Great testing and explanations. What if a person is spinning and when she is not facing the camera, will the camera immediately start to focus on someone else facing the camera? Will slow tracking sensitivity help in this case, i.e., locking on the person spinning?😁
Thank you I have the R5 and I don’t take many videos being a stills user. I found it disabled in video mode and I would like the camera to be focussing when I occasionally take a video. I mainly just press the red button when in stills mode.
Keep in mind that video recorded with the red button from stills mode, uses whatever settings you have saved in the C3 video user mode. So you'll want to make sure that movie servo is enabled there, not just in the normal (M/Av/Tv/Fv/P) video settings.
Ty for this explanation. I’m looking forward for more examples on AF settings. What’s your idea setting for interviews? What would you recommend for moving subject?
For static subjects, like interviews (or my own talking head content) I set the movie servo AF speed in the -3 to -4 range, and my AF track sensitivity at 0 (since I don't usually anticipate anything moving between the camera and the subject). The couple of times I've forgotten to change it from 0, I've noticed it in the edit and was kind of annoyed with it. I don't have a good answer for moving subjects. You'll likely need to increase the servo speed, but I wouldn't go above 0 if I can avoid it. In my experience, +1 and +2 on the speed setting tends to make focus moves harsh/jumpy, and in some cases I've found the camera can over focus and it takes a bit for the camera to fix that - which I find really distracting. In both cases, I set the Tracking Sensitivity based on either how well I think I can keep the subject under the AF point, or if I expect intervening things like poles or cars. That said, I can't remember ever setting it more responsive than 0.
As far s movie servo AF settings go, I would start with the "Movie Servo AF Speed" setting at 0, the "Movie Servo AF track sens." setting at the default of 0, and the "Switching Tracked subjects" at the default of 1. That said, depending on the sport and the type of shooting you're doing you will likely have to change things. If you find that the focus doesn't keep up, then you'll need to change the AF speed to one fo the faster 2 settings. If the focus is too jumpy, you'll want to slow the AF speed setting down a little. The tracking sensitivity shouldn't really need to be adjusted, unless you see the camera consistently jumping around between subjects. The same should be true for the switching tracked subjects setting. That said, if your goal is to get everything, or at least as much as possible in focus, then we're talking about a purely AF problem, depth of field also plays a big part. To get the most depth of field, you'll want to shoot with movie crop mode turned on, the widest lens that gives you the composition you want, and you'll want to stop it down as much as you can without having to crank the ISO up too much or make the shutter speeds too long.
Jason, thank you for the concise explanation of the settings. I am though still having problems with my R7 which is that with a subject say an interview and I am focused on the face suddenly even it he subject does not move much the focus suddenly changes sightly making them soft. My R6 used to do this also but my R6II seems better. I feel it is a setting that is wrong or could be adjust to help stop this happening. Any thoughts?
The only thing I can really suggest is to try using a slower AF Speed setting. I find this does 2 things. First, it slows down the speed of the focus shifts which makes them less visually distracting when they do happen. Second it tends to get the focusing more accurate. I've had instances where at +1 or +2 the camera will focus right past where it should have, and then it takes a while to realize that and focus back. The other thing I do, and I have no idea if this does anything or not, is that I don't use eye-detection when shooting video. I've found that it's a bit less stable for video than the full face mode.
Hey, Jason. GREAT video. As a stills shooter most of the time, I can never remember what exactly I'm doing when it comes to video AF. This is very helpful. That said, the video did raise one question for me. Is Movie Servo Tracking Sensitivity just a delay before re-focusing? That is the sense I got as I watched, however at one point (16:15) while you were talking about the hypothetical of shooting someone on the other side of the street you said something that suggested the camera would wait for an obstruction to pass. This suggests more intelligence in the functionality than simply a timer that delays re-focusing. Perhaps it is a delay before re-evaluation. Any thoughts on this? If you decide to further explore video AF, it would be interesting to examine how other features of stills AF translate to video AF.
