7D AF Points

When I select my AF Points in the AF Point Selection mode, it constantly moves. I want the selected AF points to stay constant, but find myself contantly moving the points back to the center where I origninally had set them. I'm shooting Rodeos and do not want the AF points moving.

I know I must have the settings wrong somewhere.

Thanks for any ideas.

Page 89 of the Owners Manual. Set the camera to Spot or Single Point AF Manual Selection.
Good Luck
Mike

Thanks, I'll look into it.

A couple of ideas:

You may have inadvertently registered and enabled a specific AF point. Select the AF-ON button in the custom controls menu (Q button, Custom Controls, AF-ON). Press the INFO button and make sure that "Manually selected AF point" is highlighted.

Page 235 of the revision 5 manual further explains registering and canceling a registered AF point.

Also, C.Fn III -12 applies to the orientation sensor. Depending on camera orientation, different AF points can be set.

I've never seen that before. You have to physically move the AF point around so that may be the answer. Curious about the solution.

No ignoring you guys, but I have not had a chance to try your suggestions. I changed the settings, but won't be able to test until Friday during the rodeo.
I'll the results this weekend.

Thanks again for all the recommendations.

SS308 wrote in post #17614432
When I select my AF Points in the AF Point Selection mode, it constantly moves. I want the selected AF points to stay constant, but find myself contantly moving the points back to the center where I origninally had set them. I'm shooting Rodeos and do not want the AF points moving.

I know I must have the settings wrong somewhere.

Thanks for any ideas.

7D has five different AF "patterns" to choose among. Most Canon DSLRs just have two or three (though, among a few others, 5DIII has six and 7DII has seven). The focus "areas" or "patterns" on 7D are:

All Points/Auto Selection is the pattern mode you're in. Set this way, the camera chooses among all 19 of the AF points. It will usually focus on whatever is closest, and covered by one of the AF points. All Canon DSLR models have this pattern.

Single Point/Manual Selection is the pattern mode that I think you want. Set to this, you select a any single AF point and that's the only one that will be used for focusing. This is the most accurate method, but it also requires the most input from the user. It's up to you to keep the AF point right where you want the camera to focus. All Canon DSLRs have Single Point, too.

Zone Focus was introduced as another choice on the original 7D. Here you can choose a group or AF points... up to nine... that will act as a sort of limited form of All Points/Auto Selection. The camera chooses among the AF points in the zone, which to start focusing with, much the same as it does with All Points. This is available on 70D, T6i/T6S... and something similar is available on 7DII, 5DIII, 1DX and 5DS/5DS-R. 7DII has two different Zone Focus patterns.

Expansion Points is a fourth pattern available on 7D. Here you manually select a single point where AF will start, but the camera can switch to an adjacent point if the user lets the original one slip off the subject. This can be handy for really erratically moving or fast moving subjects. 70D and T6i/T6S do not have this feature. 7DII now has two different Expansion Point patterns available. 5DIII and 1DX have something similar... and presumably 5DS/5DS-R do too.

Spot Focus is the fifth pattern available on 7D. This is same as Single Point, except that a smaller, more precise AF point is used. It's great for high precision focus, but is a little slower so may not work as well with moving subjects. 7DII and 5DIII (and presumably 1DX, 5DS/5DS-R) have Spot Focus. 70D and T6i/T6S do not.

To change the focus patterns: First press the AF point selection button on the back of the camera (under your right thumb), then press the M-Fn button adjacent to the shutter release button, then scroll through the available patterns using the main dial on top of the camera to select the one you want.

By default on 7D, not all the above focus patterns are enabled and usable. You need to go into Custom Function III, 6: "Autofocus/Drive, Select AF area selec. mode" and put a check mark by the patterns you want to be able to use.

Another thing that can really drive you nuts if you don't know it's on or don't have it set up correctly is Custom Function III, 12: Autofocus/Drive, "Orientation linked AF point". Normally I would recommend leaving this at the default "0. Same for both vert/horiz." for a couple reasons. First, let me explain what this does, in case you don't know. With this enabled you can set up different individual points to be active, depending upon whether you are holding the camera in landscape or in portrait orientation. The camera will automatically make the switch, whenever you change the orientation. And, it's not just the selected AF point(s)... You also can set up the camera to use one focus pattern when held in landscape orientation and a different one in portrait orientation.

Sounds neat, but the problem with this is that I've found it causes a slight pause whenever the camera's orientation is changed and that can lead to missed shots. Also, there actually are three different camera orientations: landscape, portrait w/grip at the top and portrait w/grip at the bottom. If you want to use this feature, you have to set up all three of those in advance. If you forget to set one of the three orientations up, the camera can act strangely, switching AF points and patterns unexpectedly and almost randomly.

Personally I find that the center point is what I use most of the time anyway, so I leave C.Fn III, 12 disabled on my 7D's.

Hope this helps!

If the camera sleeps or is shut off, any changes you make to the AF setup while in C1, C2, or C3 on the mode dial will be lost unless they are specifically saved to that mode.

For instance, if you have only the center point enabled in C1 and switch to zone, when the camera times out and sleeps, the center point will be active again when the camera is awakened; the zone setting will be lost.

Finally got to try the settings at the Cheyenne Frontier Days "Daddy of them All".
Did not fix the issue. I even used Manual mode and the AF point still moved to the nearest point (but not as bad).

I have two 7Ds and both are are doing it. One with my 70-200L 2.8 IS and the other with my 100-400L.

Very annoying...

It's the AF point selection mode you should change, not the exposure mode. Well, you can't use the green box mode, of course, but otherwise it doesn't matter if you use M, Tv or whatever.