EOS R5 Mark II, precapture and bird flying from a perch

[steinrr]

Came from R5 to R5 mk ii and was hoping that the focus would be faster to follow birds flying e.g. from a branch, but I am struggling to make it work.

See below series as an example. Here I am using pre-capture to be able to get the flight. I am using back button focus. As you can see, even if i continuously press the (eye) focus button, the camera does not follow the bird as it takes of, but continues to keep focus where it originally was. Is this to be expected? The bird is very fast, so it might not be fast enough to follow it this closely? The lens is EF 600 f/4 II and the photos are uncropped.

Any thoughts?

[Ron888]

First a disclaimer:I've never used R5 models.
My first guess is the camera didnt recognise the birds eyes or perhaps didn't recognize the bird at all.It's a similar color to the branches.Unfortunately i couldnt get the focus points to show on the images you uploaded.
Before pressing the shutter,did you notice what the camera was focusing on? It should look like a tiny box centered on the bird's eye or body - https://youtu.be/Yqhzla0D0Oc?t=2949
Regards,Ron

[steinrr]

The camera had the bird in focus perfectly. I will post some images that shows the focus.

[FloridaDrafter]

Hello, steinrr!

I've had pretty good results using pre-continuous on both the R6 II and R5 II. On the R5 II, focus would occasionally shift/wander when I was shooting subjects that are coming at me or in a forward direction , either right of left, but for the most part tracking was true with my RF 100-500L. I cut this down a lot by setting my Servo AF characteristics in Manual, Tracking sensitivity to -2 and Accel,/decel, tracking to -1. You can tap the INFO/HELP button when making these adjustments and get a clear explanation of what the controls do.

Does the AF point wander? Or stay where you initially focused? Or drop off somewhere along the sequence? I tried looking at your images, but there was no AF point viewable. It would be nice to see what your focus point(s) are doing.

There is one other possibility, but you probably don't want to hear it 🙂 As great as the EF 600 II is, it just can't communicate with the R5 II like an RF lens can. The R5 II is a different beast when it comes to subject acquisition and needs a quick response from the lens, so this may cause the subject to get lost. EF glass (obviously) just wasn't designed with the R series in mind, especially the R5 II. Just a thought, I'm not saying that is your problem. I changed out all of my EF glass to RF counterparts (at great cost) simply because the RF glass took advantage of all my R5 and R6 (now the mark II of both) had to offer. They [RF glass] are just faster with slightly better IQ.

There is this "Caution" in the pre-continuous notes, but I'm not totally clear on it's meaning. The Japanese sometimes make it hard to grasp what they are getting at, LOL!

Newton

 

[steinrr]

I was using the same Servo AF characteristics as you (-2, -1). I will post pictures that shows how the camera has chosen focus. I think there might be some "physical limitation" here as you mention. I am using 600mm at 10m distance, and the bird is away "in the blink of an eye". I guess the camera trying to capture, calculate, communicate with the lens and, as you mention, it being an EF lens also - makes i an almost impossible task.

[ata]

Hello,Steinrr

I think Af escaped. If possible, you can check where Af stuck with DPP (Digital Photo Professional) and share the screenshot. After the 5th photo, it seems like Af stopped following or stayed at another point.

[steinrr]

I will post the series with AF points showing from DPP. It seems that the camera could not keep the bird in focus. Maybe the camera is not able to operate eye focus this fast...

[steinrr]

Here are the series with AF point showing from DPP. Seems like it cannot follow the bird somehow...