topic Re: Back Button Focus in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

Does the EOS 5D Mark II have back button focus?

gehutch — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 13:05:44 GMT

Does the 5d Mark ii have the ability to set up back button focus? I've searched quite a bit and haven't found a yes or no anywhere.

Re: Back Button Focus

gehutch — Thu, 07 May 2020 00:20:11 GMT

Wouldn't you know it. Minutes after posting this I found it...

Re: Back Button Focus

Ray-uk — Thu, 07 May 2020 10:20:46 GMT

For true back button focus you not only need to set up the back button in the menu you also need to take the focus off the shutter button, so there are two changes you need to make.

Re: Back Button Focus

wq9nsc — Thu, 07 May 2020 13:53:40 GMT

I tried back button focus with my 1 series bodies but never really cared for the setup. I reassigned it as the AF stop button which is very useful to me when I do a quick recompose during sports shooting. I often use the AF stop buttons on my telephoto primes instead because they are usually next to my fingers while holding the lens but unfortunately the 70-200 f2.8 that is usually on my second body doesn't have that ring of buttons so the AF stop gets used a lot on that body.

Rodger

Re: Back Button Focus

gehutch — Thu, 07 May 2020 13:54:33 GMT

Thank you Ray! I wondered about that but so far haven't been able to tell how to take the focus off the shutter. Needless to say, just got this used mkii yesterday and trying to dig in.

Can you point me in the right direction to accomplish this?

Thanks again...

Re: Back Button Focus

Ray-uk — Thu, 07 May 2020 18:49:10 GMT

I think I may have jumped in too soon because upon checking it looks as though with the 5D MkII this may be all done on the one setting of C.fn IV-1 which you need set to option 2, which is probably what you have already done.

Re: Back Button Focus

gehutch — Thu, 07 May 2020 20:11:47 GMT

I lucked into that! Thanks for your help, glad there's some knowledgeable people on here. Some things are hard to dig out of the manual and online...

Re: Back Button Focus

Irreverend — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 01:48:41 GMT

Good answers here, but I'm having an odd problem - I spent the afternoon trying to get my back button (*) set up for back-button focus, without success, until after a lot of fooling around I got the camera to show the focus lights, but it only worked a few times, and both before and after that, nothing. Does this button ever get sticky with age and/or nonuse? This on a just-acquired, lovely Mark ii with a low, low shutter count, and it appears to have been treated really well by its previous owner - I have several other Canons, including a T-90 and a Rebel XS/1000D and have never run into a button problem.

Re: Back Button Focus

Irreverend — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:56:25 GMT

All righty, I figured this out! It's important to also disable the autofocus function on the AF-ON button in order to let that button enable autofocusing. C.Fn IV: Operation/Others, set to disable. With the other change to C.Fn IV: Operation/Others to set 2. Metering start/Meter+AF Start, back-button focus appears to be working fine.

Re: Does the EOS 5D Mark II have back button focus?

Irreverend — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 20:05:26 GMT

I know that doesn't appear to make sense, I may have written that wrong, sorry.