As far as I can tell, the delay is applied conditionally based on amount of measured focus error. If the error is suddenly big, then the camera waits based on the Tracking Sensitivity delay. If the error is small, then the camera doesn't wait and focusing immediately. As for more AF testing, that's something I really want to do (both for stills and video). The trick is that it's just tricky. To do it right, the number of uncontrolled variables need to be limited in any test. Moreover, since the lens is part of the focusing process, different lenses will perform differently. So I need some kind of frame work to address that (actually just figuring out how much fo a difference in focusing speed between various lenses is a question on it's own). Also due to the way lenses work, the speed at which the plane of focus moves out in the world, changes with focus distance, even though the lens's motor doesn't change speed. For example, focusing form 3-5 feet is much slower than focusing from 30 to 50 feet. So, yes, it's something I definitely want to work on going forward. But I also don't want to go about it half-ass'd either.
@@PointsInFocus Thanks for the reply. You never do anything half-ass'd which is one of the things I appreciate about your channel. You did a good job of explaining that small changes in focus seem to occur regardless of the tracking sensitivity setting. My question was really in reference to your hypothetical. I'd never really thought of this functionality (tracking sensitivity) as simply a timed delay but it makes sense that this is what it is.
Question, is there a way to customize a button to take you directly to the Movie Servo AF speed setting? I see it has a star next to it in the menu, but haven't been able to figure out a way to quickly access the setting...
Unfortunately, no. Rather confusingly, the star in the menus for that setting indicates that you've changed the settings from the defaults. The menus will show a "-" in place of the star if it's set to the defaults. That said, the best way I've found for quickly accessing settings like that is to add them to, preferably the first, my menu page (green star menus). Then set the camera to always come up on the my menu page (My Menu: set up page, Menu Display setting, "Display from MY MENU tab" setting). Set this way, regardless of what menu page you were on when you got out of the menus, the next time you hit menu, the camera will open the my menu 1 page (unless you were on a different my menu page already). Hope that helps.
This video deserved milion views. Was searching for 2 dsys for someone to explain tracking sensitivity xd
Uhhh dude. This was the BEST deep dive explanation for the R5. I spent hours trying to find a video like this. Thank you.
Cheers Jason. Always learning something useful from your videos.
Great testing and explanations. What if a person is spinning and when she is not facing the camera, will the camera immediately start to focus on someone else facing the camera? Will slow tracking sensitivity help in this case, i.e., locking on the person spinning?😁
Thank you I have the R5 and I don’t take many videos being a stills user. I found it disabled in video mode and I would like the camera to be focussing when I occasionally take a video. I mainly just press the red button when in stills mode.
Keep in mind that video recorded with the red button from stills mode, uses whatever settings you have saved in the C3 video user mode. So you'll want to make sure that movie servo is enabled there, not just in the normal (M/Av/Tv/Fv/P) video settings.
Ty for this explanation. I’m looking forward for more examples on AF settings. What’s your idea setting for interviews? What would you recommend for moving subject?
For static subjects, like interviews (or my own talking head content) I set the movie servo AF speed in the -3 to -4 range, and my AF track sensitivity at 0 (since I don't usually anticipate anything moving between the camera and the subject). The couple of times I've forgotten to change it from 0, I've noticed it in the edit and was kind of annoyed with it.
I don't have a good answer for moving subjects. You'll likely need to increase the servo speed, but I wouldn't go above 0 if I can avoid it. In my experience, +1 and +2 on the speed setting tends to make focus moves harsh/jumpy, and in some cases I've found the camera can over focus and it takes a bit for the camera to fix that - which I find really distracting.
In both cases, I set the Tracking Sensitivity based on either how well I think I can keep the subject under the AF point, or if I expect intervening things like poles or cars. That said, I can't remember ever setting it more responsive than 0.
What do you recommend to record sports? What would be the setting for everything in focus?
As far s movie servo AF settings go, I would start with the "Movie Servo AF Speed" setting at 0, the "Movie Servo AF track sens." setting at the default of 0, and the "Switching Tracked subjects" at the default of 1.
That said, depending on the sport and the type of shooting you're doing you will likely have to change things.
If you find that the focus doesn't keep up, then you'll need to change the AF speed to one fo the faster 2 settings. If the focus is too jumpy, you'll want to slow the AF speed setting down a little.
