Master The Canon R6 Mark II Autofocus for Video
I will teach you the secrets that will make your Canon R6 Mark II autofocus like a beast! If you're tired of blurry video clips, then stick around, I'm going to show you a few simple settings that will make your autofocus fast and accurate, even when you're shooting moving subjects.
The Canon R6 Mark II has an excellent autofocus system, but there are a few things you need to do to set it up properly for video. Here's a step-by-step guide:
Go to the Menu. Press the Menu button on the back of the camera.
Navigate to the AF Settings Menu. Use the arrow keys to navigate to the AF Settings menu.
Set the AF Mode to Movie Servo AF. This will enable the camera's continuous autofocus system for video, keeping your subject in focus even when the shutter is not being pressed halfway.
Set the Subject Detection AF to Detection. This will allow the camera to prioritize and track certain subjects in the frame, without hunting for focus if no subject is there. This is great for videos where a subject may step out of frame and you’d prefer for the camera not to simply focus on the background. You can select the type of subject to detect in subject tracking, which we will set to People. You can use auto but it may search for subjects you didn’t want it to. So I set this to whichever subject I am shooting at that moment.
Autofocus speed - how quickly focus changes between subjects. This will mainly be personal preference, I don’t like too fast of a rack focus so I use -2 or 0 most of the time. My tip here is if you shoot slow motion, you likely will want this to be faster so that the transition isn’t long in the recording.
Tracking Sensitivity: this setting controls how quickly your camera switches focus if a subject goes over the focus area. If you are shooting sports or any high motion subjects, you may want to set this to +3. If you are shooting people in an interview or with slower movement, then I like this around -2 so that focus is not distracted.
Next, we can set the Eye Detection AF to Enabled. This will allow the camera to detect and track eyes in the frame. If you set this to Auto, the camera will prioritize the eye that is closest to it. If you’d like to select a specific eye, know that Left refers to the subject’s pov, not your own. So keep that in mind.
Once you have set these settings, you are ready to start shooting video. To focus on a subject, simply point the camera at the subject and press the Shutter Button halfway down, or touch on the back LCD. The camera will automatically focus on the subject and track it as it moves around the frame.
Bonus Tip: If you are shooting a subject that is backlit, you may want to set the Face Detection AF and Eye Detection AF to Off. Backlighting can sometimes cause the camera to autofocus on the wrong subject.
With these simple settings, you'll be well on your way to shooting sharp and professional-looking video footage.
