Eye tracking for portrait fallback to area mode

Fred_ wrote:

You saying there is another way to detect an eye when the camera can't detect an eye? See the issue there

I don't like the way you are turning it. It looks like you try to make me sound stupid. It doesn't bring the discussion up.

I wasn't trying to make you sound stupid. 
I was just pointing to the simple fact that in wide area mode with Sony is like the face tracking mode with canon. If it finds and eye/face it will track it, or else it will focus on the nearest thing.

The goal : When eye is lost default to the focus method I want
Canon way: When eye is lost, it focus on what it want's

if you have a model that dance and turn, on Sony you can set a box at head level and the behavior will be : eye if detected, box at the fix position if not.

Servo autofocus is meant for moving objects. Are you photographing “portraits “ of moving people?

Not only, with tracking you don't focus recompose, you just compose and the servo mode combined with the eye tracking will get the focus for you.
You should try on your next portrait session

I no longer have a sony. But I had a sony since the A7II came out followed by the A7III. I personally found a lot of the AF focusing modes of sony a little redundant. So I ended up only using 2-3 of them rather than all.

On the other hand I understand that canon's approach with the R is a bit more simplistic. I do think that sony allowing for a separate button to be assigned for eye AF is pretty good. But keep in mind that it was not always like that. I believe it only showed up in their 3rd gen camera. And I find that people get frustrated that canon didn't get "it right" right out the gate, but it is a 1 gen camera, and in my opinion it is far better than the A7II but not quite there as the A7III. Future released will likely refine the interface and interaction users have, but for now this is what we have.

I used to have very dynamic situations, since I was usually out and about with the family, which means at times there are more faces or eyes in the scenes and sometimes just one person. And this could change from one shot to the next. Due to this I never trusted the camera to just do things for me. It took more time to switch between people and such. For this reason I was always in the single AF points with sony. Put the box on the person's face I want to eye AF and engage, and that is the person it grabs focus on.

So I do the same with the EOS R now. I also get the annoyance of doing focus and recomposing all the time. But that is where I prefer canon's touch drag. If I am going to recompose more than once, I simply move my AF point to approximately where I want it. Box over the person's face and initial focus. That way if it sees an eye that is what it goes for, if not then the face, and if not normal tracking in that box.

Now, there is something else. I have the down button assigned to switch between servo and one shot. You see the initial AF box is not present in one-shot mode when you are in face/tracking mode. So for portrait sessions I can quickly go into one-shot mode, and you can see the face box with the eye box contained in it when the camera sees a face. I hit focus and take the shot. It goes quite fast and is no problem, at least not with f1.8 lenses. If I want to so something more dynamic, like there person is moving around I then switch to servo mode and do what I stated above. 90% of the time (at least for me) I already know how I want to compose. That is why touch and drag is nice, because it is quick. 
In fact I was a bit annoyed with the sony at times. If it didn't recognise a face then I would have to put the box over the person's face and recompose with AF engaged. And I did that because it was actually faster than moving the AF point with the joystick.

So again... no system is perfect. And I can tell that canon simply did not give the EOS R the same level AF system as the 5D, 1D and 7D lines. You can tell simply by the fact that AF cases are missing. 
The system also has other issues I am not too happy with. Not that it wasn't present in the sony system, but it seems to exhibit the issue more. Lets say I point the AF point to a branch and engage focus, if any part of the box covers something behind that branch, such as leaves for example, more often than not the system would actually grab focus on the leaves. I would have expected at the very least that it would focus on the edge of the branch. I have experienced this way too often. Sony did it was all, just less. My guess is that it has to do with the difference between the hybrid system and the DPAF. Canon should have the algorithm weigh the centre of the AF box. Bu this is a digression from your concern.

So canon does have multiple things to improve. Especially if they intend to have the camera be used in sports and BIF situations.

Hope this helps. But I also hope that future body releases refines the experience. Canon is usually good at that. Perhaps they could also make improvement on it via FW.