"Whole Area Tracking Servo AF" setting in Movie Mode on R5 Mark II

[lwatawala]

In Photo mode of R5 Mark II, there is a setting called "Whole Area Tracking Servo AF", which in Servo mode makes AF continue tracking a subject even after the subject has moved outside the AF Area. However, in Movie mode, I have not been able to find a menu to enable this setting. Is that by design? How can I enable that feature in movie mode?

Thanks
Lakshman

[p4pictures · Accepted solution]

When shooting movies using movie servo AF the EOS R5 Mark II will laws track the subject outside of the AF area, so there is no need for the setting in movie mode. If you don't want to track a subject beyond the initial AF area, then you have to use one of the four AF that have the lock icon on the corner (spot AF, 1-point AF, AF with expansion cross and around). 

This is because in movie mode the camera is rarely needed to focus on a subject at a specific point and then be moved to change the composition, as can often be the case with still images where the "old technique" of focus, lock and recompose is more commonly used. 

[lwatawala]

Thank you, Brian.

[lwatawala]

I did some controlled testing in movie mode and observed that AF Tracking didn't quite continue outside of the active AF Area boundary. In my testing, I used "Flexible Zone AF 1" as the AF area and had an eye of a small bird focused and ltracking. AF did properly track the eye of the bird while the bird was within the AF area boundary. However, when the bird exited the AF 1 Zone boundary, AF tracking stopped.

On the other hand, when I changed my AF Area to "Whole Area AF", as expected, the AF properly tracked the eye of the bird anywhere in the viewfinder.

Going forward, I will always use Whole Area AF in movie mode. So, at this point, this discussion for me a bit theoretical but curious how it is supposed to behave.

Thanks
Lakshman