Canon AF "Case Settings" and AF tracking
Karl_Guttag wrote:
Joe Reynolds wrote:
I have found “object tracking” totally unreliable with R5 when in what Canon calls face detection.
That may be true if in either Human or Animal mode, but I find it works well in either Vehicle or None for tracking planes and the like.
I also find that "eye detection" in None or Vehicle modes (I have both available with dual back button focus) works to get the lens at least focused on something when I'm first raising the camera. I usually have the AF tracking based on the initial focus point, and that may totally miss, or you can't find anything when the lens is out of focus.
Since using Vehicle or None subject tracking (with help from "eye detection," or whatever the R5 does in Vehicle mode, to get started sometime), I find the camera will lock focus almost every time.
Another factor affecting people's success with tacking is the Case setting under AF (pink) menu tab 3.
Early on, I set my Case 1 based on a video by Jan Wegener (the whole video is great but this is the specific point on Case: https://youtu.be/-nnRqgXu7QI?t=950). Jan's point was that he found the tracking a bit to "jumpy" and that by setting the sensitivity and Acceleration both to -1 it calmed it down.
I didn't understand it at the time. A recent comment by Jarad: https://youtu.be/mCpSsUMLgrQ?t=232 about the Case settings, but his explanation was confusing and incomplete.
More details on what is going on is included in this 1 hour and 45-minute video which explains all the settings (the part directly discussing Case is linked here: https://youtu.be/uFFKciYlxjQ?t=2742).
While cases 1 to 4 are given names (Versitile, Continue, etc) the names are cosmetic and other than setting the default values for the sliders. What I think counts are the two slider settings. Jan suggested setting both to -1 so that is what I did.
The sliders help you control the "stickiness" (sensitivity) of the tracking and the speed of the tracking. The higher these sliders are set, the more likely the focus will jump around, the lower the value, the more likely it will stick with a slowish moving subject and not get destracted by other movement/objects.