Comments Off on Manual focus differences: DSLR vs mirrorless cameras
A key principle defining the Canon EOS DSLR camera system was to make it simple and instinctive. Continuous manual focus for lenses with USM focus motors is up to the task. It is useful for subjects who do not move much; being able to simply turn the lens focus ring when shooting macro or landscape was so instinctive that you might not even have realized it was a designed feature. This also means that the lens can be manually pre-focused before you even trigger AF.
When EF lenses were introduced for DSLRs with focus-by-wire rings, new custom settings were added to the cameras to still allow for slight focus adjustments after One-Shot AF was completed.
Moving on to mirrorless lenses, Canon’s RF lenses feature a wire focus ring, meaning you can no longer manually pre-focus in Servo AF or adjust focus after locking One-Shot AF. The custom setting to activate the focus ring after One-Shot AF finishes is still there, and it has extra settings like auto-zoom to help with macro shots, but pre-focusing before shooting when using Servo AF was lost until recently – and even then only possible with selected RF lenses.
About Canon Pro: Brian Worley
Brian is a freelance photographer and photo instructor based in Oxfordshire. He has an unrivaled knowledge of EOS DSLR cameras, having worked for Canon for over 15 years, and is ready to answer any questions about EOS and photography in the Canon-focused magazine PhotoPlus. Visit Brian’s website
Find the Electronic MF lens menu item on a DSLR and you’ll see it’s active by default, so all EF lenses with wire focus rings can be used to adjust focus once One-Shot AF is set. Find the same setting on a Canon EOS R series camera and it is disabled by default. The R-series cameras add the ability to focus manually after One-Shot AF and also increase; with the latter enabled, the display shows a magnified view of where the active AF point is after the focus ring is rotated.
Newer cameras have added an electronic constant MF option, which provides the ability to pre-focus the lens when using any AF mode. However, this is limited to a subset of RF lenses – mainly longer telephoto zoom lenses and prime lenses. Combining these settings restores much of the lost full-time manual focus functionality – if not for all RF lenses.
Electronic Constant MF has been added to some EOS R series cameras so that select RF telephoto lenses can be pre-focused like EF lenses (Image credit: Brian Worley)
If you were interested in this article, you might want to learn more about the best Canon cameras, along with the best Canon DSLR lenses or the best Canon RF lenses for mirrorless bodies.
