Autofocus on R6 vs R6 Mark II. Issue with spot and 1 point AF moving around/tracking

[hillarykleptach]

Hello, just got the Mark II after using the R6. On the R6, I have a button customized to switch between face+tracking, 1 point AF, and spot AF. I shoot servo. When it is on face+tracking, the auto focus points are continuously moving around, changing shape, tracking for faces. When I switch to 1 point or spot AF, the auto focus point is just a square that doesn't move or track, which I quite like.

So on the R6 Mark II, I set it up the same way, but now when I switch to 1 point or spot AF, the point moves around, changes shape, and continuously tracks, just like face+tracking on the R6. I do NOT want this. Is there anything I'm missing? Is this just how the Mark II is?

Basically just want to switch between these three focus options quickly in servo mode, but when I am in single or spot point I don't want my camera to be continuously tracking! Also I am not on continuous or preview AF!!! Thanks so much!

[p4pictures · Accepted solution]

The EOS R6 Mark II AF works in very different ways to the EOS R6 (Mk1).

Firstly with any AF area the EOS R6 Mk2 will track the selected subject type and detect eyes etc. This is different to the EOS R6 which will only do subject tracking when set to face + tracking or one of the zone AF areas. You can change the behaviour of the EOS R6 Mark II to work like the EOS R6 if you prefer, and to do so you will need to switch off whole area tracking Servo AF, and it can also be worth setting subject to detect to none.

Before I go on... you might consider the new behaviour an advantage. I use the single AF point to identify a specific person in a group and then the camera will focus on that face / eye and track it even if it moves in the frame. That is quite similar to having the initial AF point for face + tracking not set to auto on the EOS R6. If you are not sure what that means go look at this blog I wrote a while back. 

https://www.p4pictures.com/2022/04/decide-where-to-focus-eos-r5-r6-face-detection/

There are several approaches to changing how your EOS R6 Mark II works.

1. Turn off Whole Area tracking servo AF

This will stop the camera tracking when the AF area is set to anything other than whole area AF. Yet whole area AF will still track. If you set the subject to people then it will track faces and with eye detection it will track eyes. It is possible that the camera will still sometimes take a point slightly outside of where the AF point is positioned if it finds a face. 

2. Use a custom button to toggle Whole area tracking Servo AF

You can use a customised button to toggle whole area tracking. One of several options is the depth of field preview button. 

3. If you use back button AF, you can set different options with each of AF-ON and "asterisk" button.

Both AF-ON and the asterisk button can be configured with different settings, but you need to access the deeper levels that are not covered in the manuals. See below for an example. You could have the AF-ON set for face tracking with the whole area, and the asterisk configured for 1-point AF and no whole area tracking. 

 Here's a couple of screen grabs from my EOS R6 Mk2 to show you the way. On the second screen you press INFO to get to the third one.

[hillarykleptach]

Thank you so much. You answered my question and also gave me many ideas to consider as I learn my new camera settings. Very helpful!!!

[p4pictures]

Thank you I’m happy my solution helped you. I had been through the R6 to R6 Mk2 transition myself so that helps me to explain it.