Video Autofocus for EOS R/5/6

[Jordan Lee]

Hey there, does anyone have any experience with video autofocus on the EOS R with both native and adapted EF lenses? Three years ago, you wouldn't have caught me dead using AF with video work, but using AF with my Sony A7III along with both Sony and Sigma E-mount lenses has been a great experience for situations like interviews, speeches, and gimbal work. I like that the focus pulls smoothly and looks like a manual focus roll (as opposed to super fast and jittery). How does DPAF compare on Canon cameras? I'm assuming it's probably really smooth on the expensive RF lenses, but what about EF lenses with an adapter? I know they're supposed to work no problem for stills AF, but haven't seen many tests for video AF tracking.

[Trek of Joy]

I've been impressed with the R's video AF, the only RF lens I've used on a shoot is the 35, other lenses I've used are the EF 16-35/2.8 III, Sigma 35/1.4, Sigma 24-105, EF 100-400 L II and I just scored a deal on a used RF 24-70 but haven't shot anything with it yet. The last FW update really boosted the R's AF, after watching a few videos I decided to try one and see how I liked it to get back to Canon colors. I sold my a73 shortly after getting it and made the R my main video body. I still shoot Sony for stills, but the 45mp R5 will likely change that unless the a7s3 is something special. Anyway, stuff closer than arms length is a little fuzzy so I need reading glasses - meaning I have a hard time judging critical focus on the LCD or EVF - reliable video AF has been a life saver for me. Vloggers love it, need I say more LOL!

The a73's tracking is probably a little better, eye af seems to be a notch above the R but the R5 looks to be on par with Sony's newest bodies. With the a73 your subject can be further away before it switches to face tracking and it seems to lock onto faces a bit quicker, but the interface just isn't as good and IMO the touch is laggy. Canon's touchscreen is just more responsive (makes focusing and navigating menus so much easier) and I like the flippy screen over Sony's tilt screen. Both can slow the AF speed for more natural focus pulls, that's a push IMO. I use the touchscreen on the R for pretty much everything and I've had no issues with the AF box leaving my subject. Its just so easy to tap the screen and go.

I've done a couple hours worth of interviews with people sitting and standing using all the lenses I listed above - they always move, its natural - focus stays glued to them. Servo AF does the job nicely. I shot wakeboarding with the 100-400 and it had no problem tracking them coming at the camera, when I was panning, and when they were moving away from the camera. Gimbal shots are a breeze, I just tap the LCD and focus on framing and not tripping over stuff. The only hiccups were quick zooms, it takes a second to refocus but it stays locked onto the subject. The a73 and a7r3 always did the same thing. After watching a few R5 videos, Canon has made significant improvements to the DPAF capabilities over the R, it definitely looks next level with the amount of processing power the camera has. I'm looking forward to testing it out.

Chris

[PaulUsher]

Everything that Trek of Joy said re DPAF! You can trust it with both RF and adapted - R5/6 look even better for focussing. I too use touch to focus - and the drag to focus is excellent for controlled pulls. Touch screen and EVF best I’ve used - you can even use them in tandem: eye on the EVF, finger on the LCD to change focus.

I can’t compare with Sony but can give you a rundown of the R’s AF performance with specific lenses:

RF - quickest AF overall but it’s lens specific. The RF35mm STM for example is slow - behaves a lot like the EF 50 1.8 STM - whereas the RF 15-35, RF 24-70 and RF 24-105 are more responsive, smoother pulls due to the nano USM motor. They are also the quietest - silent. Note though that these RF lenses breathe a bit, so they’re not ‘cinematic’ in that sense, par for the course with standard zooms.

For cinematic breathing and pulls it’s got to be the Sigmas. They don’t snap too quickly into focus with DPAF. Very smooth transitions. 24-35 f2 is limited range but outstanding, virtually parfocal with no breathing. If you’re up for shooting crop, the 18-35 is still the one to beat - I’ve never seen it autofocus better on any other camera. Talking of crop, EF-S STM lenses (10-18, 18-135) are also very responsive and smooth focussing, breathing pretty well controlled, and almost silent. But they have aperture penalties. The EF 24-105 STM is just the same, silent, smooth pulls, actually a decent video lens but variable aperture.

As for EF, very mixed bag. Still to find a standard zoom that ticks the boxes. Canon’s own 24-70s are probably the quickest and smoothest but quite old (not designed with video in mind), noisy and no IS - no prob for the R5. I still think they’re better with DPAF than third party. Sigma 24-70 OS is also noisy, breathes heavily, but focuses smoothly. Tamron 24-70 VC very noisy, breathes, focussing far too snappy - opposite of cinematic - but locks focus better than its Sigma counterpart. Very ‘sticky’, so a lot depends on use case.

Least breathing (zero breathing) is the Tokina 28-70 f2.6-2.8 (Angenieux design) and it’s almost parfocal, but so noisy that even lavs pick it up, so it’s manual focus only. Good news is the RF cameras also have a great manual focusing system. Eye tracking still works ie. you still get a focus box automatically around the eye, tracks wherever it is in the frame. Just adjust the focus ring until box goes green.

