Combining Custom Functions: Advanced Operations - Canon EOS-1 Tips And Techniques

Personal Function 15 disables the AF-Assist beam of compatible EX-series Speedlites.
This can be helpful when working with other photographers, to prevent your AF-Assist
beam from appearing in their photos. The downside is that you lose the benefits of the
AF-Assist beam for your own photos.
Personal Function 16 allows the camera to fire automatically when autofocus is
achieved and the shutter button is fully depressed. This can be effective for handheld
macro photography or when the camera is set for remote operation and waiting for the
subject to come into the field of view. Remote operation can be achieved by using
Remote Switch RS-80N3 or Timer Remote Controller TC-80N3 with or without one or more
Extension Cord ET-1000N3 sets to release the shutter.
Personal Function 17 disables AFPS. This function can be convenient when you are
manually selecting focusing points near the edge of the Area AF ellipse but don't want
the camera to switch to Automatic Focus Point Selection mode.
Personal Function 18 enables AFPS when C.Fn 11-2 has been set. (AFPS is normally
disabled in C.Fn 11-2 as mentioned earlier.)
Combining As you can see from reading the section on Custom Functions, there are a great many
Custom Functions: C.Fns that relate to the navigation of the EOS-1 class 45-point Area AF sensor. Used
Advanced Operations individually they can go a long way towards simplifying and easing the operation of the
camera. As an example, C.Fn 4-1 (or, 4-3), where the rear (*) button is used to activate
the focusing system, is almost universally accepted by professional photographers as
the best way to shoot sports. But by combining this function with C.Fn 18-2 and
registering a Home Position (HP) with the Assist Button, it can be a much more valuable
and versatile tool.
We will look at a few combinations and how they relate to different types of
photography. A combination that's useful for sports may be frustrating for shooting a
wedding or event, whereas a different combination might be ideal for those
applications. Some combinations lend themselves better to photographers who shoot
in AI Servo AF, but others make more sense for One-Shot AF. We will begin by covering
the Assist Button.
Assist Button
Out of the box, the Assist Button really doesn't do much and is often overlooked or not
recognized as the very functional tool that it is. The key feature of the Assist Button is
that you can register it to do something (with Personal Function 6, for example, you can
use it to toggle back and forth between a pre-registered shooting mode and metering
pattern that are different than the settings you are currently using). Here we will be
using it to pre-register either individual focusing points or AFPS. This pre-registered
focusing point (or AFPS) is called the Home Position (HP).
Assigning the Home Position (HP)
I. CAMERA FEATURES AND OPERATION 16