How to Use the Touch Shutter on Your Canon EOS 80D

Here’s a neat Live View photography feature to try on your EOS 80D: When touchscreen operation is enabled, you can tap the monitor to set focus and trigger the shutter release. Follow these steps:

1. Enable the Touch Control option on Setup Menu 3. You can select Standard or Sensitive as the menu option; your choice determines how firm of a touch you need to use to get the touchscreen to respond.
2. Shift to Live View mode. Just move that Live View switch to the camera position and then press the Start/Stop button.
3. Look for the Touch Shutter icon in the lower-left corner of the monitor. By default, the touch-shutter feature is turned off, so the word Off appears with the icon.
4. Tap the icon to toggle the touch shutter function on. You also can turn the feature on via Shooting Menu 5 (Live View).
5. Compose your shot and then tap the subject on the monitor. If you’re focusing manually, the camera releases the shutter to take the picture. For autofocusing, the camera attempts to focus on the spot you tapped. If it’s successful, it releases the shutter to take the picture. If focus can’t be achieved, the camera won’t record the photo.

A few fine points: In the FlexiZone-Multi autofocus mode, the camera instead behaves as if FlexiZone-Single mode is active. The Continuous Drive modes don’t function; you can’t shoot a burst of images using the touch shutter. Nor does the touch shutter operate when the Live View display is magnified. And finally, to shoot a bulb exposure (using the B exposure mode), tap the screen once to open the shutter and tap again to end the exposure.

Turn off the touch-shutter function after you’re done using it. Otherwise, it’s easy to forget that the feature is enabled and accidentally take a picture when your tap is really meant to select an autofocusing point or zone.