Best primes for smooth AF  - again the Sigmas, though they occasionally back focus. Just adjust AF settings to make them more sticky. Or tap to refocus. Some of the older EF hold up surprisingly well: 28 f1.8, 35 f2, 85 f1.8 - but all are noisy. Overall the RF lenses will tend to perform better than EF in terms of speed and smooth transition.

More generally I prefer the well-performing EF over the heavy RF so I can use the drop in ND or speedbooster. I actually like the 4K crop mode on the R, so the Sigma 18-35 and Tokina Angie 28-70 are my go-to pair for cinematic focussing in crop mode - with EF-S STMs for versatile plastic video backups. For FF, I say RF first for all round video performance, and Sigma for smoother cinematic narratives. I’d favour Canon EF primes and their standard zooms over the Tamrons but not by a huge margin.

Hope this is useful. The R5 may be a different animal of course, so I say rent lenses / buy-to-return and have fun experimenting.

[Trek of Joy]

One thing I will add, I've used MF on the R a few times and I like Canon's method of showing what's in focus compared to Sony's peaking - you get white triangles above the focus box that move closer together as you're racking focus. Eventually they merge and the single triangle turns green to indicate you've nailed focus. At least with my slight farsightedness I can easily see that. I can see peaking too through the EVF, so all is not lost.

Cheers

Chris

[Jordan Lee]

Wow, thank you both very much for your detailed replies. You've given me a lot to think about. I'm in the same boat as you, Trek of Joy, where I miss my Canon colours and am tempted by the R6. I was also really hoping to be able to utilize that drop-in ND adapter with EF lenses too. Do either of you have any video samples you've shot that feature AF use?

[PaulUsher]

1 hour ago, Jordan Lee said:

Wow, thank you both very much for your detailed replies. You've given me a lot to think about. I'm in the same boat as you, Trek of Joy, where I miss my Canon colours and am tempted by the R6. I was also really hoping to be able to utilize that drop-in ND adapter with EF lenses too. Do either of you have any video samples you've shot that feature AF use?

Here's some ENG I just shot for an agency - rough as sh*t but there's some demonstration of smooth AF changes https://vimeo.com/431234900

And here's the AF locking  on and tracking a drone - between 4 and 6 mins approx https://vimeo.com/425105022

Neither are the perfect AF examples I'm sure you're looking for but these demonstrate AF performance in pretty extreme AF use cases - both are at telephoto length on the 18-135 (crop mode), It has the smooth STM motor - the RF nano motors are even smoother

[Jordan Lee]

 

48 minutes ago, PaulUsher said:

Here's some ENG I just shot for an agency - rough as sh*t but there's some demonstration of smooth AF changes https://vimeo.com/431234900

And here's the AF locking  on and tracking a drone - between 4 and 6 mins approx https://vimeo.com/425105022

Neither are the perfect AF examples I'm sure you're looking for but these demonstrate AF performance in pretty extreme AF use cases - both are at telephoto length on the 18-135 (crop mode), It has the smooth STM motor - the RF nano motors are even smoother

Looks great to me! Do you know if the shot at 0:44 in your first link (where it rolls focus to the guy in the white headband) was using AF? If so it looks really smooth to me. Also is that 18-135 an EF lens or an RF lens?

[PaulUsher]

4 minutes ago, Jordan Lee said:

Looks great to me! Do you know if the shot at 0:44 in your first link (where it rolls focus to the guy in the white headband) was using AF? If so it looks really smooth to me. Also is that 18-135 an EF lens or an RF lens?

Yeah I like that shot too - yes, all AF. The 18-135 is EF-S mount. Had the drop in ND filter behind it.

[Trek of Joy]

This is a mix of EOS R (first time I actually used it) and a 5dIV that I can't stand. Most was shot at 1080p, but some is 4k. The only lenses I used are EF, the 16-35, Sigma 24-105 and 35/1.4. Most of the R stuff was with the 35/1.4.

https://youtu.be/_7jOTHHvSIQ

I have another video about wakeboarding that should be up in the next couple days, I used the 5dIV a lot less and the R a lot more.

Chris

[herein2020]

I love the DPAF on my 5DIV and couldn't believe how natural the AF looked and it is probably light years behind the R5 and R6.  The AF on my C200 which also uses DPAF is great as well. I am sure the R5 and R6 will be even better. I didn't even discover my 5DIV's video capabilities until I went on an overseas vacation and did not want to lug around my GH5 and 5DIV so I only took the 5DIV for pictures. So mid vacation I decided to record a few short clips and the quality blew me away.  I started out in MF since that's what I'm used to but there was too much fast moving action so I switched to AF just to see how bad it would be and it was like rediscovering AF all over again.

Then I got back home from the vacation and it was like rediscovering Canon's color science all over again. Mind you this is all just 1080P since I will never record in the 5DIV's horrible MJPEG, I can't imagine what 4K out of the R5 or R6 will look like.