Dear Sirs,

I own a Canon Elan IIE with the eye control feature, I have two calibrations for the eye control, one for situations when I'm using glasses and the other one for situations when I'm not using them.

I have found out in most of the cases the eye control is not as easy and precise to use as I supposed in both calibrations; I have to mention that using the calibration for glasses it's by far more difficult to use.

I got used to use my camera in other autofocus modes than eyecontrol.

Is this usual for Elan IIE users? Can be a problem of my camera?

Thanks in advance, Best regards.

-- Enrique Saravia (esaravia@mail.com), February 18, 2000

Answers

I have an Elan IIe and wear glasses. Eye control works well for me, but I have heard that not everyone has good results. Perhaps this is due tot he shape of the glasses, or iris, color of the eye, who knows. I do know that to get good results I have to recalibrate the ECF every week. Don't erase the old calibration, just recalibrate. In fact I usually do it twice, once looking over the top of the boxes and once again looking under them. When I take the time to do this, It never misses. I have found that for most of my use the single center focus point is the one I want, so I often have ECF off anyway.

-- Jim Strutz (jimstrutz@juno.com), February 19, 2000.

I have EC on my EOS 3 but use it only occasionly. I have found and true to the nature of the beast,That EC becomes more accurate as you continually recalibrate, which is recommended by Canon and other users.

-- Jeff Hallett (franjeff@alltel.net), February 25, 2000.

You can get an eye piece extender which apparently allows ECF to work better for people with glasses, I do not think it will fit onto an eos5, and as I do not wear glasses cannot comment on the effectiveness, I also recalibrate my ECF in different lighting situations about 1 a month max

-- wayne walker (waynewalker@xoommail.com), February 25, 2000.

I use the ElanIIe and wear glasses. Calibrations are cumulative. As I have continued calibrating in as many different lighting situations as possible, the camera has become more responsive to my eye. In a Canon brochure they refer to this feature as "self-teaching technology".

I have heard that people who wear LARGE glasses (mine are small) sometimes encounter problems. I suspect this is because the camera is comparing the cornea of your eye to stored images of your cornea, and somehowlarge glasses interfere with this.

My eye-control feature gets better and better. I don't have to always look at one of the three AF squares in the 'finder anymore. When I look anywhere ABOVE the squares or at the height of the squares, as though there were an imaginary line drawn across the 'finder right through the squares, the camera detects my eye's direction and uses the nearest AF square to focus. This does not work below the "line". A Canon service manager confirmed that there is indeed a "window" in the area I described where eye control will work.

By the way, when you calibrate be sure to stare fixedly at the AF squares and don't forget to calibrate it holding the camera vertically as well. Don't give up, it skates rings around regular AF once it knows your eyes well enough. Good luck! Roy Kekewich

-- Roy Kekewich (roykekewich@yahoo.com), February 26, 2000.