EOS R6 Customizing buttons for my AF preferences

[goninda1]

Not sure if post like these are allowed here but I'm having trouble setting up and customizing the buttons on my R6 to make the AF work the way I want, and hope you guys could help.

I primarily shoot events and use two R6's for my work. On my camera I almost always have my AF method set to Face/Eye Tracking and set to servo. This works great for 95%+ of cases since I usually shoot people, but there are times where I need to take shots of the environment or of objects. Face/Eye Tracking still works decently enough for this purpose since it automatically detects and focuses on the closest object when people are absent. However, when there are also people in the frame, the AF starts tracking them instead of the object or scenery I want to take the shot of. To work around this issue, I've always manually set my AF to one shot, single point AF.

Events are usually pretty fast-paced, so I realized that I can no longer afford to risk missing shots by changing these settings every time by hand. I'm well aware that I can customize buttons on my camera to my liking, and I set my AF-ON button so that when I hold it down, my AF mode automatically switches to single point AF. This however came with another issue: since my AF is still set to servo, I can no longer use the focus and recompose technique for detail shots. I've went through the manual and it seems like there's no way to bind a custom button to change both the AF method and operation, only one of the two.

I've experimented with using back-button focus, but I found it too finicky for my liking dealing with 3 different buttons to get the shot I want. Is there any way to bind a custom button to change both settings at once? Perhaps I may be missing something.

[kvbarkley]

Maybe the it would be best to use the "C" settings on the mode dial. One little twist and you can have a completely different camera.

[TomRamsey]

Totally agree, this is exactly what the Custom Modes are there for.  There are too many autofocus setting to change from "action" shooting to "still life", having a custom mode for each makes it very simple.  Once you set u your custom shooting modes, the camera works for you.

[March411]

@ kvbarkley wrote:
Maybe the it would be best to use the "C" settings on the mode dial. One little twist and you can have a completely different camera.

This is the perfect solution to your challenge! I use the custom "C" as kvbarkley suggested and it does allow you to quickly use the exact shooting profile you desire with a simple spin of a dial.

[ctitanic]

The way I have it configured is using Back Button Auto Focus, the AF/ON I have it configured to use Face/Eye Tracking and the * button I have it configured with a single point AF without Face/Eye tracking in this way I just need to push the right back button depending on the task.

Here is a video that explains exactly how to do that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmpKtN025Bc

I know that you said that you do not like Back Button AF and that was my reaction when I used for the first time. But I gave it a second try and after that I never went back to use the half pressed shutter button. Try this configuration and you will see how easy everything works and it's a lot better than configuring the C buttons.

[p4pictures]

There are a few ways to swap out multiple features in one go. One is to use custom modes as has been suggested by others. The challenge with that is that exposure settings might not be the same for both, especially if you are rapidly changing settings while shooting to cope with different light levels.

There are some buttons and functions that provide an alternative option.

Simplest is to have a button that toggles one-shot and servo AF. There are several buttons on the camera that could be used, depth of field preview or the movie button are possibilities. Each press of the button switches between one-shot and servo with a message in the viewfinder or on the LCD. Here's the steps to customise the movie button, plus what you see on the camera each time you press the button.

Potentially you could combine this switching with reconfiguring the AF point button to directly switch AF methods, and limit the available AF methods. I did this on my EOS R6 to limit me to 1-point AF and face + tracking only. This makes the AF point button effectively toggle between 1-point and face + tracking.

Going a bit deeper, you can use the back button to switch the focus mode and AF area. You can also keep the shutter button working normally with your usual face + tracking and servo AF. However if you press and hold the AF-ON back button it will temporarily switch to one-shot, use a single AF point or what you choose and focus with the lock so you can recompose. Here's the steps for this, note that when you select Metering and AF start you'll see the INFO button appear in the lower left, this is how you get to the detail settings screen to put in the settings to override to one-shot and 1-point AF.