Eye control is a technology that sounds cool.

The camera looks at where in the frame your pupil is looking, and then chooses to focus. It sounds like something from the future- but it's from the past. Canon included it on a few film cameras in the 1990s, but hasn't included it on any DSLRs.

So, I picked up a Canon A2E, the first Canon SLR with eye control to give it a whirl. I shot a roll walking around the city, before meetings, after coffee, and on the way to lunch.

Now- full disclosure, I wear glasses while shooting. Typically the kind that are coated, which apparently didn't fly so well with the A2E and eye control, and, it's only after doing some more research that I've discovered that eye control only works in landscape, not in portrait mode.

I honestly was never sure if it was doing anything. I mean, it chose one of the five AF points, and, it usually chose the one I wanted it too, but, so do more modern cameras with different methods.

I found a few frames on the roll the camera couldn't focus at all, I had to engage the trusty MF switch.

The A2E seems to be a great film EF mount film body: but, eye control can stay in the 90s.