whatever happened to eye-controlled focus?

[nathaniel]

Have been looking around at film SLR's, in particular Canon's, since I'll be able to share lenses with my existing DSLR. The last of Canon's film SLR range (the EOS 1v, EOS-3, the Elan 7NE) all have eye-controlled focus. Seems like through searching on the web, Canon doesn't make this kind of focusing system for their existing camera series anymore. Anyone knows what happened to it?

Reviews on the web (of the eye-controlled focus) seem quite positive. Good for shoot sports/birding/etc. without having to choose a focusing point. So why was it dropped? Does any other (non-Canon) camera system still use it nowadays?

 

[ronin1983]

Well, I believe cost issues . Not cheap to have such fancy tech

 

[edutilos-]

Have been looking around at film SLR's, in particular Canon's, since I'll be able to share lenses with my existing DSLR. The last of Canon's film SLR range (the EOS 1v, EOS-3, the Elan 7NE) all have eye-controlled focus. Seems like through searching on the web, Canon doesn't make this kind of focusing system for their existing camera series anymore. Anyone knows what happened to it?

Reviews on the web (of the eye-controlled focus) seem quite positive. Good for shoot sports/birding/etc. without having to choose a focusing point. So why was it dropped? Does any other (non-Canon) camera system still use it nowadays?

I suspect ECF was not that accurate - plus with so much variance in eyes all over the world, it's not going to help incorporating a feature into modern DSLRs and then have 40% of the buyers buy the camera being wooed by that feature, and then crow all over the Internet that it's not working as it should.

 

[Yutaka Go]

I heard from a friend the feature don't work very well for people wearing glasses.
It also don't work if the photographer like to blinks

 

[BigBaby]

Heard Canon coming out EOS 3D would have 45 focus point with Eye Controlled Focusing System. But still dunno how true is it. It is only a rumors. Can check out the link below. Cheers!

http://www.dphotojournal.com/canon-eos-3d/

 

[sony90290]

Heard Canon coming out EOS 3D would have 45 focus point with Eye Controlled Focusing System. But still dunno how true is it. It is only a rumors. Can check out the link below. Cheers!

http://www.dphotojournal.com/canon-eos-3d/

Canon EOS 3D Rumor
Last updated: Thursday, January 19th, 2006

5 years old rumor :bsmilie:

 

[nathaniel]

Well, I believe cost issues . Not cheap to have such fancy tech

hmmm, but even if it's expensive, perhaps Canon's 1D series should have it. in the film days, it was on the Canon 30V (Elan 7NE) model and up, which (I assume) should be roughly equivalent to today's Canon xxD series (e.g. 60D).

I suspect ECF was not that accurate - plus with so much variance in eyes all over the world, it's not going to help incorporating a feature into modern DSLRs and then have 40% of the buyers buy the camera being wooed by that feature, and then crow all over the Internet that it's not working as it should.

this seems possible. on the other hand, the reviews on the web on the eye-controlled focus seem good. see here: http://photo.net/canon-eos-digital-camera-forum/00FwHa

some people say it is a marketing decision (the consumer demand isn't there for it):
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0611/westfall.html
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0803/tech-tips.html

tried searching through a bit more. according to one comment here, it's easy to use when you have only a few autofocus points (e.g. 7 autofocus points), but there are problems when you have 45. hence it would make sense to put this on the lower-end models but not on Canon's 1-series models, but this isn't a good idea from the marketing point of view:
http://photo.net/canon-eos-digital-camera-forum/00Rsg2

I heard from a friend the feature don't work very well for people wearing glasses.
It also don't work if the photographer like to blinks

sounds possible.

hmmm, maybe 3 other possibilities:
1. eye-controlled focus was a marketing gimmick. so they feel it doesn't really need to be there.
2. there is some technical issue with putting this mechanism into a DSLR (e.g. lack of space, some reason due to the way ECF works, ...).
3. if your eye stray somewhere else, ECF isn't good.