therealthings wrote:
He didn't put the camera to a real test though. The eye of a gull is very contrasty and white birds against those backgrounds are not all that challenging. I have been shooting small brownish birds on and through dense cluttered branches where the eye af struggled big time. Unfortunately I don't have opportunities here where e.g. Marsh Harriers fly over reed or seo's over similar colored backgrounds.
Yes, it works nice. Yes it's a first for any brand and in a lot of cases it works great (heavy contrast, distinct eyes, perched or slow moving animals) But I really think this needs one or 2 more generations to mature. Maybe the R1, maybe the a9III, who knows what the future holds.
Ps. I do like how well the 600 II works with the 1.4x on the R5. I would definitely without a doubt use it for shooting bears, roaming lions, larger birds etc. Not so sure yet I like it for fast moving smaller animals. ...Show more →
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Premnathbates wrote:
Thanks so much for posting this made some things about the camera clear.
I think that's asking a lot of the AED, shooting small brown birds through dense cluttered branches....
How did it fair when you turned it off and you controlled the focus point.
Pius Sullivan wrote:
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I think that's asking a lot of the AED, shooting small brown birds through dense cluttered branches....
How did it fair when you turned it off and you controlled the focus point.
When using single focus point and disabling animal eye af it was easier to keep the focus on the birds in those cases. Setting initial focus point like in the video helps when the birds head/eye is large enough in the frame to overlap the focus point/area. But it tends to give false positives when it finds parts of branches/twigs/foliage/debris that might have the appearance of an eye. To give another example, the camera at home sometimes thinks the knots in the wooden floor are eyes when I'm photographing our cats.
it took me years to develop the skills to get good at BIF. so now the chumps can let the camera eye focus and do it all for them? lord have mercy what is the world coming too? it ain't fair.
therealthings wrote:
When using single focus point and disabling animal eye af it was easier to keep the focus on the birds in those cases. Setting initial focus point like in the video helps when the birds head/eye is large enough in the frame to overlap the focus point/area. But it tends to give false positives when it finds parts of branches/twigs/foliage/debris that might have the appearance of an eye. To give another example, the camera at home sometimes thinks the knots in the wooden floor are eyes when I'm photographing our cats.
I see, but in general if you put the af point on the cats and then switch to AED as the cat walks across the floor in most cases it should stick to the cats eye. Thanks for your efforts in pointing those things out.. appreciate it.
aae991 wrote:
Just watched this... For those of us interested in BIF with the R5 and how well it does with older EF lenses, this is a good watch! Bottom line to me - my 600mm f4 mkII should be quite usable along with other EF and RF glass. He's got more videos coming that will detail his BIF settings.
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So funny, I just watched this before I clicked over to the forum.
Pius Sullivan wrote:
I see, but in general if you put the af point on the cats and then switch to AED as the cat walks across the floor in most cases it should stick to the cats eye. Thanks for your efforts in pointing those things out.. appreciate it.
When tracking from initial focus point it stays on the eye pretty well, but the moment the cat closes his eyes or turns his head making the AF lose the eye it jumps to a knot in the floor and decides to track that.
That’s only logical. If it loses the eye it will start to find anything that remotely looks like an eye.
therealthings wrote:
When tracking from initial focus point it stays on the eye pretty well, but the moment the cat closes his eyes or turns his head making the AF lose the eye it jumps to a knot in the floor and decides to track that.
bobbytan wrote:
That’s only logical. If it loses the eye it will start to find anything that remotely looks like an eye.
It certainly is, but when it decided to track the floor instead of the cat, it tends to stick to the false positive as well, so in that case you might miss an opportunity.
The human eye af works much better in that regard, but I understand that animal eyes are more versatile than humans. So maybe this is all we can expect from animal eye af until we get a true AI AF.
Premnathbates wrote:
Had the R5 for a week now and have been out birding every day. It makes a big difference tweeking the settings from factory. I love it!
Can you share a few. I don't have one yet but I'm curios about how the new Auto Case number works if you tried it. Also how the new Switching Tracked Subjects responds, also if you tried it.
In that video and this one I wonder if they were on Case 1 and Switching Tracked Subjects setting 1 which factory. Excellent at ignoring obstructions.
arbitrage wrote:
I will watch this later at home. I subscribe to his channel and watch a lot of his vids. He should give a very valid opinion compared to other Canon cameras like 5D4 and 7D2. But I've never seen him use a 1 series, let a lone any other top notch bird cameras like D500, D850, D5, D6, A9(II). So I don't think he is in any position to call this "best bird photography camera ever"...maybe from what he has used in the past...I don't doubt that coming from 5D4...but not in general.
I'm currently running a project that provides me with lots of images from flying dragonflies of a certain species from all over the country, different conditions, different photographers with different experience (including a few "pro's"). The images from D500 and D850 are on average easily the best ones. And I don't think this is because the best photographers are buying these Nikon cameras, as Canon cameras are far more plentiful among dragonfly photographers, or nature/wildlife photographers in general. Haven't seen any D5/D6/A9 pictures yet but that is not surprising given their small market share
therealthings wrote:
It certainly is, but when it decided to track the floor instead of the cat, it tends to stick to the false positive as well, so in that case you might miss an opportunity.
The human eye af works much better in that regard, but I understand that animal eyes are more versatile than humans. So maybe this is all we can expect from animal eye af until we get a true AI AF.
EyeAF doesn't look very "intelligent" to me indeed, for now. Dragonflies have hardware tracking, there is a direct link between the eyes and the flight muscles which allows extremely fast tracking while both dragonfly and prey are flying at high speed, with very little assumed "intelligence". They make mistakes sometimes (like tracking stuff that looks like prey from a distance) but the "lock" is amazingly fast and reliable. AF systems could learn a lot from that, although I guess they are at a disadvantage as long as the camera doesn't have build-in drone capability to help with tracking
Hi Set up with case 2 and sensitivity -2 Accel/decell tracking 0. seems to work well very sticky in a good way. other settings . shutter mode mechanical.
continuous AF disable. (important)
Lens drive when AF impossible ON ( very important)
My menu is nice to set up.
These are the important things I found. most other stuff is up to your requirements.
Hope you find this useful.
If you get in trouble and some things seem weird .happened to me 3 times I did a factory reset.
I also rang canon and they where super helpful.
Premnath
Hi I also set up two buttons . the main front focus button and AF-ON button on the back for focusing. the front button is general and the back button is only eye focus. also you can change subjects IE if you have two birds next to each other and you want the animal eye focus to change to the other bird by pre focusing with the normal spot focus on the one you want then when it is in focus change to the back button with eye focus. this works well.
Premnath
In the link you posted, he claims that the image preview was showing in his viewfinder...that can be disabled in the menus and was one of the first things I checked. The R5 now offers this option for the viewfinder and back screen separately - which was a very nice addition. But back to the point; the performance of tracking a subject really suffers when you enable image preview in the EVF. The moment you stop taking a photo in an action sequence, you see an image and can't see the real world which causes a difficult recovery to find the subject again once you resume AF or metering and get the EVF activated again.
Seriously though the “eyes”on the peacock’s body are too big to pass off as a bird’s eye. 
