Canon Auto-Focus Explained

with Rudy Winston - Technical Advisor, Product Planning Dept., Canon USA

Steve BrazillFebruary 25, 2022

NOTE: This is not an official Canon USA show. This is a podcast first and foremost, and Canon was kind enough to allow my guest, Rudy Winston, to come speak about the Canon AF system options. This is not intended to be a technical training, but a conversation with Rudy to better understand the choices you have in customizing the current line of Canon camera AF systems. Obviously, there are still some constraints here. I try to keep the shows at a reasonable length – for some behind the scenes reasons related to the podcast versions of the show – and my guests often have limited time as well. I have a lot of people that listen to the audio only version of the show, and so there will be times I inject myself into the conversation to be sure the topic we are discussing is absorbable by those without video, as well as to moderate time so that we can at least get to all of the planned topics. Still, my hope is that explaining the AF options one-at-a-time in some detail will help you to get more out of the camera system you have.

This is a show I have been wanting to do for a very long time. My relationship with auto-focus systems hasn’t always been a great one. Like most photographers, it’s so easy to say “the camera missed focus”, or “it front or back focused”. The problem is that’s not the case more often than not. Don’t misunderstand me, this issues are real. Cameras and lenses are not perfect, and the software that runs anything today can have issues, but focus issues often relate to the end user not having the AF system configured correctly, or not understanding how the system really works.

When I upgraded my system years ago I moved to the Canon EOS 5d mark IV. I loved that camera, and in fact it’s still in use as the webcam for every show I do. But the first copy I received seemed off. I would be shooting an outdoor concert, with plenty of light, and the camera would nail focus on a singer mid-jump. When that same singer stood still at the mic the 5D IV would miss shots by a lot. I was sure it was the body, so I sent it back and got a new one, only to have the issue still happen. Clearly this wasn’t the camera, Steve.

I loved the images this camera produced too, as they had so much more richness, depth and texture than the 5D mark III, but it wasn’t useable if I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong, or if I was doing anything wrong. A friend of mine that does work for Canon at trade shows – he’s one of the guys behind the booth helping attendees look at the gear – introduced me to Rudy Winston, a Technical Advisor in the Product Planning Dept. for Canon USA. I emailed my issue to Rudy, along with sample images where Canon’s DPP software would clearly show the AF was in the right spot. Rudy, to my surprise, sent me more info than I could have ever imagined. He sent a detailed description of the AF Case modes, and what all those settings meant. So much of what he said seemed to be missing from the public AF conversation. I had already looked up everything I could find, and yet never heard things described with such detail.

Fast forward to today and I recently had someone ask me via an Instagram DM about the R5 AF settings. They were coming from the 5D mark IV, and the settings were different enough to be confusing for them. Instantly Rudy popped into my mind.

Luckily for us, Rudy has agreed to go through the entire Canon EOS R5 AF menus in detail, to help us better understand the options available. While I am using the R5 in this show for the example, obviously, most of the info will apply to the Canon auto-focus system as a whole.

Join Rudy Winston, a Technical Advisor in the Product Planning Dept. for Canon USA, and me as we take a deep dive into the amazing auto-focus systems available in the current line of Canon cameras, on this Behind the Shot.