Chris and Jordan test the Canon EOS R with new v1.4 firmware to see how much it improves autofocus. TL;DR – if you use eye-AF, you'll want this update.
Let's assume the AF algorithm actually differentiates between face and eye AF (and does not only display it differently for the users). Does it really make a difference then in real life that eye AF recognizes eyes from fairer away and switches from face to eye AF? I mean once the subject is far enough away DOF is so high that it should not make any real life difference anyway. On the downside the small eye AF point may even completely miss the face (as seen in the video in some frames) where face AF (which focuses on the center if the face) would maybe be more successful. Or am I wrong.
The firmware game is really important in the mirrorless world. I have EM1 II by Olympus and one of the firmwares made the video AF from useless to usable. Just like that. Overnight.
I think Canon finally gets it when it comes to addressing performance and features via firmware. They've been meager in the past, but this shows new behavior on their part.
Same for Nikon. I think they both learned their lesson. Now if only Sony would get on board , rather than release cameras (or just wait until the next camera release) to fix issues that very well can be fixed via firmware.
Fuji I think has been one of the better ones at improving things via firmware, and also offering new features to even older cameras (like Focus bracketing on the now 3-year old XT2--of course this has been available for almost a year, but it's nice to see Fuji offer it in their XT2/XT20 cameras and not just make it exclusive to its XT3/XT30 cameras).
It would be nice to have some comparison images. Also... when you guys said that you were getting the same hits as 1.3 with 1.4 but then said that 1.4 was catching the eyes from further away what did you mean? That sounds like a contradiction
I'm no Canon fan, but I generally considcreCanon to be probably the best lens maker. Canon has expensive but "creme de la creme" L glass as well as bargain lenses with incredible value like the EF 50 1.8 STM in their lineup.
EOS R eyeAF also integrates with the manual focus Focus Guide feature. The white Focus Guide box tracks the eye/face as fast or faster than it does with AF lenses in AF mode.
It works with AF lenses in MF mode and with chipped manual focus lenses like the Zeiss Classic and Milvus. In tracking mode, all I have to do is concentrate on turning the Focus Guide box green and snapping the shot. Amazing really. I don't see anyone else with this feature for manual focus.
Any new firmware is welcome even though that new features may not suit you. Being said, I have EOS R and updated to firmware 1.4 I like eyeAF / face detection which make shooting portrait is easier and more to keep. I don't understand many users (not sure if they even own eos R yet) whine about eyeAF.
It's easy... Before, people were whining about canon not having eye-af. And canon users didn't understand what the problem was. Then canon introduced a very basic eye-af that people whined about. And canon users didn't understand what the problem was. Now canon has a not so great eye-af, and canon users still don't understand what the problem is....
But now canon users can understand the problem with no eye-af or the very basic first implementations. And I'm sure that when canon updates the eye-af to something more refined, you'll see what the problem was.
Sony refined the eyeAF only with A7RIII (but not so great, face AF recognition was more an ear AF recognition on my A7RIII), A9 and A7III, with A7RII was not at all accurate (very unreliable indeed for my shooting experience, pratically useless in dim light), so Canon is doing a good job as far as concerns me, the new firmware has put the R and RP in a very good position, the eyeAF works really nice, not on par with the last Sony iteration on A7RIV (and A9II) but also not even too far from it. We, Canon users, are not so stupid Mr. PAntunes. Sorry for that. Canon, in the other hand, can teach Sony how to make a useful MF assistance (which I use a lot).
Thanks for posting this. My RP also got the 1.4 update. yes eye focus is farther away but at these longer distances dof is wider so face detection is all that is needed. not surprising hit rate was the same.
but hey, marketing wanted to keep up :)
I'm really happy with this feature for composition!
Im not sure why people don't get that the intelligence improvements which allow it to recognize eyes further away also allow it to recognize them quicker and more accurately when he subject is closer.
DarnGoodPhotos, if the hit rate is the same with the new firmware, there wasn't that much of an improvement in accuracy. Or maybe there are other limitations on the camera.
I honestly didn't see a big difference between 1.3 vs 1.4 when it comes to accuracy and reliability of tracking. In other words I don't think this update really does anything to make the camera a better purchase than it was before the update. Sad to say.
