BBF

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Rogereh

Rogereh

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I realize that I'm one of those old school photographers that never switched over to back button focus. (BBF). It just never seemed right to me. I had tried it once several years ago, but switched back to the standard system for some reason?? Yesterday I was looking through some of Steve P's info that I've purchased and collected and I came across hos PDF on BBF. So I thought I'd try it again and set up all my cameras to BBF. This morning I tried to use a wired remote shutter and it fired the camera but I found no obvious way to focus without hitting that button which I didn't want to do because it would cause some camera movement. That would negate my the whole reason for using a remote release. What am I over looking? I don't want to resort to using manual focus as once again I would have to touch the camera to do so. I also don't want to go back in the menu system and switch everything back. I'm about to put it all back like it was. I need some advise...
 
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On Nikons when you select BBF you usually have 2 choices. One is BBF only the other is BBF+shutter. My remote works fine with BBF+shutter on my D810, D850, D500, D4, D5, D6.
 
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Rogereh said:
I'm about to put it all back like it was. I need some advise...
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Yup, for remote shutter applications where you need AF functionality BBAF is not a good choice.

Setting up your camera for BBAF literally means disabling AF activation from the shutter release button. Once set up like that it doesn't matter if you actually half press the shutter release physically or use a remote trigger to do that, AF is no longer associated with the shutter release. So if you need AF activation in your remote triggered shots then temporarily reset the camera to shutter release activation of AF.

Personally for remote trigger applications I pre-focus the camera and rely on DoF at a chosen aperture. The problem with remote trigger and AF is it's hard to know where your subject is in the frame and which AF point to activate. So when running remote camera triggers I pre-focus where I expect my subject to be and stop down a bit for some DoF insurance but don't try to use AF when I'm not behind the camera to select and position the best AF point.
 
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Ralph Bruno said:
You could also setup a different shooting bank for shutter auto focus. Use photo shooting bank A for BBF and bank B for shutter autofocus
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This actually works. Using "Custom Settings Bank", I have the "A" set and named BBF because I figure that I will be mostly using my cameras without a remote shutter release, and "B" named remote and default settings for when I use a tripod and remote release. Seems to work fine on my D500, D850, and D810. I have a D5 coming on Saturday and will set it up like this also. I had to a different method on my Z7 because it doesn't have the banks option so I used the "U3" option for remote and roll back to "M" for BBF. Not sure about the Z setup because I've read there's some memory problems using the U controls

I like this system because it a one menu choice to switch to using the remote and one menu choice to get back to BBF. I don't have to remember what to change to go back and forth. Thanks for the idea.
 
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