Update

Gordon Lewis has posted an update to his post "Does It Really Have to Be This Hard?" addressing some of your comments and questions.

Mike

P.S. And the answer to the extra-credit quiz last Friday is, of course, 8.

(Well, really it's 7, but the official answer to the question "was it Photoshopped?" is always, "Yes, three men in a rickshaw were removed.")

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[Moose]

"The reason I prefer to set my cameras for back-button focus if possible is because I don’t want the camera to re-focus every time I press the shutter button."

And I DO want the camera to re-focus every time I press the shutter button. I've tried the other way, and dislike it. Endless missed focus, and I never adapted.

"This is important because I generally use the center AF point only. BBF avoids the need to keep the shutter button half-pressed to lock-in focus before I re-compose and shoot. I can focus once, re-frame, then shoot to my heart’s content without worrying that the camera will re-focus between shots. This only applies to still subjects, of course. With moving subjects I use continuous focus, a larger off-center AF area, and keep the focus button depressed while shooting."

My preferred use is just the opposite. Most of my shooting is outside in nature, or semi-nature. Everything moves, a little or a lot, except some landscapes. For those, I half-press for AF to set focus, then press the Fn2 button next to the the shutter button, to switch to MF. I may then re-frame, including the many multi frame panoramas I do. A quick press of Fn2 again, and I'm back to normal.

I do a lot of close, to really close-up shooting, hand held. The flower is moving, subtly or wildly, in the breeze, I'm not a tripod, and I don't hold perfectly still forward and back, the bugs move, and CF doesn't seem to be for them.

So, although I too use the center focus point, set to small, I get the results I need "the other way", using Fn2 to turn half-press AF on and off, as needed, and never use "BBF" I also sometimes use fore and aft camera movement with the shutter half-pressed for fine adjustment at high magnifications, before completing the shutter press - body focus?

I don't know how else to get a shot like this little fly, alive and moving, in the "wild", wingspan about 3/8"

That's the full frame, BTW. The AF has trouble choosing my subject at 800 mm eq. and this magnification. I'm not a bug guy, though, and shoot anything and everything, at all sorts of distances and magnifications.

Not to say that Mr. Lewis is wrong, for himself, just mostly not right for me.

"I agree with those who pointed out that the Fn1 button on Olympus OM-D cameras is too small for optimum use as a BBF button. That’s a separate rant for a different time."

Out of date generalization. There are more, better placed, Fn buttons on the E-M5 II. Specifically, the Fn1 button is different, and far more accessible to a thumb on the back. There will, inevitably, be those who don't like the placement, but it is a big improvement.

[Terry Letton]

It is going to be hard for me to find three men in a rickshaw here in New England to photograph so that I can randomly photoshop them into other images