Eos R: white focus box will not appear for manual focus lenses (non-electronic)

[highdesertmesa]

For the EOS R: when adapting vintage manual focus lenses without an electroinic chip, I can't get the white focus box to appear so that I know where I will be zooming into when I use the zoom tool. Using the directional arrow pads does move the focus/zoom point but there is no way to see it moving on screen. Zooming in is a complete surprise as to where it lands unless I've reset the focus point to the center using the trash can button. With the EOS RP, however, the second I push one of the directional arrow pads, a white box shows up showing me where the zoom/focus point is.

Both the R and RP need to show the white focus box for non-electronic adapted lenses the same way it does for chipped lenses like the Zeiss ZE. I realize we won't have the focus confirmation tools where the dashes align and the focus box turns green, but we still need it to know where our zooming will land!

[Waddizzle]

When you use a manual focus lens that does not communicate, AF is effectively turned off.  Use Focus Peaking, instead.

[highdesertmesa]

Focus peaking is not enough for critical focus at wide apertures.

The lens does not need to be electronically coupled to show the white box. It's not an "AF box", it's just a box showing where you will be zooming into when you hit the zoom function. This white box is already there in firmware behind the scenes since moving the focus points with the directional arrows on the pad changes where you will be zooming into. They just need to make the point-of-zoom visible to the user.

Fujifilm and others already have this functionality. The RP has this functionality like I pointed out in the original post. Using one of the directional arrow buttons on the RP causes a white box to show up that can be then moved around. This is where the zoom goes to when zooming. This white box is not a square like the AF or the white box that shows up for electronically-coupled manual focus lenses. This white box is the exact proportion of the 35mm frame, so Canon knows and intended for it to work this way, they just forgot to make it show up by default or give us a way to turn it on.

[highdesertmesa]

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@Waddizzle wrote:

When you use a manual focus lens that does not communicate, AF is effectively turned off.  Use Focus Peaking, instead.

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This is not a white AF box. This is a box showing where you'll be zooming into when you use the zoom function. RP has the functionality already, you just have to hit the directional arrows to make the box show up.

Focus peaking is not accurate anough for manual focus at wide apertures.

[highdesertmesa · Accepted solution]

I figured it out!!! Thank heavens:

This is not intuitive, but it works: you have to turn off Focus Guide (the box with the two marks above it that align when the subject is in focus, which only works with electronically-coupled/chipped manual lenses). Once Focus Guide is turned off you can now use the directional arrow pads (must assign the four buttons around the Q button to move the focus point) to make the white frame/box show up on screen. This can be moved around to show where you will zoom into when you zoom.

This explains why I could simply use the 4-way buttons to make the white frame show up on the RP because the RP does not have the Focus Guide feature.