EOS R5 Mark II How to focus on a hawk and ignore clutter

[pedz]

I was out today and a red something hawk flew into a live oak tree with a lot of cluttering branches behind it.  (I can't readily tell the difference between a red-tailed hawk and a red-shouldered hawk and both are fairly common here in Texas.).

The R5 Mark II consistently wanted to focus on the clutter behind the hawk rather than the hawk itself.  I checked and I had Subject to detect set to Animals and Eye detection set to Auto.  I had Whole Area AF selected and eye control was off.  I switched via the Q menu to 1-pt AF and got the shot.  I know about having back button focus and being able to have more than one back button focus buttons but that's wondering off topics that I am not interested in right now.

What I'm trying to figure out is which options will give me the best chance in this particular situation where there is a subject but it is hard to spot because of clutter behind the subject.  The hawk really was rather well camouflaged despite having no obstructions in front or to the side of the hawk.

[Waddizzle]

How far away from you is the bird and the background?  Have you defined an initial AF tracking point?  

The AF system does not need to have the advanced subject detection system enabled to focus on the closest thing to the camera. In fact, a busy background means the camera is going to analyze it for subjects, if you don’t define where it should look first. 

[pedz]

I’m not good at estimates but I’ll say 20 yards and the clutter was one to five feet behind the bird.

As far as the initial AF tracking point, I don’t know.  I tried the shutter button a few times (using the EVF) and then tapped the screen thinking that would give the camera a starting point, put the camera back to my eye and tried the shutter button again a few times and it still wanted to focus on the background.

[Tronhard]

Please do read what I posted, it will help you avoid that exact issue, as I explained.  With centre point locked BBF and servo mode enabled, you can completely nail the focus point to avoid background clutter.  See Canon's video on how to set it up:

NOTE that the technique needs you to set SERVO focus mode as well, so if your subject is static you TAP the AF-ON button, but if it is moving (towards or away particularly) you HOLD the AF-ON button.  I do use it in conjunction with face and eye tracking and very often the tracking system just needs that starting point. If not just use the method outlined in the video.  I lock focus and recompose, then shoot.

I can assure you it works as per these examples:

The panda was deep, high up in a tree, and about 15m (30ft) away from me.
The serval was literally behind a curtain of twigs, and in a dark cave-like space.
Canon EOS R5, RF 100-500@500, f/8, 1/800sec, ISO-6400  Single Point Focus between twigs 

In these two the subject was about 15m (30ft) away and further challenging was the very dim light in the deep bush and almost identical tonal and colour characteristics of the bird relative to the background Original in bush  Image blown up  Virtually no tonal difference here

[pedz]

Thank you.

The key here isn’t actually the back button focus but the “single point centered” that you stated or the “single ‘fine’ AF point” that FloridaDrafter mentioned.  If I had Whole Area selected, it would have still focused on the background.

I found this YouTube video.  The last 10 minutes is especially unique and informative.  He demonstrates the focusing characteristics and tendencies for the different AF areas.

[Tronhard]

The default focusing mode is inclined to focus on the closest object or the one that offers the best contrast.

Now, features like face and eye tracking are great if they can find one to begin with, but sometimes (likely in your case) that starting point needs to be identified.  To do so, I personally set my focus to single point centred with Servo, assigned to the AF-On and using Back Button Focus.   I then point the centre at the subject's eye or other critical point and TAP the AF-ON button if the subject is not moving - at this point, the eye tracking may lock on and track, but if not HOLD the AF-ON button and follow the subject as it moves.

[FloridaDrafter]

Hello, pedz!

The scenario you described with the hawk is roughly 80% of the shots I take. Generally in forest canopy or floor, from 3" birds on up in size to hawks. I use the single "fine" AF point. This changes with my R6 II and R5 II, so when using those, I enable whole area tracking with the single fine AF point. This allows me to put my single point on the target and when the AF system detects the bird, be it head, body, or eye, it locks on. Some folks like "tracking", but I don't. So I only use servo and tracking with whole area when shooting BIF, which I have assigned to C1. I have tremors, so I have to use the whole area instead of a cluster. With the R5 II I can generally get the center single fine point close enough for it to lock on with whole area enabled. As for BBF, I used it with my DSLR's, but stopped that when I started using the R series. The shutter button works fine for me, so I just never bothered to set it up, and frankly, I don't miss it.

One thing I've noticed about the R's, and the R5 mark II in particular, is that they/it learns what you are shooting. For example, at first (out of the box) it would have trouble focusing on my targets, but since I have MFO switched on, I could manually focus and it would lock on. So the next time, it just locked on without any coaxing from manual focus. Now hunting is very rare and I can only assume that the camera learned what subjects I prefer, LOL! I know that may sound unbelievable, but all of my R series cameras have behaved that way, AF improved as it learned, and I didn't change my settings.

Newton