New major firmware for the Canon EOS R should arrive soon

Nov 12, 2016
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As others have said, I sure wish they could firmware me a joystick onto the back of this thing, but that's not gonna happen.

Touch and drag AF is fine, but despite all the customization settings for it, it's still just a little slow to move the AF point around. Setting it to relative is too slow, setting it to absolute in just one portion of the screen is faster, but just finicky for lack of a better word. I'd love to have an adjustable speed of AF point movement in the settings. I also wish I had the option of either using a joystick or the touch and drag, but they decided joysticks were outdated, or something. :mad:

Also, I know I've seen this mentioned elsewhere, but I wish they just gave us modes to have a smaller subset of all 5,000 AF points be selectable. Even if the camera has thousands of AF points doesn't mean I want to select every single one of them. It just slows things down too much. Just give us a spread of maybe like 100 points, similar to how a DSLR's points are, but spaced out across the whole frame. I feel like this would make selecting a point much faster and easier. Sadly, I'm not sure their focus is on people that only use a single AF point. Feels like camera makers want to push people more and more towards face detection and that kind of technology, no matter how inadequate it still is.
 
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Agreed, I use relative and I'd like it to move move so that when I have it set to the top right part of the screen, one swipe on that area goes from one side to the other. Not three swipes.

A really smart touch would be to start off the current speed but get faster the longer you drag it. A bit like when deleting a text on your phone, letters go bit by bit then whole words.

I'd also like to be able to just have the EVF active, but if I hit the playback button to view an image, the camera will detect my eye isn't at the EVF and show it on the rear screen. But just for playback.
 
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I wouldn't count on it :/ The fact is, DPAF is great, but that and also updating the EVF image means moving a lot of data from the sensor and processing it. I expect it takes an eventual dual-processor R body to get a faster burst rate with Servo AF.
well, i disable DPAF anyway and also lens corrections and all that in order to get maximum speed in terms of fps.
 
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Needed? No. Want it? YES! If we are talking about needed features, our old camera already exceed our photographic abilities.

EyeAF allow us to work faster and concentrate on other aspect of photography in wedding/engagement/portrait (lighting, posing, composition, etc). It would be amazing to take picture of kids. Joystick and touch AF isn't fast enough to focus on moving kid.

Just because you don't use it doesn't mean other people don't want it.

EOS R eyeAF definitely need the FW. It's isn't as fast as Sony and focus single focus. It really trailed behind Sony eyeAF.

well, i focus on the face and use surrounding af points on my dslr - servo mode to track and then shoot bursts - i shoot running dogs since decades basically and they move faster than kids. works fine for me :)
 
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Jan 21, 2015
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Hm, weird... yeah my oldest plays soccer so that’s pretty erratic, and my daughter is always the equivalent of a bouncy ball shot out of Canon into an elevator, always, works great.

And it also works on a swing where the 1dx2 struggled with any type of AF setting.

I guess you meant cannon unless your camera shoots bouncy balls ;-)
 
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Jun 12, 2015
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When you say native vs non native canon lenses on the EOS-R is "way superior", in what ways? Focus lock or AF speed? If focus lock, in general or having tested them in the same scenario? AF speed for EF lenses should be the same and doesn't account for superiority in terms of AF lock.. ? Are you using a third party adapter?
AF speed of the EF lenses is the same using the R or the 5DIV. I don’t think the USM motor performs any different in terms of speed, whether it is RF or EF. Acquiring precise focus and shot however, is significantly faster with the R+RF50, than any EF lens I’ve tested on the R. The RF35 isn’t that impressive, but I’d say better than any EF lens I’ve tried.

I got a good deal on a used Rf24-105 last week. I tried it shooting seals in our local aquarium. Shooting conditions were hard. The seals swims fast in front of a glass window, and the time you have to acquire focus is less than a second. Lighting was poor, I had to shoot at ISO 12800, f4 and 1/640 of a second. The R nailed focus over and over again. Just a few days earlier I was at the same location with the 5DIV and 24-70 f2.8LII, in roughly the same shooting condition. I did get some keepers with that combo as well, but percentage wise it was terrible compared to the R+RF24-105 combo. The 5DIV would fire more often, while the R held back till it nailed the focus. The R didn’t make the shot every time I tried, though.
 
