Canon EOS R firmware 1.4.0 now available for download

Dec 13, 2010
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I did. The blue square did not catch the faces or eyes fast enough. It went really big and slowly got smaller until it could find a face or eye. One Shot could find the eye better from what I have noticed even if the initial focus was blurry and snatched the eye lightning fast when AF was acquired while taking the shot (no continues AF).

two things to add as well.
1. I was mostly shooting group portrait shots.
2. I also use a large continues LED ring light with the assistent for when it gets really dark. Especially in these cases eye/face focus would lose it, even if the subject was perfectly lit. 5D IV with face detect LV has no problems with these scenarios.
Ah, okay, but you wrote that you “dragged the red circle” that is one shot, Servo has the white smaller square.
 
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Dec 25, 2012
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Given the huge amount of positive comments about the update, it seems like your camera has an issue (did you verify the update did indeed work) or there is some kind of user error involved.

Maybe you should investigate more before dismissing the feature. Or at least highlight the reason why your use case yields different results than what is being reported by others. I would certainly be interested in that since it seems to me like Canon has a much better handle on AF software now.
The fact that I am reporting results different from others is a fact of my experience. I shoot from 300 to 2500 images a day as a full time pro. I long ago lost any fanboy impulses toward any brand as I have used enough to know that there are no magical cameras anywhere on Earth so maybe that is part of why I am not immediately gushing over what everyone else seems to be raving about.
I can't tell you why so many seem to be happy with the update but my experience has been that touch and drag is smoother but eye AF is as hopeless as ever.

I use the R on location and in studio. As I am a commercial photographer the bulk of location work does not have people so I use back button focus or LV.
In studio with human subjects I am often shooting on a white background. An easier scene can scarcely be imagined for an AF system. Yet when in eye AF the camera draws a large rectangle on the torso and can follow that forever unless you manually place the AF point on the face. Even the the point will start to expand and wander. I have used Servo and One shot. Neither is impressive. I just switch back to back button focus in regular small point AF and have good success unless the subject is moving a lot. That is the situation where I would like the eye AF to work and it fails.
As for a proper FW update, I am quite familiar with the process and despite the fact that the update proceeded without a hitch, repeated it to no effect.

So I am still unimpressed with the eye AF despite my happiness with the R in general.
 
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Joules

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I use the R on location and in studio. As I am a commercial photographer the bulk of location work does not have people so I use back button focus or LV.
In studio with human subjects I am often shooting on a white background. An easier scene can scarcely be imagined for an AF system. Yet when in eye AF the camera draws a large rectangle on the torso and can follow that forever unless you manually place the AF point on the face.
Thanks for elaborating. So your negative experience with eye AF comes from using it in a studio condition with a white background? Or does this also occur when you use it on location? I understood that you use other AF methods in that case, meaning the difference between your experience and most others likely is explained by different use cases.

I had originally thought that Canon's implementation was searching for faces within the image and than for the closer eye within the face. But people reported it working on cats and deers, which should not have recognizable faces.

Maybe the implementation just searches for a dark bit sourounded by white, regardless of the size and roundness. In that case, your studio might be an interesting case and it could be worth sending Canon a few example images where eye AF grabs the torso. It may help to get them fine tune their convolution filter, if they use one. Or if they take focal length and object distance into account, they can verify if what seems like an eye can possibly fill the frame at this distance.
 
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Ah, okay, but you wrote that you “dragged the red circle” that is one shot, Servo has the white smaller square.

You are correct. I kept switching between the two modes to figure out the best method, probably that is why I got confused.
My experience is almost similar as Normalnorm's. Maybe backlit situations and white backgrounds is one of the conditions that confuses the eye/face detect system.

Don't get me wrong, it works really good if the lighting condition are "ideal" and hits near perfect in those situations. But about 20-25% of the time and almost always on critical situations it got confused, that is what frustrated me.

Is there maybe an easy way to switch to the next or previous face with the controls when face/eye detect is engaged?
 
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After a week with the update, Face and Eye AF working much better on my usual moving subject- a toddler running towards the camera. Way way way more keepers. The autofocus was already great for one of my major uses- shooting stationary subjects outdoors at night. And touch and drag working much better- using it more often now for sure. Autofocus system has its limitations and sometimes fails to find the face or eye but a major improvement nonetheless.
 
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Yes
You are correct. I kept switching between the two modes to figure out the best method, probably that is why I got confused.
My experience is almost similar as Normalnorm's. Maybe backlit situations and white backgrounds is one of the conditions that confuses the eye/face detect system.

Don't get me wrong, it works really good if the lighting condition are "ideal" and hits near perfect in those situations. But about 20-25% of the time and almost always on critical situations it got confused, that is what frustrated me.

Is there maybe an easy way to switch to the next or previous face with the controls when face/eye detect is engaged?
Yes-if the camera has detected multiple faces which to don’t really know until you try. Press the buttons on the right below the star/exposure lock(is that it?) and another square with arrows on either side will appear over the original face. Just use the dpad to toggle between the faces. I think that is the default way to do it as I haven’t had to tweak settings to do so.
 
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To the people that are not happy with the Eye-AF now, how do you do your initial focus?

if you use Servo, what are you settings?

Which lenses?

I used adapted lenses, mostly the EF 24mm F/ 1.4 L, with some lens change with the EF 35mm F/ 1.4 L II and the EF 85mm F/ 1.4 L.
Shutter between 1/100 and 1/500 in TV mode, ISO 800 to 1600, evaluative metering.

