Nikon cameras (and most certainly others as well) has a button on the back side of the camera called AE-L / AF-L. The normal function of this button is to lock exposure and auto-focus so that you may recompose the shot and then press the shutter release without the camera attempting a new focus or metering and changing the exposure parameters.
This article will start off on the D70s camera that I have, but should work very similar on most Nikon digital bodies. It may also be the same for Canon and other brands although I have not verified it. If you know, please leave a comment to this effect!
Most people are probably aware that in the camera CSM menu item #15 you can control what this button actually does. The obvious choices here are the following:
- Lock exposure and auto-focus at the same time (AF/AE mode)
- Lock only auto-focus (AF mode)
- Lock only exposure (AE mode)
What people generally do not know is that there are two more modes that are very useful in certain situations. These modes are:
- Auto focus ON mode (AF-ON mode)
- Flash metering off mode (FV mode)
They are not so well described in the manual and so you may want to practice a bit with using them! The rest of this article is to describe some situations where they are quite useful:
Fortsätt läsa AE-L/AF-L button has 2 hidden functions