Eye Detection and Eye Detection AF

All righty folks. Stupid question coming up. Brace yourselves!

Please can someone tell me what the difference between "Eye Detection" and "Eye Detection" with the little AF sign on it is on the R5

When I go to customise buttons I have the choice of setting a button to select either one of these.

I'm maybe having a senior moment but I'm a bit puzzled and I can't seem to find an answer in the manual.

Thank you

This is what I understand you are trying to sort out. There are two ways to control Eye Detection. Going into the customize buttons menus or selecting the AF method on the LCD. There is an Eye Detection icon in the bottom left corner.

If so they both do the same thing. It just gives you more programming options. I use Fv and C1 -3. In one mode I'm set up so it looks for an eye before I press any buttons and just continues in Eye detect when I press the AF-on button.

Then comes the R3, which implements detecting the photographer's eye, to see at which subject's eye he is looking, in order to focus on that!

No wonder at another site I was having some difficulty understanding why someone with thick glasses had a concern. Isn't that what diopter is for. Now that makes sense.

For a little more info Willie there are so many programming options to choose from or you can use just one method that works for you. To take full advantage of this system often getting AF to hone in on your subject before switching to eye detect can help a lot. Some people are using the shutter button with single point AF just too focus in on the subject and then pressing the AF-On button with Eye detect enabled. This finds an eye much faster.

Currently I'm using that in one of my mode set ups. But the * button is programmed for Zone AF for all the modes just to get the system to quickly find the subject first. The R5 is not it the same league as the R3 but here is a good example. Notice with the R3 how he uses the single point with expansion mode to focus on the subject first.

https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=LGrEWOZYgDw&​t=2s

By the way, in a few days the R5 and 6 will have firmware updates to make AF more sticky.

digital paradise wrote in post #19312673
By the way, in a few days the R5 and 6 will have firmware updates to make AF more sticky.

What? Do we want sticky AF??

Thank you @digital paradise and others.

I wanted to do as you say and program the AF -On button for Eye AF so I went to custom functions and the button settings and under this button there are two options as in the image:

Some people are using the shutter button with single point AF just too focus in on the subject and then pressing the AF-On button with Eye detect enabled. This finds an eye much faster.

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Hi. Just re-reading this I initially wondered why it the shutter button in the above scenario didn't override the Eye Detect with the shutter button's single point AF. I assume it does but that it is simply that the Eye detect does the job of placing the single point on the eye and it stays there when the shutter button is pressed. Is this right?

How would this work the other way round? I mean, if I had the shutter button set for Eye Detect AF and used the back button for Spot Af so that in difficult situations ( eg birds in a flock where ED on its own picked the wrong one ) I could use back button to spot focus on the bird I wanted ( ie just to help focus to get where I want it ) and then use the shutter button to hone in on the eye, would this work?

I ask because I'd prefer to use the shutter button mainly due to a thumb issue but on the odd occasion use the back button in the way I describe.

My AF ON set up is simply having single point AF set up, and it is designed to be Eye AF. So I place that point on someone's face, and then it follows the eyes around the scene for me. Works very well, and when it doesn't, I have * set up to be just spot AF with no Eye AF engaged.

The next option will be Slippery AF...

Canon has been accused of being slippery a few times.

Yes, but now they'll make it a feature!

This puzzled me too, and after some playing around I've found out the simple ED is a toggle, and that it only seems to work when +Tracking is enabled. So you can switch the +Tracking to Eye+Tracking.

I have a custom function set for wildlife, and for this it make sense to always use Eye+Tracking. I'm not sure I'll need to ever need to quickly switch between eye and face, so I won't need ED programmed to any button.

I think when you press the shutter the focus may override what it was previously locked onto, which is why many people recommend using the shutter for metering only.