Canon Auto-Focus Explained, 2025 Update!
with
Rudy Winston
In Februari 2022 Steve Brazill from the Behind the Shot podcast made a show called Canon Auto-Focus Explained, featuring Rudy Winston, technical marketing consultant with Canon USA.
In the show Winston talked about Canon's autofocus system, particularly the one in the R3.
Steve Brazill writes on his site that this show had roughly "453,000 views on YouTube, in addition to all the views in the video and audio-only podcast feeds."
It didn't take long before people started to ask for an update, especially after the R6 Mark II and the R5 Mark II were released "to cover all of the newer Auto Focus features."
After the R1 was released last November, Brazill decided it was time and he and Rudy Winston made an update to that popular Canon Auto-Focus Explained podcast. In the new show, which aired on 11 January 2025, Brazill and Winston basically did what they did three years earlier: going through the AF menus, describing every option in detail.
This time the Canon R1 was used for the menu examples because "higher end bodies have features the lower end bodies don’t – but they also have most, if not all, of the features on the lower end bodies – so to cover as many settings as possible, spanning bodies in all price ranges, the best choice is the higher end body, which today is the R1."
The show is long. For people who don't want to sit through it all (although it is definitely worth your time), here are timestamps so you can jump to those topics that interest you the most. (If you watch it on YouTube itself, the timestamps are links to that exact time in the video of course.)
Chapter Timestamps
00:00:00 – Intro00:01:54 – Disclaimers & Expectations
00:06:57 – Introducing Canon Technical Marketing Consultant Rudy Winston
00:08:01 – Canon R1 AF Menu Tab – Page 1: AF Operations / Area
00:08:30 – AF Operation
00:12:27 – AF Area
00:38:04 – Whole Area Tracking Servo AF
00:41:26 – Canon R1 AF Menu Tab – Page 2: Subject Detection
00:41:37 – Subject to Detect
00:52:57 – Eye Detection
00:55:19 – Register People Priority
01:04:07 – Action Priority
01:10:01 – Canon R1 AF Menu Tab – Page 3: Servo AF Character
01:10:38 – Case: Auto
01:15:24 – Case: Manual
01:15:60 – Tracking Sensitivity
01:17:35 – Accel / Decel Tracking
01:19:51 – Canon R1 AF Menu Tab – Page 4: Customize AF Operation
01:21:53 – Servo 1st Image Priority
01:23:38 – One-Shot AF Release Prior
01:24:55 – Preview AF
01:27:55 – Len Drive When AF Impossible
01:30:03 – AF-Assist Beam Firing
01:34:33 – Canon R1 AF Menu Tab – Page 5: Customized Controls
01:34:47 – Limit AF Areas
01:36:22 – Orientation Linked AF Point
01:40:20 – Limit Subject to Detect
01:41:51 – L / R Eye Detection
01:42:25 – Canon R1 AF Menu Tab – Page 6: MF Related
01:42:38 – MF Peaking Settings
01:47:33 – Focus Guide
01:49:55 – Lens Electronic MF
01:59:44 – Canon R1 AF Menu Tab – Page 7: Various Settings
02:00:10 – Register / Recall AF-Related Settings
02:08:15 – AF Setting Guide URL
02:10:39 – Canon R1 Control Customization Menu Tab – Page 3: Customized Controls When Shooting
02:10:59 – AF Area Selection Control
02:13:37 – Sensitivity – AF Pt Select
02:14:56 – Focus Ring Rotation
02:16:32 – RF Lens MF Focus Ring Sensitivity
02:19:09 – Canon R1 Control Customization Menu Tab – Page 5: Customized Controls – Eye Control
02:39:22 – Listener / Viewer Questions
02:59:06 – My Dual-Back-Button AF Setup
03:06:54 – Outro