I don't want to be too critical of this video because that's clearly a job that has been taken care of by others...but it would have been nice to demonstrate the eye detect AF versus the previous firmware with several portrait lenses at shallow depth of field. A portrait scenario is much different than what you've shown here, and that's where this feature is most important.
Absolutely, to be honest the test they performed is not really relevant for a standard portrait shoot in which the eye af would be used and it certainly doesn’t show the full benefits of the firmware upgrade. I love these guys and watch their videos but they have really dropped the ball here in portraying the huge progress Canon has made with their eye af and getting a bit sick of the Canon bashing. How about they start doing detailed reviews on the Canon RF glass and compare it to the competition then tell us how how far behind Canon is with innovation in photography because lately you would think that you only need a camera body without a lens to take pictures.
I don't understand the conclusion....eye box is better but hit rate is the same? The purpose of eye detect is have the eye in focus not just a box in the viewfinder.
They basically didn't test the eye autofocus at all here. LOL The hit rate for me has always been very high and I never had any issues with the nose being in focus and not the eye...but YouTube reviewers claim it happened all the time - funny...I've just used it to make my living for over a year, what do I know. haha
It would have been nice to demonstrate the eye detect AF versus the previous firmware with several portrait lenses at shallow depth of field.
Yep, just couldn't believe it when hearing "we're getting the same amount of frames" followed by "it did pick up his eye from way further away!".
So it's just the graphics in the viewfinder then. I've wondered about this before because I haven't seen reviews comparing actual hit rates in any serious way. Instead reviewers go by the tracking animations in the viewfinder. Making the graphics stick to an eye is not is the same league of difficulty as having the actual focus stick.
I really hope this isn't the case would be a complete disaster for the credibility of all these reviewers.
You’re almost right, but not in the way you think. The face detect was already seriously good. It always hit the nearest eye anyway. So the eye AF was introduced to silence the trolls. It’s mostly an update to graphics in the VF, BUT, that doesn’t mean the eye isn’t in focus, just that it already always was and is.
I've always wondered about these eye af claims v face detect at distance. Surely at the distance and the aperature used the whole face is likely to be in focus anyway. Its just a matter of updating the graphics. A much better test would be portraits with a shallow depth of field and or zoomed in at distance where the movement of the head will be exagerated and how fast it can follow the eye in that scenario.
Once I found out I could assign the lock button to only lock the touchbar even after the battery has been removed and powered off (the camera remembers) I've grown to enjoy using it. I use it to change the AF zones and engage eye AF - I would still prefer a physical set of buttons/leverls/joystick, but the lock makes it usable for my larger hands.
Big step forward from Canon but still lagging far behind. "The golden standard" what Chris mentioned (watch it from 2:29 ): https://youtu.be/ww8HT_FbL1g?t=149
Chris mentioned “Sony’s Real-Time Tracking” as the gold standard. The A7RIII doesn’t have real time tracking. Right now, the A9 can’t be beat by any of these cameras, and the A9II is even better.
How your A7RIII compares is irrelevant to the gold standard comparison.
I am referring to AF in general and eye AF, I know real time tracking wasn't available in A7RIII, @BrentSchumer, go and check my Flickr, maybe you can enjoy some nice pics took with AR7III, because the camera is important, but... ;)
@Strolic Furlan LOL don't be ridiculous, R3 is much-much better than this Eos-R in the video, anyway no one in the world would change an R3 to an RP, and you didn't even know R3 doesn't have te real time tracking, you didn't even own one, what a pathetic lie...
I really do not understand why people think that detecting eye (instead of just face) when the subject's face is very small part of the overall frame is going to make or break their photos. When the face is too small in the frame, due to subject being far away or shooting with a wide angle lens, the DoF should already be deep enough to cover the entire face. Camera switching AF points to stick to the eyes when you are shooting with a 50mm lens and subject is 50 feet away seems like a gimmick just to impress potential buyers - I don't see much practical use of it.
@KLO82 - you obviously have no experience with EyeAF, if you had it, you would never wrote a post like that. Imagine 100 shots at some event and all 100 of them are in focus where it should be! Kudos to Canon for stepping up its game, they should have done it at EOS R launch but better ever then never...
@AlexLex: you misread my post. I have nothing against eye AF and I would love it in my camera. But when the face is small part of the frame, eye AF will not be any more useful than face detect due to sufficient DoF.
