topic Re: EOS R6 - Auto Focus Tracking During Movie Mode in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

EOS R6 - Auto Focus Tracking During Movie Mode

john42 — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 15:28:50 GMT

i have a canon r6 and very pleased, however i have just tried the movie mode and need some advice. I took a short clip of a scene over a well lite harbour at night and found as i was panning my camera the auto focus started to hunt and spoil the shot. I was wondering if anyone else experienced this and the setting to adopt to overcome this issue .

thanks for reading

Re: EOS R6 - Auto Focus Tracking During Movie Mode

Waddizzle — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 17:03:42 GMT

“ I took a short clip of a scene over a well lite harbour at night and found as i was panning my camera the auto focus started to hunt and spoil the shot. “

There have been many users to experience similar issues when capturing video. There isn’t an issue with the camera. It’s caused by a perfect storm of bad camera AF settings, which also includes Image Stabilization.

What AF settings were you using? What subject was the AF trying to identify, lock focus on, and track as you panned? You should disable all the advanced AF tracking features like subject recognition and eye tracking when capturing video of distant landscapes, especially while panning.

Were you using AF in Servo mode?

Many users have reported that they were using a tripod when issues began. They weren’t even panning, but they had IS enabled. The standard advice when shooting from a tripod is to disable IS.

The primary purpose of IS isn’t correcting for camera shake. It’s stabilizing the image for the AF system and the viewfinder. IS spends nearly 100%of its time doing exactly that when capturing stills. The shutter fires in a very small fraction of a second.

Re: EOS R6 - Auto Focus Tracking During Movie Mode

john42 — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 17:41:39 GMT

Thanks very much will give those suggestions a try tonight I am sure they will work

Thank you again

Re: EOS R6 - Auto Focus Tracking During Movie Mode

p4pictures — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 18:00:19 GMT

Assuming the camera is focussed on a subject, then if you pan around the scene is largely the same distance as the initial subject. It is usually better to stop the camera from focusing by temporarily pausing movie servo AF.

On the LCD in the lower left corner you should see a touch icon to disable movie servo AF. This is one way to temporarily stop the camera refocusing while you pan. Another option is to make use of the camera custom controls and allocate a button to pause movie servo AF. Settings for the custom buttons can be different for still and movie modes, so it might make sense to use the AF-ON button to pause movie servo AF. Then you can press the button to toggle movie servo AF on and off. There are multiple buttons that can be assigned to pause movie servo AF.

Re: EOS R6 - Auto Focus Tracking During Movie Mode

john42 — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 21:42:34 GMT

Thanks a lot Brian solved my problem

Re: EOS R6 - Auto Focus Tracking During Movie Mode

Waddizzle — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 00:17:03 GMT

Thanks, for the great follow up.