The return of Eye-Control Focus?

Latest rumors from the geek sleuths over at the Canon Rumors Blog are that the anticipated Canon 5D MkIII will see the return of Eye-control Focusing (ECF). While I never owned any Canon film cameras, including the 7 series cameras that featured ECF, I've heard mixed reviews of this technology.

On the face of it, this seems like a pretty righteous bit of voodoo. From what I've read, it works great but becomes annoying after awhile. Seems like it'd be great for shooting action - like sports or fast-moving nature shots - but I can just imagine doing a portrait or beauty shot only to lose focus when you scan around the frame edges to make sure you're not cutting things off. That would be annoying. Talk about hand/eye coordination! It'd still be better than trusting my old eyes to a manual focus system, though.

According to Canon, however, the technology wasn't included in their DSLR bodies due to excessive power drain. Still, ECF would be a pretty cool option to have available...as long as it augments and doesn't replace the current AF technology.

But who am I kidding? I probably won't get a MkIII until the MkIV is about to be released....