Me writes:

On 29/06/2012 1:55 p.m., Trevor wrote:
"David Dyer-Bennet" wrote in message
...
Today, I can place *a chosen focus point* on a musician's eyes and count
on
AF-C to keep the eye in focus as
his head bobs to the music.

Exactly my point, you don't need 61 AF points to do that.

That's precisely the case where I *DO* need 51 AF points, or even more
(at least, I'd like some closer to the frame edges). I mean, I'm only
using a few, in the area of the eye -- but depending on the framing,
that eye could be almost anywhere, so I need AF points over the whole
frame.

How the hell do you select the right one from 51, how long does that take
you? And isn't it easier to just use a single central AF point, place it on
the eye, half press the shutter, and reframe? Works for me anyway.

Trevor.

It's pretty easy/fast to do using the 4-way selector, and with very
shallow DOF, "focus & recompose" is very unreliable - as people move.
There's also the auto focus point selection mode which tries to
identify the subject by pattern, and while not perfect, is
surprisingly reliable in putting the selected focus points right where
you'd want them.
It's something I will miss if I shift to an FX Nikon, as the 51 points
are far more bunched up in the middle of the frame.

In fact, they're in exactly the same positions in an FX Nikon -- but the
frame has been expanded around them. Sigh.

I don't know the Sony SLT system well, but one I was looking at in a
camera store seemed to have good face recognition, and pretty quick
AF, as well as a superb EVF. This may be the future - if not in a
pellicle type camera.

The D4 and D800 do face-detect AF, which would be somewhat useful to me
sometimes -- but sometimes I need to nail actual eyes due to shallow DOF.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, ; http://dd-b.net/
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