The tracking sensitivity shouldn't really need to be adjusted, unless you see the camera consistently jumping around between subjects. The same should be true for the switching tracked subjects setting.
That said, if your goal is to get everything, or at least as much as possible in focus, then we're talking about a purely AF problem, depth of field also plays a big part. To get the most depth of field, you'll want to shoot with movie crop mode turned on, the widest lens that gives you the composition you want, and you'll want to stop it down as much as you can without having to crank the ISO up too much or make the shutter speeds too long.
@@PointsInFocus yes, I plan to record everyone, just like when we see sports on tv
Jason, thank you for the concise explanation of the settings. I am though still having problems with my R7 which is that with a subject say an interview and I am focused on the face suddenly even it he subject does not move much the focus suddenly changes sightly making them soft. My R6 used to do this also but my R6II seems better. I feel it is a setting that is wrong or could be adjust to help stop this happening. Any thoughts?
The only thing I can really suggest is to try using a slower AF Speed setting.
I find this does 2 things. First, it slows down the speed of the focus shifts which makes them less visually distracting when they do happen. Second it tends to get the focusing more accurate. I've had instances where at +1 or +2 the camera will focus right past where it should have, and then it takes a while to realize that and focus back.
The other thing I do, and I have no idea if this does anything or not, is that I don't use eye-detection when shooting video. I've found that it's a bit less stable for video than the full face mode.
@@PointsInFocus Thank you for your response. I will give your suggestions a try and see if it makes any difference.
Hey, Jason. GREAT video. As a stills shooter most of the time, I can never remember what exactly I'm doing when it comes to video AF. This is very helpful. That said, the video did raise one question for me. Is Movie Servo Tracking Sensitivity just a delay before re-focusing? That is the sense I got as I watched, however at one point (16:15) while you were talking about the hypothetical of shooting someone on the other side of the street you said something that suggested the camera would wait for an obstruction to pass. This suggests more intelligence in the functionality than simply a timer that delays re-focusing. Perhaps it is a delay before re-evaluation. Any thoughts on this?
If you decide to further explore video AF, it would be interesting to examine how other features of stills AF translate to video AF.
As far as I can tell, the delay is applied conditionally based on amount of measured focus error. If the error is suddenly big, then the camera waits based on the Tracking Sensitivity delay. If the error is small, then the camera doesn't wait and focusing immediately.
As for more AF testing, that's something I really want to do (both for stills and video).
The trick is that it's just tricky. To do it right, the number of uncontrolled variables need to be limited in any test. Moreover, since the lens is part of the focusing process, different lenses will perform differently. So I need some kind of frame work to address that (actually just figuring out how much fo a difference in focusing speed between various lenses is a question on it's own). Also due to the way lenses work, the speed at which the plane of focus moves out in the world, changes with focus distance, even though the lens's motor doesn't change speed. For example, focusing form 3-5 feet is much slower than focusing from 30 to 50 feet.
So, yes, it's something I definitely want to work on going forward. But I also don't want to go about it half-ass'd either.
@@PointsInFocus Thanks for the reply. You never do anything half-ass'd which is one of the things I appreciate about your channel.
You did a good job of explaining that small changes in focus seem to occur regardless of the tracking sensitivity setting. My question was really in reference to your hypothetical. I'd never really thought of this functionality (tracking sensitivity) as simply a timed delay but it makes sense that this is what it is.
Question, is there a way to customize a button to take you directly to the Movie Servo AF speed setting? I see it has a star next to it in the menu, but haven't been able to figure out a way to quickly access the setting...
Unfortunately, no.
Rather confusingly, the star in the menus for that setting indicates that you've changed the settings from the defaults. The menus will show a "-" in place of the star if it's set to the defaults.
That said, the best way I've found for quickly accessing settings like that is to add them to, preferably the first, my menu page (green star menus). Then set the camera to always come up on the my menu page (My Menu: set up page, Menu Display setting, "Display from MY MENU tab" setting). Set this way, regardless of what menu page you were on when you got out of the menus, the next time you hit menu, the camera will open the my menu 1 page (unless you were on a different my menu page already).
Hope that helps.