Canon Auto-Focus Explained – 2025 Update

NOTE: This is not an official Canon USA show. This is a podcast first and foremost, available in both audio-only or video, and the video is also placed on YouTube. My hope is that by going through all of the AF options one-at-a-time, in extreme detail, you will be able to get more out of the camera system you have.

My first show with Rudy Winston, a Technical Marketing Consultant for Canon USA, was back in February of 2022 for “Canon Auto-Focus Explained“, so almost exactly 3 years ago. To date, it’s still one of the favorite shows that I’ve done.

I find that as photographers our relationship with auto-focus isn’t always a great one. 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, these issues are real – that’s why micro adjustments exist. 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. That’s how the first show with Rudy came to be, and to say that was popular is an understatement:

To date it’s had roughly: 453,000 views on YouTube, in addition to all the views in the video and audio-only podcast feeds.

But when we recorded that show the R3 was brand new, and it wasn’t widely available. So I used my R5 for the menu examples in that show, and while we did talk about the AF settings unique to the newer R3, I almost immediately had people asking for an updated video. Since then, we’ve seen the R6 Mark 2 and the R5 Mark 2 come out, and again, lots of people have requested an update to cover all of the newer Auto Focus features.

My thing is, it doesn’t make sense to do a video specific to each camera model, there’s too much overlap, so I wanted to wait until the R1 had actually been released – and it was in November of last year, it started hitting stores in Nov of 2024.

So today, we are going to do basically the same thing that we did 3 years ago, we’re going to go through all of the AF menus, and describe every single command and option for you in detail.

For this show I am going to use the new Canon R1 for the menu examples, which needs a little explanation. When I used the R5 last time I had some people complain that I was using a body out of their price range, while others complained I wasn’t using the R3. So, let me try to explain my decision making process…

The higher end bodies have features the lower end bodies don’t – but they also have most, if not all, of the features on the lower end bodies – so to cover as many settings as possible, spanning bodies in all price ranges, the best choice is the higher end body, which today is the R1.

Unfortunately, I don’t own an R1… so a HUGE thank you to Canon USA for getting me one to use for this show.

Now, if you’re not a Canon shooter.. DON’T RUN AWAY!

While we are using the Canon EOS R1 for the examples today, whatever brand you use:

Nikon
Sony
Panasonic
Etc

Most of today’s cameras will have some equivalent to the settings we talk about… AF option names will change between brands, and even between models in the same brand, some may be more or less granular, or in different places in the menus EVEN for the same brands, but understanding these AF concepts will still help you get the most out of your camera, regardless of the brand.

One last disclaimer:

I also had some people comment on the last video that they wished I had inserted some B-Roll showing the features in action through the viewfinder, so you could see the AF moving and changing for something like a person running, or a bird in flight etc.

Thank you to everyone that made suggestions, but again, with this video, I have made an intentional choice to not do that. There’s a few production reasons for that choice, but the biggest thing for me is that I want this video to be as generic as possible. In a perfect world this could be a replacement for the manual, and I’m hoping that you might have your camera in hand as we go through these options and settings, and then, once you better understand them, that you’ll take your camera out and test them yourself to find what works best for your genre and style of shooting.

Join Rudy Winston, Technical Marketing Consultant 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, using the Canon EOS R1 as the example, on this Behind the Shot.

Chapter Timestamps

00:00:00 – Intro
00:01:54 – Disclaimers & Expectations
00:06:57 – Introducing Canon Technical Marketing Consultant Rudy Winston
00:08:01 – Canon R1 AF Menu Tab – Page 1: AF Operations / Area
00:08:30 – AF Operation
00:12:27 – AF Area
00:38:04 – Whole Area Tracking Servo AF
00:41:26 – Canon R1 AF Menu Tab – Page 2: Subject Detection
00:41:37 – Subject to Detect
00:52:57 – Eye Detection
00:55:19 – Register People Priority
01:04:07 – Action Priority
01:10:01 – Canon R1 AF Menu Tab – Page 3: Servo AF Character
01:10:38 – Case: Auto
01:15:24 – Case: Manual
01:15:60 – Tracking Sensitivity
01:17:35 – Accel / Decel Tracking
01:19:51 – Canon R1 AF Menu Tab – Page 4: Customize AF Operation
01:21:53 – Servo 1st Image Priority
01:23:38 – One-Shot AF Release Prior
01:24:55 – Preview AF
01:27:55 – Len Drive When AF Impossible
01:30:03 – AF-Assist Beam Firing
01:34:33 – Canon R1 AF Menu Tab – Page 5: Customized Controls
01:34:47 – Limit AF Areas
01:36:22 – Orientation Linked AF Point
01:40:20 – Limit Subject to Detect
01:41:51 – L / R Eye Detection
01:42:25 – Canon R1 AF Menu Tab – Page 6: MF Related
01:42:38 – MF Peaking Settings
01:47:33 – Focus Guide
01:49:55 – Lens Electronic MF
01:59:44 – Canon R1 AF Menu Tab – Page 7: Various Settings
02:00:10 – Register / Recall AF-Related Settings
02:08:15 – AF Setting Guide URL
02:10:39 – Canon R1 Control Customization Menu Tab – Page 3: Customized Controls When Shooting
02:10:59 – AF Area Selection Control
02:13:37 – Sensitivity – AF Pt Select
02:14:56 – Focus Ring Rotation
02:16:32 – RF Lens MF Focus Ring Sensitivity
02:19:09 – Canon R1 Control Customization Menu Tab – Page 5: Customized Controls – Eye Control
02:39:22 – Listener / Viewer Questions
02:59:06 – My Dual-Back-Button AF Setup
03:06:54 – Outro

Canon USA

Website: usa.canon.com

Ask David Bergman Episode on Dual Back-Button AF

Canon R5/R6 Fast Eye Autofocus Switching: youtube.com