[kevwil]

I always change my camera settings so that the shutter button does not enable autofocus. I've done this with every camera I own so far, but I can't figure out how to do it with my new K-30. Could some generous soul pass along the secret? Please?

I should note that I have set the back AF / AE-L button to enable autofocus, and it works fine, but the shutter button keeps doing it as well.

[fkirby41]

Capture menu 4 / Button Customization / AF/AEL / Enable AF2 AF with shutter release button is disabled so AF is performed with the AF?EE-L button.

Regards Frank

[kevwil]

THANK YOU! So obvious now, duh.

[Docrwm]

What is the advantage of not having the half press of the shutter button perform AF?

[kevwil]

By divorcing the exposure meter and the autofocus motor, you can do one or the other without always having to do both at the same time. "focus then recompose" portrait shooters do this, and landscape shooters do this, among others (macro?).

I honestly would have returned the camera if it couldn't do this.

[NewportPreacher]

Plus, it makes it so no one else wants to use your camera!

[jup]

By divorcing the exposure meter and the autofocus motor, you can do one or the other without always having to do both at the same time. "focus then recompose" portrait shooters do this, and landscape shooters do this, among others (macro?).

Exposure metering isn't connected to half shutter press by default. So you can do this easily with default settings - focus with half shutter press -> recompose (this will meter for recomposed image) -> press shutter. But with decoupled AF, you can then immediately press shutter again, maybe change settings, and don't have move the camera and refocus on the same subject. Otherwise, camera's kind of forcing you to refocus for every picture, which may not be what you want.

My only issue with this & K-30 is loosing AE-L, which I find usually even more handy - especially with center-weighted/spot metering it's pretty invaluable. I might start poll how many people use that button for AF and how many for AE-L, would be kind of interesting.

[kevwil]

Plus, it makes it so no one else wants to use your camera!

Yes! Just like my computers! (Dvorak keyboard)

[patrick9]

What is the advantage of not having the half press of the shutter button perform AF?

On my DL I was having trouble with missing shots as the AF would search, and search and search each time the shutter was activated,even tho distance had not changed from the prior shot ,or the shutter would not fire, focus issues I was missing way two many shots . I don't have that problem any more since moving AF to the OK button . I just wish I had done it sooner.

[borno]

What is the advantage of not having the half press of the shutter button perform AF?

BBAF is great for wildlife and sports in afc as you can follow action while taking shots and if you are tracking and an obstruction (tree or referee) is about to get in the way, just let up on the af button until it passes. It keeps the camera from searching so much to refocus. Manual focus for difficult situations is also instantly available (with the better lenses). Heartily recommended.

[evandavies1]

So is there no way to lock AE when AE-L is used for AF?
Is there a setting (which I can't find) to lock AE with half press.

The alternative would be to flip the AF mode to manual each time but that is a PITA

[RyanW]

Canon shooters rave about this. Here is a good thread about it

So I finally moved to back button focusing - Canon Digital Photography Forums

and a good article on it linked from the thread above
Canon DLC: Article: Back-Button Auto Focus Explained

[jup]

So is there no way to lock AE when AE-L is used for AF?
Is there a setting (which I can't find) to lock AE with half press.

Sadly, you can't have both - you need K-5 for that which has two separate buttons. There's a setting to lock AE with AF, but it doesn't do anything for half-press if you remove AF from shutter.

You can obviously get lock exposure equivalent by shooting in Manual, but it's not as handy. And AE-L is actually very useful in Manual too - it locks aperture and shutter.

The only other thing you can do is define user mode (or two) with AE-L button and your favorite settings and use AF normally or vice versa (since user mode remembers button mappings). This will give you quick access to one or the other just by turning mode dial. But still, you can't have both at the same time.

PS: I find it kind of sad you can't map one of these to RAW/Fx button. Maybe... Firmware update? Pentax?

The alternative would be to flip the AF mode to manual each time but that is a PITA

That's what I went back to. BBAF is nice, but AE-L is more important. At least for now...

[evandavies1]

Thanks for the rely Jup, but thats definitely a negative point for the K30.
Agree about the RAW/fx button, I haven't found any of the limited options useful.

It would be great to get a firmware update to allow more options but I'm not going to hold my breath.

[Hoggy]

I've been wondering about this sort of thing for a while now. Before I couldn't figure out how to do it with my bridge camera, a Fuji Finepix S7000.

So when I got my K30, I was hoping it would finally be possible to have 2 separate functions. After reading this I became disappointed.

However, playing around with the button customization, it seems I was able to get them to work separately --- unless I'm missing something (which I probably am ;-). I set the 'AF/AE-L' button customization to 'AE lock'...
Now when I press the shutter halfway, it will lock the focus, but not the AE - I press the AE-L and it will lock the AE.. If I then let go of the shutter (while keeping AE-L pressed), I can press the shutter halfway again for another AF lock - while the AE settings still remain locked from when I first pressed AE-L.

Could this newbie have cracked the problem???
(Somehow I doubt it... I must be missing something, but don't know what yet. :-/)