R6 AF tracking issue.

I have had mine for about 2 years now and the hardest part of the transition to mirrorless are the “enhanced” AF features vs DSLR.  Most of my work with the R6 is shooting portraits/headshots etc so the eye AF is used and we are good to go.

What I am seeing is I have small area/single point selected,  I press the BBF and I see the “matrix squirrley” outside the AF point box.  I have the AF tracking on #2.

I always just brushed it off but I picked up the X-H1 a few weeks ago,  that acts like a DSLR,  you put the AF box on the target, press BBF and boom all good,  no “matrix squirrley” hunting.  So now I am on a mission to figure out what is going on.

Current settings:

Servo AF

Eye af - Off

Selection is NO PRIORITY

AF tracking #2

I am guessing I have the wrong Case # selected but I tested them all and got the same “hunting” outside the AF box.

Any help is appreciated.

Not sure if I can follow you.

I try to interpret it: You are not actually in "small area / single point" AF mode but in "tracking + detection" mode with initial servo AF point set to the single focus point. Then you want to start tracking by selecting your subject with the focus point and pressing bbf. Then the subject you want to track is not actually being tracked with the "single af point" you had as the inital point but it will often "decompose" into a dynamic cluster consisting of a lot much smaller AF points, this is what you call "matrix squirrley". Sometimes the single focus point will turn into a "small rectangle". Those points or this rectangle will not really be sticky but will "reshape" over time and sometimes will drift a bit around on your subject. Sometimes it will drift right at the start when initialising the tracking.

Did I get this correct or am I completely off?

If I am correct then the answer is: Yup, the Canons are not really good for "any object tracking". Canon has probably the worst implementation of this of any brand. Depending on the subject and subject features and other elements in direct vicinity "any object tracking" performance will be in the range from "really good" to "really bad".

The "workaround" or "canon way" of doing it is not relying on "any object tracking" for "select and recompose via tracking" but to actually move your focus point manually, e.g. by using the touch screen or with the joystick. This will yield better results, at least for somewhat static use cases. For more dynamic objects (where one objects moves independently in the scene) tracking seems to be more reliable. Best performance will be achieved by actually "detecting" the subject, which certainly does not work for most inanimate objects though.

Yes this is what I have been describing. It is not actually single point AF you are using but you are indeed in tracking mode with single point AF as initial point.

Everything else I wrote is still true, so no need to repeat. Typically is is not as extreme as in your example (that the points wander from the ventilator to other object) but it sure can happen. Canon is just not good at this kind of tracking. There is no "generic" solution other than not relying on this method/technique and maybe optimising the settings for your use case. Overall I find Canons "any object tracking" to be sub-par, sorry to say. You will typically get a lot opinions in this forum telling you otherwise.

AFAIK, and I might be wrong, but that is showing you the focal plane. It means that area is also in focus, not necessarily thats what the AF is locked on to. I believe it has to be a single solid box to indicate the actual focus area.

Why it does that, I dont know. I think I saw it when I use manual on a different AF setting. I dont see that on my use case, which is full tracking in FV mode (C1-3)

Gam3r01 wrote:

AFAIK, and I might be wrong, but that is showing you the focal plane. It means that area is also in focus, not necessarily thats what the AF is locked on to. I believe it has to be a single solid box to indicate the actual focus area.

Why it does that, I dont know. I think I saw it when I use manual on a different AF setting. I dont see that on my use case, which is full tracking in FV mode (C1-3)

You are wrong. Those are the focus points the camera chooses in tracking mode for you (and yes they are typically on the same focal plane :-)). Unlike other implementations (Sony, Nikon, ..) the "initial tracking area / point" does not have a fixed shape but can take any form of focus point clusters. This is what you see in the screenshot. The later Canon cameras promise slightly better performance and tracking, but are still not state of the art (for non detectable objects, detection is excellent).

When you are assigning a function to the back button for BBF, are you pressing "INFO" to set the focusing attributes?

R2