@JoTomOz
Awesome! Thanks a lot for this!
 
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Dec 25, 2012
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Thanks for elaborating. So your negative experience with eye AF comes from using it in a studio condition with a white background? Or does this also occur when you use it on location? I understood that you use other AF methods in that case, meaning the difference between your experience and most others likely is explained by different use cases.

I had originally thought that Canon's implementation was searching for faces within the image and than for the closer eye within the face. But people reported it working on cats and deers, which should not have recognizable faces.

Maybe the implementation just searches for a dark bit sourounded by white, regardless of the size and roundness. In that case, your studio might be an interesting case and it could be worth sending Canon a few example images where eye AF grabs the torso. It may help to get them fine tune their convolution filter, if they use one. Or if they take focal length and object distance into account, they can verify if what seems like an eye can possibly fill the frame at this distance.
I do not use eye AF on location as my subjects are non-human. Different backgrounds in the studio make no difference. When I get quite close to a face the AF works well but it did before the update. As I said, no difference.
 
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So I've just come to the end of a weekend where I shot three weddings in a row, a good 12 hours per day and I'm exhausted. But I've been left feeling indifferent about the firmware update.

My thoughts are that I really appreciate the upgrade to the touch and drag, it's just nicer to use. The face and eye detect are improved but it's still not something I feel I need. What I have noticed though is single point servo hunts more than before. I find one shot single point works the same or better but AF just wants to hunt more than normal.

Maybe it's just me, but I find I'm getting frustrated in servo mode more than before. Maybe I need to tweak the af settings but after putting some 50 weddings through the Eos R I don't think I'm imagining it.

Does anyone know if I'm able to downgrade the firmware?
 
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Ozarker

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yup, tell this to Viggo :) now, seriously: you do not need to get the camera under the heavy rain to give some odds based on quality of of weather sealing or the lack of thereof.. according to Uncle Rog: EOS R sealing is to the same level as Sony A7 III

now, i rarely being direct but in this instance let me comment:

"... And even after this extreme soaking, it returned to full functioning after just overnight drying..."

Great! phew...:D weather sealing failed but camera works fine after electronics dried up. what a joke.
I ain't taking mine into the rain no matter what the weather sealing. :) I'm a fair weather kinda guy. But yeah, what you said. :ROFLMAO:
 
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.... a 14 hour wedding yesterday.....

Holy crap, that's a marathon. My back would be achin' for a week after that. Been there done that, but not 14 hours. That sounds like 9am to 11pm. Must have been a hell of a shoot.

... i feel there needs to be one option between shutter release and focusing priority in the autofocus otions to compensate for that.....


I thought there was? Didn't I see a focus lock/release slider in the menu? Maybe I'm imagining it.

... one shot autofocus in dim light... is quick and very usable, the 5D4 is not very usable without led illumination from the flash here, a 5D III is even totaly unusable - big shoutout for this, amazing for an outside wedding dance only illuminated by sparklers.....

Ditto, night shots, moving motorcycles, with high levels of street lighting, no flash.

... the EVF..... darkly lit situations where you basically dont see a thing in the 5D4s OVF

Same thing

... the touchbar is usable but i dont care,real button would be welcome..... the lock button is your friend

I exempt all the bottons from lock, except the touch bar. Touchbar is set to ISO selection by tapping, not dragging. Its not too bad to "unlock--->set--->relock". I seem apt to manipulate the touchbar without trying. I like the idea of the touchbar, just in the wrong place for me (and a lot of other folks). I wouldn't mind it on the top left part of the camera actually.

... i will happily work with the R, it has some very nice quirks for my style of shooting and happily sell my old 5D III

Ditto.


I'm sure there are others, but its nice to see commentary from someone who actually shoots in real life situations, works with what the camera will do, understands what it wont, and doesn't play the numbers game whining about things.

Biketoberfest coming up. My time to shine again.... :giggle:

 
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New to the forum and the ESO R so thanks for the add. what brings me here is. Ive downloaded the firmware updates to an SD card for camera, for 24-105mm lens . And Ive put camera in M mode scroll thru menu to firmware update and it simply shows message "memory card containing firmware is requried to update" and an OK button, nothing more. What am I doing wrong? Im running windows 10 x64 BTW
 
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New to the forum and the ESO R so thanks for the add. what brings me here is. Ive downloaded the firmware updates to an SD card for camera, for 24-105mm lens . And Ive put camera in M mode scroll thru menu to firmware update and it simply shows message "memory card containing firmware is requried to update" and an OK button, nothing more. What am I doing wrong? Im running windows 10 x64 BTW
Did you unzip the downloaded file? If no, unzip it and put the EOSR0140.FIR file in the root of a freshly formatted SD card. It should be recognized now.
 
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HikeBike

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Does that mean to extract then send to SD? Never did this before. and the new 24-240mm lens needs to be updated apparently
You'll need to unzip the file you downloaded, copy the EOSR0140 file, and paste it on the SD card. Don't put it in any folders on the SD card...you want it to be visible at the top level.
 
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What about initial focus?

Initial focus was wherever I dragged/selected the face on the screen based on my composition. But last weekend I had 2 weddings where I had a little more control. I reset the initial focus on the center every time and did the focus recompose technique (I have not done that since the 5d mark II era). That way the eye AF and tracking was on point and locked on like glue. Was really satisfied with the results but I am not sure if this the way it is meant to be used.
 
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