@KLO82 - it just shows how accurate the focusing algorithm really is that at a distance, it is still able to detect the eye and attempt to nail the shot. Accuracy means more hit rates.
User12, you should look at YouTube more often. Z6 can stay 1h looking for a face without finding it.
And the last weeks have shown tons of new reviews R vs A7 and nearly all of them gave the R winner in photo department (mainly in color science but not only). But everybody can believe what he wants obviously, even if it is wrong. Doesn’t change anything
This may not have been the best test scenario for Eye-AF, it would have been nice to see it at shallower DOF and in less contrasty lighting. Still it's good to see the Canon R's AF is snappier and the eye detection range is better (even if the hit-rate is hardly improved).
Unlike Nikon, Canon at least seem to be upgrading their AF with each firmware point release. Nikon needs to get their act together with firmware for the Z as right now they are "firmly" in third place behind both Sony and Canon R.
How about finding a test that is a little more difficult than a sunny day with clear sky and harsh contrast?
Push it to the limit. Artificial lighting in a low light wedding reception with multiple faces in the frame, moving people and shallow F1.4/ 1.2 DOF. Or heavy backlit portrait shooting with the sunset in the frame etc....
We want to know how the cameras hold up if we work in the worst possible scenarios
I shoot events like this every weekend. The R is a champ ESPECIALLY in low light and backlight. You can toggle between faces (or eyes) using the d-pad or touchscreen.
Still wondering what Nikon is up to with the Z6/7. We know there's still a big firmware update coming, but when?...and what is included? There were rumors of even better AF with the new updates that bring raw video to the Zs but we'll have to wait and see. In the meantime, it's good to see all brands improving their products.
Because they haven't released the CFexpress and raw video updates yet. The Atomos CEO eluded to AF improvements during a demo of their device for the Nikon Z cameras a month or so ago. It was mentioned in a video they posted on youtube...or someone posted it anyway. Beyond that, I just believe they're not quite finished yet because of those two things we know will be coming...and I assume other improvements will be included (but that's more of an opinion/guess than a fact).
That is really impressive, fast and slappy. Btw firmware 1 and 1.4 it makes me think of my Fuji x100 (the first one). Totally useless autofocus first but after they made a huge frimware update it was like having a new camera
On DSLRs the autofocus much relays on AF Moduls, on mirrorless it depends on software. Canon wasnt too much into mirrorlessbefore so the EOS-R seems only to be halfbaked and was build to keep users from leaving the brand. As they now are getting more into the mirrorless-system the algorithms are getting better, too. That they bring out a new firmware instead of an Mark II is surley something new for Canon. So, kudos.
I remember when Canon ML, both apsc and FF, were laughed at and compared against other systems several generations in. Their apsc is only in gen 2 now and RF is in Gen 1 and look how they closed the gap. Is it matching all the rest in EVERY aspect?
Maybe not, but nobody has made strides this fast. They are competitive, some ways worse and some better, with every other system now and are only getting started.
Their APS-C products are in generation FIVE, and Canon have been developing OSPDAF for over 7 years now. The fact that the EOS R was released with such weak performance was appalling. It shows how rushed its development was.
So no, there's nothing magical here. Canon had all the right ingredients years ago - they were simply unwilling to bake a good cake until now, when the market collapse has finally hit them hard. It was about damn time!
Think about Sony, they had also the tech available, but for them also it took a while to figure it out. The A7 has bad and A7II has pretty mediocre AF. The dual pixel AF is not magic either, the phase difference between the left and right frame is pretty minor, and the dpaf data looks really uneven with a lot of static pattern.
While Sony maybe didn’t invent this technology, they have been improving it for years. The new guys in the mirrorless world really just are copying what’s been done. It’s always easier to develop a solution when you know exactly what the solution looks like.
Still kudos for Canon for the improvement. They are definitely getting closer.
The very first EOS-M already had hybrid AF including PDAF in 2012. That is two years before Sony introduced PDAF into their cameras with the A6000 and A7 in 2014. Before that Sony had only contrast-detect in their mirrorless cameras. (Although the A99 had some "support PDAF" on the sensor with some lenses in 2012)
Nikon introduced PDAF with their 1 series cameras in 2011, and Olympus followed with PDAF in their E-M1 in 2013. So most manufacturers have been optimizing this tech longer than Sony. They just didn't optimize it successfully till recently
Well if we are judging a "generation" by each individual model then Sony has what, about 25 generations ahead of Canon M. Sorry i don't judge that way, the A7rIV is the furthest in line with a mark 4. The M6II is the only 2nd gen apsc body Canon has, and both their FF are first gen.
