera should re-focus each and every time
you press the shutter button. Certainly an OM doesn't do that :-) I
find that life is much simplified after making this custom configuration
change. But caution: You will initially forget to focus once in a
while until it finally sinks in that focusing must now be a deliberate
action on your part.
Chuck Norcutt
Brian Swale wrote:
> Chuck wrote
>
>> We're working on Brian a bit at a time. So far he only wants to shoot
>> JPEG. But we'll get him moved along to raw in good time.
>
> Right now brian is asking himself why he didn't spend ?3 weeks reading and
> absorbing that small but with many pages E-3 manual.
>
> Also, it never crossed his mind that someone would design and install
> exposure systems that seem so counter-intuitive (to his mind) as esp
> metering, and centre-weighted averaging, when I have been trying to set
> exposure & focus on one area and hold with half depressed button to
> compose. Should have read the manual more (or even).
>
> Brian Swale.
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