Issue with Face AF

W

whoknows46

Member
Hi all,

Has anybody experienced Face AF glitching out? 95% of the time it's pretty rock solid for me, but on occasion it'll lose the face and rack to the background. Actually had it happen during a very important interview.

I've experienced it both on the C300III with 24-70L II and the C70 with 24-70 RF. "Face only" was definitely selected as opposed to "Face Priority." No confusion there.

The common thread is having very bright highlights behind the subject. In one instance it was a neon sign, and another was a window. I can understand canon losing faces for reasons x/y/z, but why would it then rack to the background? That's the whole point of this mode, that that's not supposed to happen! Please advise if you are able.
 
Honestly, you're fortunate it didn't happen more than once or twice because those two cameras are considered some of the weaker Canon AF options, especially with very bright highlights or the sign or window.

Once I had to shut off my 5D Mark IV's AF near a window because the blinds were gently rocking from a breeze and altering the background light.

As far as the AF system, if something causes it to lose the face then it's going to focus somewhere else regardless of the mode because something malfunctioned, if you will, the mode.

The whole point of the mode is that it will not (or shouldn't) focus to the background when it's working correctly.

So to elaborate...if the camera is tracking a face successfully and the subject naturally walks out of the frame, it's not supposed to focus to the background.

But if the subject is sitting and something messes up the system, anything is up in the air. It could focus on the background, the foreground, it might even do both in a hunting succession because something produced an error in the software, you know?

The bottom line is that AF is not perfect as much as I/we love it...and occasionally it will mess up for various reasons.

IMO, Sony's seems to be a bit better than Canon's at this time.
 
It's happened to me plenty of times. Fortunately nothing has been catastrophic/unfixable so far.

Interestingly, with regard to the neon sign, the sign isn't even blown out. It's just behind the subject's head and the C300 doesn't seem to like that....sometimes. Other times it's fine (I film in the same studio frequently).

I appreciate your take, that the camera being tripped up by a bright light, etc is different than the subject merely turning around or leaving frame. Real bummer, though. Wish that mode was more bulletproof or at least predictable.
 
NorBro said:
IMO, Sony's seems to be a bit better than Canon's at this time.
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So... For the first time in my career, I shot with AF on a real shoot. A few days ago I was operating on a multi-cam shoot with FX-6's, and the DP said to leave it in AF(it was set to eye AF and he had tweaked the settings). I was a little apprehensive, but I did it. And I was pleasantly surprised. The FX6 and Sony 70-200 combo was like a pit bull on a steak, once it grabbed the eye, it didn't let go.
 
It's especially sticky with eye-AF...and R&G is an AF man moving forward! :laugh::2vrolijk_08:
 
The op diagnosed his own problem- af will only work in “easy” situations - backlit not being o e of them.
I find solid exposure helps too
 
It sounds like face detection limits the camera to search for focus in the area the face is in. Because the neon sign has defined edges and in the same area it is likely the camera will focus on it. I'd either switch to manual focus or reposition the subject or camera.
 
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NorBro said:
It's especially sticky with eye-AF...and R&G is an AF man moving forward! :laugh::2vrolijk_08:
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It was very cool. I never saw the image on a screen any larger than the smallHD monitor on top of the camera, but it looked pretty in-focus, to me. And it wasn't exactly a creative focus situation. It was just a "brute force" keep the subjects eyes/face in-focus scenario. But it shows haw far we've come in a relatively short time.
 
Run&Gun said:
It was very cool. I never saw the image on a screen any larger than the smallHD monitor on top of the camera, but it looked pretty in-focus, to me. And it wasn't exactly a creative focus situation. It was just a "brute force" keep the subjects eyes/face in-focus scenario. But it shows haw far we've come in a relatively short time.
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Considering the first video DSLR was in 2008 and then relatively reliable DPAF was released in 2013, that is a very short time, for sure.

But yeah, even short in terms of looking at the bigger picture and what we have had from the 1800s to 200 or so years later.
 
NorBro said:
Considering the first video DSLR was in 2008 and then relatively reliable DPAF was released in 2013, that is a very short time, for sure.

But yeah, even short in terms of looking at the bigger picture and what we have had from the 1800s to 200 or so years later.
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It will be interesting to see how the rumored Canon EOS R5c performs. But I'm hoping the EOS Rx AF (faces! eyes! birds! cats! vehicles! tracking) will be carried over to the Cinema EOS x00 line soon.
 
It's pretty annoying that it's not on the same level, especially because the cinema cameras should be the priority (even though the stills systems are built to have great AF with photos which maybe carries over to video, IDK).

But I first noticed this in 2016 with the 1DX Mark II.

The AF was so much better than the rudimentary system on the C100 Mark II and C300 Mark II.

It improved with the C200 (still not as good as the 1DX Mark II and then later 5D Mark IV), but then it seems like it took a step back with the C70.
 
NorBro said:
It's pretty annoying that it's not on the same level, especially because the cinema cameras should be the priority (even though the stills systems are built to have great AF with photos which maybe carries over to video, IDK).
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The technology used in the Rx series is dubbed "Dual Pixel AF II". If Canon uses logical naming (which we know they do), this would suggest this is just another iteration of the original Dual Pixel AF and we should see it in the EOS Cinema line soon(?).
 
Actually, you know what...that's something I never even considered with the C70.

II was introduced in the R5 and R6 which came before the C70, and I never even thought Canon would go back to I after that, but the C70 indeed does have the first version according to the specs on the Canon USA site.

Might explain some of its subpar performance.

Definitely should be in the cinema line eventually, I'd think.
 
NorBro said:
Definitely should be in the cinema line eventually, I'd think.
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Crossing my fingers. I skipped the C70 precisely for this reason. Forget 8K, I just hope Canon will release a C200 Mark II with DPAF II, internal ProRes recording and affordable media.
 
norway said:
Crossing my fingers. I skipped the C70 precisely for this reason. Forget 8K, I just hope Canon will release a C200 Mark II with DPAF II, internal ProRes recording and affordable media.
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That sounds like everything they wouldn't do. LOL

But it also sounds like a great camera.

However...there likely will be no more EF since EF lens discontinuation officially began last year.

Maybe a RF C400 or something (they'd change the name) with DPAF II and XF-AVC since they own it and probably wouldn't pay to license ProRes from Apple for a cheaper camera. (The C700 had ProRes but it was like $30,000 - and it was also a few years back in a different world of cameras. And not to say you need to charge $30K for a camera with ProRes because you of course do not at all and you can charge $1295 for one, but Canon is a different species.)

I guess the above kind of sounds like a C70 II, especially with the affordable media.
 
NorBro said:
However...there likely will be no more EF since EF lens discontinuation officially began last year.

I guess the above kind of sounds like a C70 II, especially with the affordable media.
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I'm OK with the above as long as we get DPAF II. :beer:
 
lol, yeah, they both have regular DPAF I, but those I'm okay with because they are EF (and C500 II was shipping before DPAF II existed).
 
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