If you are gonna apply wanky logig to this it applies to every brand and obviously, nobody is going to say Sony has 25 generations of anything.
@MikeRan - it's hard to argue that Canon are just copying what's been done before since their Dual Pixel AF is a completely different technical solution compared to 'conventional' On-Sensor PDAF as practiced by Nikon, Sony, Olympus (and Samsung NX, too).
And Canon has been working on improving Dual Pixel AF since releasing it in 2013. For better or for worse, they're blazing their own trail...
@Max ISO how can you say the M6 II is the second generation mirrorless m body, just because Canon changed their naming scheme?
M6 II is a direct successor to the M6, which is a direct successor to the EOS_M3, which is a direct successor to the M2, which is a direct successor to the M
The Eos M5 was set above this line, the M50 below, and the M10 > M100 > M200 is set below the M50
So even if we just count the direct line the M6 II is at least the 5. Gen EOS-M body. Canon even counts the AF-systems as at least 4 different systems. CMOS AF I > CMOS AF II > CMOS AF III > Dual Pixel AF (M6)> Dual Pixel AF (M6 II)
The Sony APS-C line made also four major AF iterations Contrast AF > A6000 > A6300 > A6400 With the models above and below sharing the AF systems.
And in FF it is a little harder to count. The A7R line made four iterations starting with contrast AF. While the A7 line had just two different AF systems. The original one and the improved one of the A7 III
(2/2) But no matter how you count, and I think counting by generations is a little strange. All camera companies had PDAF on their radar for a long time and have been actively developing it for at least 5-7 years. So no matter how many generations they released in the meantime they should have figured it out by now.
Camera generations are usually marked by sensor and processor improvements; since AF improvements can be brought to older cameras I don't think that is reliable marker. For example, in Fujiland, the X-T2, X-T20, X-E3, X100F, etc. are all third generation cameras while the X-T3, X-T30, and X-Pro3 are fourth generation cameras.
The labeling of EOS M6 II as “second generation” is clearly done by a troll who knows nothing about the actual cameras.
There are at least three major iterations of EOS M: M/M2/M3/M10, which used various iterations of the hybrid PDAF sensor; M5/M6/M100/M200, which used the 24MP DPAF sensor first found on EOS 70D; and now M6 II, which uses the brand-new 32MP DPAF sensor. Each iteration represents a quantum leap in improvement over the previous one. (One can make the additional argument that M, M2 and M3/M10 actually belong in different generations—and I have to agree that M2 was much better than the original M—but I’ll be conservative here.)
While this update is only a minor one they've still improved this significantly overall. We are seeing significant improvements from just about everyone in a short time frame. It is to the point where all mirrorless cameras are good at this, and other considerations rank much higher on the list.
If there is one huge benefit of a mirrorless over a DSLR it is the firmware improvement capabilities (if the processing capacity and sensor readout permit of course).
Also, it doesn’t matter that much which camera body or brand you prefer, the update policy of the brand is more important now.
The video depicts V1.4 detecting and tracking eyes much faster than V1.3 but with approximately the same in-focus hit rate. I'm wondering if the DOF of this test was thin enough to distinguish between a face vs eye focus acquisition, which would help show the actual differences of V1.4's AF performance vs just the visual indication of the eye being tracked more reliably in V1.4.
those are far on roadmap from now but they will come. You can grab Noct today already, should you wish even dreamier bokeh 😉 I personally prefer smaller form-factor and in-body IS. This combination is far more friendly compared to f1.2/1.4 especially if you have to travel with set of few primes. Today’s hand baggage weight restrictions aren’t gear- friendly. On the other hand, in studio it is f5.6, f8 usually, so again, no need for f1.2. It depends on your job requirements. New Z1.8 lenses do the job and, by the way, much better compared to equivalent f/1.8 AF-S equivalent lens we used up to now. New 85 mm 1.8 Z with 9 blades has wonderful rendering. We are too spoiled these days, don’t you think?😉 But I am happy that you guys are happy with your Canon choice of faster primes! ✌️
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