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?

[steinrr]

I am using a back button assigned to eye detection AF. This is using whole area for location eye.

[1BobDavis]

Hi Stein Rune Risa,

I received your question via our YouTube email. I have succeeded with the EOS R5MII and the EOS R1 using Pre-Capture for this very reason you illustrated above. In my experience, I had to make adjustments to the AF responsiveness. Go to the AF purple menus, menu tab 3, choose Case Manual, and make the following changes. Tracking Sensitivity increased by +2, and Accel./decel and tracking increased by +2. Of course, you will want to conduct your tests. These are the settings I use for small birds, like your example. For larger birds, such as hawks and eagles, I use Case Auto Default.

[mkush]

Did you ever figure this out? Curious because I have an R5 Mark II and was considering buying an EF 600 Mark II but if it really is the case that the lens can't keep up with the camera then I won't. Thanks.

[John_Q]

Hello mkush,

There was a firmware update for the EF 600mm F/4L IS II USM lens that could help with this sort of issue. It would need to be done at one of our service centers. You can read more about that firmware update HERE.