tomcat

North Carolina, in the eastern part of the state, has real BBQ. Those other 2 places have charred meat with sauce.............. We've been doing it for longer.

kenievans Loc: Dallas

Although I am a native Texan I have to agree with you but don't tell anyone I said that.

NCMtnMan Loc: N. Fork New River, Ashe Co., NC

Have you tried it? Watch Steve Perry's video about it at https://backcountrygallery.com/. Doesn't hurt to try it or at least check out what it does.

zcarxrg Loc: Corpus Christi

I have been using back button focus for wildlife, birds, and birds in flight for about a year and a half. That is probably 30,000 or more shots. I very infrequently fail to maintain pressing the back button during an inflight series. To me that is the only detriment. The main generic advantages to me are that I can release the BBF to recompose and I never have to worry about the touch required for 1/2 press or full press of the shutter release. I don't shoot in cold weather much but imagine shutter half press can be difficult with gloves on.


Even more of an advantage for using back button focus for Canon shooters is that the cameras above the 80D have a programmable "asterisk" button next to the Back AF button. I have that programmed with "registered settings" for high speed shutter for birds in flight. I can quickly move my thumb just 3/8ths. of an inch to the right of the Back AF button and switch from current settings to my registered settings for an unexpected in flight series.

I believe Nikon has some firmware upgrade for a higher end camera that allows a similar function without needing to manually select different shooting settings with a wheel or menu but don't think it is as easy on their cameras.
A Nikon shooter may be able to expand on that function for Nikon or your specific camera.

tomcat

Look at this issue from the other side. You have one button, the shutter release, trying to do the work of two buttons which is not efficient. The shutter is trying to focus and take the picture at the same time. Why not separate the two and let BBF ( or FBF ) do the focusing continuously and then let the shutter take the picture?

The first time I tried this it was very awkward but now it’s the best feature for sports and I use it all the time

srt101fan

Beautiful image!

larryzplace Loc: Elk Grove Village Illinois

Check with Steve Perry... Look for his video on youtube... I had tried it based on other peoples recommendations and was not happy with it... Then I watched his video and
it became perfectly clear on the why and how... I doubt I will ever go back... Definitely a good teacher... He is also a member here...

Cwilson341 Loc: Central Florida

This may have been said before, but, before autofocus, the shutter button had nothing to do with focusing. For the most part, we all remembered to focus before hitting the shutter button. I’m a fairly recent convert to bbf but I made the switch because I finally decided that there were no drawbacks that I could discern and there was a lot to be gained. I’m slow to change (I avoided autofocus as long as I could) but I have no regrets about bbf.

Angel Star Photography Loc: Tacoma, WA

First, wonderful and beautiful shots!

Back-button focus does take a bit of getting accustomed to using especially if one has been quite used to the half-press focus of the shutter release. I missed a few shots myself as would forget that my autofocus was not activated by the shutter release. At one time I was on the verge of ditching it but later just decided I would go out and practice more. Now, I don't believe I will go back to the half-press shutter release activation. I have found back-button focus extremely convenient when focusing and recomposing---press once to acquire focus lock, recompose, and shoot. For this, I will typically set my autofocus to single-shot. For anything dealing with motion, I will set my autofocus to continuous or AI Servo, press and hold the back-button focus and fire off a shot or burst off a few shots. I will admit, though, that sometimes I will forget to "press and hold" or at other times take my thumb off of the button when I really shouldn't but with practice, I suspect it will become more habitual to operate the button appropriately.

C. R. Smith (Charles)
Angel Star Photography
www.angelstarphotography.com

CathyAnn Loc: Apache Junction, AZ

I use BBF exclusively. It has a lot of advantages. Steve Perry has an outstanding video on the subject. If you haven't seen it, it's well-worth watching.

https://youtu.be/FzqQskGoURE

leftj Loc: Texas

Welcome to the hype of bbf. There are very few situations where bbf makes sense. Mostly as you have discovered it is a nuisance.

NJFrank Loc: New Jersey

I have it in my D7200. I love it. It does take a little getting used to it. Personally i would not go back to using the shutter button to focus. I want to be photogenic past October, while there i tried out a Nikon 200-500 zoom. I could get it to focus until I realized the camera was not set up for BBF. I am so used to using i thought the camera was broken.

Dan R Loc: Way Way Way Upstate NY

I only use BBF and keep my Nikons set to AF-C for all shots. There is no reason not too.

sirlensalot Loc: Arizona

As previously stated most useful for sports along with continuous focus mode.

inclinerr Loc: South Carolina, United States

The aircraft is a T45 Buckeye 2 seat jet trainer used by the US Navy and Marines for training new pilots.
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=1100&tid=2000&ct=1

To Everyone:
Thank-you for posting all of your wonderful comments, web tutorials, and instructional advice.
Also thank-you for your comments about the 3 pictures I have included.
Now onward to practice, shoot, practice, shoot, practice and shoot.

Here is a dragonfly captured with BBF.

(Download)