Hi I'm using a Canon R5 with a EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM for bird photography. Using back-button focussing, and when tracking a bird in flight, it often happens that the bird leaves the focussing area. The camera then does a full focussing cycle, which a) takes long and b) often leaves me not re-finding the bird because the final focus is so much off that the subject is just a smudge. Is there a setting to prevent these full focus cycles? My current settings: SERVO AF on 2 (=continue to track subjects, ignoring possible obstacles), continuous AF is disabled, eye tracking, subject to detect = Animals, Switching tracked subjects = 0 (default) Thanks, Simon
Your not going to like the answer, but the only thing to do is not let the subject drop out of the focus area. The camera has to re calibrate the distance of any object once something new enters even if it was the original subject ...since it is auto focus it will re-calibrate. You could do manual focus and work wit focus traps but at long zooms that is not perfect either. Ideally you may want to not be zoomed in quite so close if your loosing the subject. All of this is an art and improved focusing tracking has simply made things immensely easier the last 15 years.
Thanks Johnsey, I guess I'll have to learn to let go of the back-button focus as soon as I lose the subject. Will take me a while, but it's good to know I'm not missing a setting somewhere.
not sure if it will come to the R5 but i saw that the R6mkII now has this very feature where it will not re adjust the focus if you are tracking a subject and it leaves the frame, it will then wait for the subject to come back into frame and re acquire the focus. the example given was when the camera is being used in a studio and some one walks out of shot and back in so i'm not sure which focus modes it works with i only briefly read the blurb not sure where i read it either, i'll have a look (edit) i saw it on the park camera website: "Movie Servo AF ‘Detect only’ option A new Movie Servo AF option ‘Detect only’ has been added to the EOS R6 Mark II, which is similar to ‘Face only’ feature found in the EOS C70 Cinema camera. When activated, if the subject specific in the Subject to detect menu moves out of the focus area the camera will remain at its current point of focus without refocusing on other subjects. This has practical applications, such as when ‘People’ is specified in the menu, focus will not change if a subject walks out of shot, where traditionally a camera would refocus on the background. This is often undesirable, especially if the subject is about to move back into the frame and will be out of focus."