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gbc

Oct 19, 2018
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As others have said, I sure wish they could firmware me a joystick onto the back of this thing, but that's not gonna happen.

Touch and drag AF is fine, but despite all the customization settings for it, it's still just a little slow to move the AF point around. Setting it to relative is too slow, setting it to absolute in just one portion of the screen is faster, but just finicky for lack of a better word. I'd love to have an adjustable speed of AF point movement in the settings. I also wish I had the option of either using a joystick or the touch and drag, but they decided joysticks were outdated, or something. :mad:

Also, I know I've seen this mentioned elsewhere, but I wish they just gave us modes to have a smaller subset of all 5,000 AF points be selectable. Even if the camera has thousands of AF points doesn't mean I want to select every single one of them. It just slows things down too much. Just give us a spread of maybe like 100 points, similar to how a DSLR's points are, but spaced out across the whole frame. I feel like this would make selecting a point much faster and easier. Sadly, I'm not sure their focus is on people that only use a single AF point. Feels like camera makers want to push people more and more towards face detection and that kind of technology, no matter how inadequate it still is.
My biggest issue with the touch and drag AF is that sometimes I'm trying to be discreet about my shooting and have the LCD screen flipped closed, so then my only option to move AF is to use the directional buttons, which are impossible to move quickly and useless if you need to capture fast action.
 
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well, i focus on the face and use surrounding af points on my dslr - servo mode to track and then shoot bursts - i shoot running dogs since decades basically and they move faster than kids. works fine for me :)

You don't have to take my word for it. Just check out a bunch of YouTube videos regarding Canon eyeAF. I'm just sharing my experience vs my brief experience with Sony A7III, A9, and A7RIII.

It isn't about what YOU and I can do. This is about technology making things easier for us to concentrate on photographic process.

It's silly to say you can do this and that so you don't need this feature. It's same argument for AF lens vs manual lens, TTL vs manual, Sony's eyeAF vs Canon AF.

If you think you don't think you don't need it, move along. You don't need to convince me. My experience of Canon eyeAF is there are huge room for improvement and it's trailed behind Sony's eyeAF just like Sony is trailing behind Canon's DPAF.

I'll take advantage whatever technology offer to me for my NEED.
 
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The AF with native RF lenses are way superior to EF lenses, but I have been very satisfied with the AF on my L series primes on the EOS R. I haven’t tried any of the EF zoom lenses on the R yet.

The performance on adapted lens has exceed the performance of my Canon 5D IV. Canon eyeAF is limited to single shot.
 
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Mar 25, 2011
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I've been thru firmware updates for my cameras for almost 20 years. I have learned not to expect major changes. The biggest one was for my 7D, and it really never added anything I needed.

Since the R is a new model, there may be a few bug fixes that apply to unusual situations, and some additional features that sound good on paper, but in the real world, they will be incremental and hardly noticeable to me.
 
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But when the face detect doesn’t miss children’s eyes running in backlight at 1.2, what more is needed?

It's limited to single shot not continuous eye detect AF. With kids, it's spray and pray if they are running to get the best expression. I can think of scenarios that's useful for wedding works. If you are satisfy with the way things are, you don't need this. No need to explain to me who used this close to a month. It doesn't need my need yet.

I only need 7 FPS at most for my style of shoot, but I know plenty of sport photographer than want 1DXII FPS to shoot sport. Should I tell them why they need more than 7 FPS?
 
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Dec 25, 2012
750
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No it's not. I've shot 5 weddings and over 10,000 frames with the R now. The 5Div is miles faster and more accurate. Especially considering I can start moving the AF points as soon as I start lifting the camera.

I say this, even though I feel, on balance, this is the best camera Canon has ever made.

That may be for you but with just a bit of practice I can make the focus point jump to any spot I want. In addition the focus points go right to the edge.
 
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