Animal Eye With R5

[Donde]

I've recently played around with using the "animal eye" setting and found the following. The camera will grab the bird's eye at say twenty meters or more so long as the back ground is relativelt plain such as the bird being on a lawn. I haven't tried it with a distant bird against the sky but according to videos I've seen it seems to work well. However when shooting bird twenty or thirty meters away that is perched on a branch with a complex forest background the camera can't seem to grab the eye. Where it works well despite a busy background is at relatively close distances of say ten meters.

 

[davholla]

Interesting the reviews imply it is amazing your description suggests that it isn't.

 

[Space Face]

I've recently played around with using the "animal eye" setting and found the following. The camera will grab the bird's eye at say twenty meters or more so long as the back ground is relativelt plain such as the bird being on a lawn. I haven't tried it with a distant bird against the sky but according to videos I've seen it seems to work well. However when shooting bird twenty or thirty meters away that is perched on a branch with a complex forest background the camera can't seem to grab the eye. Where it works well despite a busy background is at relatively close distances of say ten meters.

Perfectly natural. I have the same with the R6 and busy backgrounds at a distance.

My understanding is that the AF detects points of contrast in general terms. Obviously a relatively small eye at distance against a varied bg is going to cause the AF more issues than closer subjects or cleaner bg's.

It's a brilliant system but not 100% infallible.

 

[Scott Whaley]

what type of lens ae you using? I have the R5 and use a Sigma 150-600 contemporary and a Sports lens. There is a switch on both of them which will allow for me to set the focus range. For example: less than 10 meters, 6-10 meters, 10 or more meters. My wife has the new Canon 500 lens and I believe hers does to. I haven't used hers, so I am not sure.

 

[Space Face]

The lens focus limiter makes no difference to the issue in question.

 

[Scott Whaley]

The lens focus limiter makes no difference to the issue in question.

..

The lens focus limiter makes no difference to the issue in question.

The issue the OP is having is common with the Canon R series cameras. One of the solutions is to limit the focus range. It's not a complete fix, but it does reduce it.

 

[Space Face]

The OP is speaking about subjects at 20-30 meters against clean and fussy backgrounds. A focus limiter at 10 meters makes no difference to that unless he's focus jumping between 10 and 20-30 meters, which is just bizarre.