I have been trying to photograph hummingbirds. R5, EF100-400mm L ƒ5.6 w/adapter ring. Usual settings around ƒ5.6, ISO 400, 1/2000; remote RF trigger. Each time I adjust the settings, I resave it to "C1" custom settings (having learned that if the camera goes to sleep you lose any adjustments you made.)
As they are fast, darting creatures, the AF setitngs on the R5 have been useless. I have now resorted to manually focusing on a spot where they seem to hover over the feeder before plunging in.
However, when the R5 goes to sleep, and then wakes up when I click the remote, the focus is gone! It is so completely off you can only tell if a bird is there by some extra-color in the completely burred-beyond-recognition scene. Worthless. So, AF is worthless in this scenario. Now MF seems to be worthless as well. Any idea/thoughts/ suggestions?
There is nothing in the manual about this. There's barely much explanation (even in the "advanced" manual on manual focus.) There was only this zen-like line in the manual regarding "manual focus" and "power off": "The camera’s auto power off counter does not count time spent adjusting the focus with a lens’s electronic focusing ring." !!! If anyone can do a Vulcan mind meld with the author and understand what s/he means by this, that would be fantastic. My IQ isn't high enough to figure that one out.
My guess is that in fact, you are not actually focusing the lens anymore, such as with earlier EF lenses or the older film-era FD lenses, but are just changing the focus setting of the camera electronics. That would explain why it loses the focus every time it wakes up, and also suggests that these settings can't be saved (which seems ridiculous.) If it were really a mechanical setting, it would not be able to change the setting by itself...
Anybody else have this or similar issues? Thoughts? Solutions welcome!!! Thanks!
