Face Detection Mode

[Saltine713]

I know it is pretty self-explanatory, but I was wondering about the benefits and drawbacks.

Does it use more battery life to have it on? And how well does it really work?

[Saltine713]

Anyone?

[VTphotog]

I don't know for sure how it would work in any given camera. That would depend on how the designers programmed it. Ideally, it would focus and set exposure on a face in the frame. With multiple faces, the principle would probably be to set an aperture that would allow all of the faces to be in focus.
Considering that it takes more processing power to accomplish, it might very well use more power from the battery, but I doubt it would be very significant, as it would only function during the half-press of the shutter button. (a guess) As to how well it actually works, I would have to check the reviews for a particular camera.

brian

edit: the drawbacks, of course, would come into play when you were shooting a photo of something other than people, with faces visible in the frame.

[MartinSykes]

I think the extra power used would be negligible compared to actually focusing a lens, using the flash and moving the shutter etc.

I'm still trying to figure out exactly what it does but it seems to detect faces anywhere in the frame, not just on one of the special focus points (15 in my camera) so I should be able to get faces in focus more easily. It's got limited use though as it only seems to recognise faces almost full on so faces in profile don't work.

[Saltine713]

Ok, so I looked into it. It turns out that it messes with the AF mode. Instead of focusing on what you are aiming it, it will remove your input of what to focus on and instead use multi-area focus and will focus on faces instead. If there are no faces, then the picture can actually come out kinda bad.