The AE-L/AF-L Button on F5/F100?

ChristopherCoy · May 26, 2020

What is this button for? What purpose does it have? (ETA: I know what it is, and I know what it does, I just dont see a purpose in it)

Of all the Nikon cameras that I have used, both film and digital alike, I have NEVER known a purpose for this button.

Do any of you use it? And why?

(I use back button focus, but use the AF-ON button for that)

neilt3 · May 26, 2020

Auto Exposure Lock .
Auto Focus Lock .
Press it and you lock focus and exposure .
So you can recompose with focus and exposure locked .
It's all explained in the user manual .
Download it . Read it. Understand it.
It's all in there , including any custom functions .

The cameras I use I have it set to lock exposure , but not focus .
I can set exposure where I need it in contrasty scene , then lock focus with the shutter release , then re-compose before taking the shot .

ChristopherCoy · May 26, 2020

neilt3 said:
Auto Exposure Lock .
Auto Focus Lock .
Press it and you lock focus and exposure .
So you can recompose with focus and exposure locked .
It's all explained in the user manual .
Download it . Read it. Understand it.
It's all in there , including any custom functions .

The cameras I use I have it set to lock exposure , but not focus .
I can set exposure where I need it in contrasty scene , then lock focus with the shutter release , then re-compose before taking the shot .

Yes but what need is there to lock anything if you're shooting fully manual. If you set your shutter speed, and aperture nothing will change, so why lock it?

neilt3 · May 26, 2020

ChristopherCoy said:
What is this button for? What purpose does it have? (ETA: I know what it is, and I know what it does, I just dont see a purpose in it)

Of all the Nikon cameras that I have used, both film and digital alike, I have NEVER known a purpose for this button.

Do any of you use it? And why?

(I use back button focus, but use the AF-ON button for that)

ChristopherCoy said:
Yes but what need is there to lock anything if you're shooting fully manual. If you set your shutter speed, and aperture nothing will change, so why lock it?

Who said anything about shooting in manual mode ?
I didn't , and you didn't , even before you edited your original post to now say you know what the button is for .

Maybe if you read the user manual you'll understand what and for whome it's for .

If you shoot in aperture priority or shutter priority you would understand what it's for , and make use of it from time to time .

As you shoot in manual exposure mode , you won't use it .

BradS · May 26, 2020

ChristopherCoy said:
Yes but what need is there to lock anything if you're shooting fully manual. If you set your shutter speed, and aperture nothing will change, so why lock it?

...but that's not auto exposure so, yeah, the button does not apply in that case.

ChristopherCoy · May 26, 2020

BradS said:
...but that's not auto exposure so, yeah, the button does not apply in that case.

So essentially its just to lock the portion of exposure that ISN'T controlled by a 'mode'. Locks shutter in aperture mode, and locks aperture in shutter priority mode.

But this is what I don't understand. If you're going to 'lock' those things you're essentially over-riding what they are meant to do - so why not just use manual mode?

MattKing · May 26, 2020

If you are in auto mode, if you meter and focus off one part of the scene, and then re-compose to get the shot you want, the meter reading and focus point will change, because you moved the camera.
The focus and meter reading lock functions lock the focus and reading, thus allowing you to re-compose without the focus and meter reading changing.
It is a lot quicker and more responsive to work that way than to work entirely in manual.

BradS · May 26, 2020

ChristopherCoy said:
So essentially its just to lock the portion of exposure that ISN'T controlled by a 'mode'. Locks shutter in aperture mode, and locks aperture in shutter priority mode.

But this is what I don't understand. If you're going to 'lock' those things you're essentially over-riding what they are meant to do - so why not just use manual mode?

mmm...I get what you're saying. It's hard to explain but in a nutshell, its just plain faster and easier.
I think if you wanna go deeper than that, you pretty quickly get into personal preferences and prejudices.

EDIT...Matt explained it (above)

ChristopherCoy · May 26, 2020

MattKing said:
If you are in auto mode, if you meter and focus off one part of the scene, and then re-compose to get the shot you want, the meter reading and focus point will change, because you moved the camera.
The focus and meter reading lock functions lock the focus and reading, thus allowing you to re-compose without the focus and meter reading changing.
It is a lot quicker and more responsive to work that way than to work entirely in manual.

hunh.... that does make sense. I should have figured you'd have the response I was looking for.

And I guess I've done that and never realized it. When shooting digital I'd just chimp and adjust a setting as I needed to until the area of the photo I wanted was exposed correctly. Although it rarely happens that way, I'm sure the situation will come up again in the future.

ETA: And now I'm thinking about my shooting, I always use back button focus, but I do a lot of recomposing. I'm wondering if it would be advantageous to try using this button instead and keep my AF activation on the shutter button.

John Bragg · May 26, 2020

ChristopherCoy said:
hunh.... that does make sense. I should have figured you'd have the response I was looking for.

And I guess I've done that and never realized it. When shooting digital I'd just chimp and adjust a setting as I needed to until the area of the photo I wanted was exposed correctly. Although it rarely happens that way, I'm sure the situation will come up again in the future.

ETA: And now I'm thinking about my shooting, I always use back button focus, but I do a lot of recomposing. I'm wondering if it would be advantageous to try using this button instead and keep my AF activation on the shutter button.

Yes, my F5 and F100 are set to back button continuous focus only. That way you lock focus by removing thumb from button or re-apply pressure to follow focus. Easy peasy.

Huss · May 26, 2020

One problem I had with my F100 is that the camera would release AE lock after exposure. There is no custom setting for it to hold the exposure if the shutter has been fired. Bugged the heck out of me, which is one reason I prefer the F6 as you can set it so the AE lock holds exposure for as many shots as you want.

Chan Tran · May 26, 2020

ChristopherCoy said:
Yes but what need is there to lock anything if you're shooting fully manual. If you set your shutter speed, and aperture nothing will change, so why lock it?

I don't know if you were just kidding. You want to know the real reason? Without those button Nikon would be able to sell fewer cameras. So they put them in to sell more cameras. It's the consumers that dictate what should and shouldn't be on the cameras.

jp498 · May 26, 2020

I used it quite often on my F4s and still have a button programmed for that on my digital nikons. Using Aperture priority.

Let's say you want to focus on one thing, so you put the center on what you want to focus on using the center autofocus point, like if you have a split prism finder or microprism and think of the center of the viewfinder to be for focusing. Press the release slightly to focus. You are shooting into the sun with glare.. Then you have some shadowy part of the scene you want to meter on, so you meter on it (continuous process), hold down the AEL/AFL button, recompose and shoot. All nicely exposed without math and done with buttons in their logical places on the camera.

The AE-L/AF-L Button on F5/F100?

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