Canon EOS R6 Mark II missing Initial Servo AF pt for FaceTracking subject

[sachtikus]

Hello, I have a specific problem and I really need your help. 🙂

I’m using my Canon R6 Mark I like this: the shutter button is only for metering, and the AF-ON button is set in the custom controls menu to Eye AF.
In the AF settings (AF5 menu), under Initial Servo AF pt for Face Tracking subject, I’ve set it to the second option, “AF pt set for …”.

My normal AF is set to “expand area around.” So when I’m shooting and press the AF-ON button set to Eye AF, the camera picks the eye or head of the person inside that AF area square. It’s super fast and reliable.

But on the Canon R6 Mark II, there is no Initial Servo AF pt for Face Tracking subject option.

So when I try to quickly focus on one particular face in a scene with many people, it doesn’t track the person in the AF square — instead, the camera decides on its own who to focus on. And most of the time, it picks the wrong person.

Is there a workaround? Am I missing something? Or am I forever stuck with the R6 Mark I? 🙂

Please help!

[Waddizzle]

Honestly, I have no idea.  All I have to offer is anecdotal evidence.

This is what worked for me. Maybe.  Try resetting the AF system to the factory defaults.  I disabled subject tracking, eye tracking, and set AF mode to One Shot.  When I enable AF, all I see are little blue squares, like a DSLR.

Next, I selected 1-pt AF and chose the center AF point.  The joystick is disabled by default.  I enabled it. Clicking the joystick is supposed to reset the AF system to your Initial AF point.  But don’t quote me on that.

Again.  All of that is pure conjecture or a happy accident.  No clue. 

[Waddizzle]

Once your joystick is clicking to what you want to be an Initial AF Point, you should be good to go.  Enable all the advanced AF settings however you want.

[p4pictures]

You are correct and there is quite some difference between the EOS R6 (Mk1) and the EOS R6 Mk2 in the AF settings.

Firstly the EOS R6 can only do eye tracking when the AF method is set for Face + Tracking and eye detection is enabled. However on the EOS R6 Mark II the camera can do subject and eye tracking with any AF area (called methods on EOS R6 Mk1). What this means is that to replicate the setting you have on the EOS R6, you need a different setting on the EOS R6 Mark II. 

Set the AF-ON button to be metering & AF start, then press the INFO button to bring up the detailed settings. These detailed settings are used to override the camera set items while the button is pressed. So you can put a check mark in the left column of the AF area entry, and set this to be the 1-point AF area, put a check mark next to Whole area tracking Servo AF and set it to ON, then scroll down and enable Eye detection on Auto with a check mark in front of that too. 

Here's the screens captured from my EOS R6 Mark II to show what's needed.

Once you do this, then pressing and holding the AF-ON button will switch the camera to 1-point AF, activate whole area tracking and you have eye detection enabled. 

Confusingly the EOS R6 Mark II still retains the Eye detection AF function you used on the EOS R6 (Mk1), but it works slightly differently in that it switches the camera to whole area AF and looks for an eye. But you can achieve the same result by using 1-point AF and allowing the camera to track outside of the initial position of that AF point.