I have been transitioning to R-series gear for a bit more than a year. The initial appeal was the smaller/lighter cameras and lenses available. When comparing my 100mm f/2.8L to the 85mm f2, I could save a about 8 ounces and almost 3 inches of length, when also considering the adapter. On top of that, there is a chance I could get more for the 100mm than I paid for the 85mm. Seemed like a win-win to me.
I got the 85mm about a week ago. My first thought on mounting it was, "This lens is broken." It struggled mightily with macro to distance AF and distance to macro AF. Trying to use the focus ring was an exercise in frustration. And it hunted like crazy in situations you'd think would be simple, i.e.: In good light, transitioning from 4 feet to 20 feet. Often times, it would hunt a few times, and just quit. Full-time manual was completely ridiculous. I could make several turns of the ring with no apparent change in focus.
I searched the internet for solutions, and came up with several, from various sources. Curiously, all of these suggestions are exactly nowhere all together in one list. I've made the following settings changes on my R10, and now find my RF 85mm lens more than acceptable. It is a bit slow on long transitions, but quite nice with gradual transitions. Example: my deck railing to the deck of a house 3 doors down, compared to following a tree line that runs the same distance.
Limiter to: 0.5m to Infinity - on lens
Servo On - Q menu
Whole Area w/tracking On - Q menu
Preview AF Disable - AF3 menu
Electronic Full-time MF On - AF6 menu
RF Lens MF focus ring sensitivity LINKED TO ROTATION DEGREE - AF6 menu
Display Simulation Off - Camera9 menu
I still think full-time MF in AF mode is quite useless. Full MF is way easier. Switch the lens to MF and use in-camera assistive features (AF Peak ON, Focus Guide ON - AF5 menu). The AF and IS noises may bother videographers; I don't do video. Oh, and one last thing: I'll not be selling my EF 100mm f/2.8L.
I wouldn't use "Whole Area w/tracking On", instead I'd use single point with tracking on. I have better luck with that than whole area on all of the crop bodies I have (R7, R10, & R50). I couldn't figure out how to make a center AF button on the R10 like I have in the R7 in addition to my normal back focus button. On the R7 I toggle between a center point at the subject, then it pics up the tracking and I move to the normal back focus button, otherwise it hunts a lot like you mentioned. On the R10 I have a return to center focus spot button instead, and while that helps, it doesn't focus on its own. The R50 only has the back focus option.
While mirrorless brings a host of performance improvements for most photographers, there are tradeoffs. Apparently one area where mirrorless struggles compared to DSLR AF systems is with acquiring focus when the lens is grossly defocused. It will hunt and/or give up. This is where the full-time manual focus during AF setting can be useful because you can give the MF ring a quick turn to reduce the amount of defocus and the AF system should then be able to resume operating normally.
Additionally, most mirrorless cameras except a couple from Olympus and the Canon R1 are only vertical line sensitive (when the camera is in horizontal/landscape orientation). This means if the subject is dominantly horizontal lines, the AF system will struggle. Tilting the camera momentarily usually helps it get a lock.
I also agree that if you want mirrorless AF to focus on something very specific and it's not something that is part of its 'subject detection' programming, it is usually beneficial to use the smallest possible AF point and precisely place it on the subject. This is based on my experience doing landscapes in forests where there are a lot of trees at different distances and if you let the camera decide where to focus, it will usually pick the wrong 'subject'. Or if the AF point or zone is large, it will pick the wrong content within the AF box.
However, if you're doing people, animal, vehicle photography, then the wide zones with subject detection can be extremely effective. That said, I'd recommend configuring at least one button on the camera to allow you to immediately revert to single point non-subject detection/tracking for 'simple' AF performance.
I own both of these lenses, and for macro, the EF 100mm f/2.8L is far better. 1:1 magnification, more working distance, manual focus is much faster and easier, and you can add extension tubes (e.g., 25mm plus 37mm gets you to 1.38x magnification). I would only use the RF 85mm f/2 if I wanted to pack light and macro was more of a just in case.
TomSchriefer wrote:
Electronic Full-time MF On - AF6 menu
According to Canon the RF 85mm f/2 macro STM doesn’t support this function, so behaviour will be governed by the other menu item “Lens electronic MF”. If that is set to ”One-shot→enabled” you can trim focus manually after AF if you half-press the shutter while turning the focus ring, but more importantly you can recover if the camera has jumped to the background – but not in servo. To do it in servo, you need full-time MF.
So I think with this lens you should put it in one shot and set the “Lens electronic MF” to one of the enabled settings.
Incidentally, some very popular RF lenses don’t support electronic full-time MF, notably the 14–35mm f/4 and 15–35 f/2.8.
I mainly use the RF 85 Macro for flowers and assorted close-ups. But if it's focused on something a meter or two away and I need to get to infinity, or even 20 meters out, it huffs and puffs and gives up. I need to manually focus to get it in the ballpark and then let AF take over for the final dial-in. Once I figured that out, I rarely miss a shot. In fairness, my RF 100 2.8L IS Macro USM, while more surefooted AF-wise, still requires me to manually focus to get in the ballpark for near-to-far or far-to-near transitions. I just half-press and turn the magic dial. But, yeah, befuddling at first since most of my zooms can AF without manual intervention. I'm guessing the increased DOF of a 14-35 or 24-70 makes AF much easier.
Incidentally, I've shot lots of music and talking head with this lens, and there are zero problems with AF noise when using an external shotgun mic and/or outboard audio.
