Canon has released a Firmware upgrade for both of Canon’s full-frame mirrorless cameras. The focus fix has arrived with face tracking and eye detection autofocus (AF) capabilities. The present AF systems in the EOS R and the EOS RP were unable to keep up with the performance from a Sony or Panasonic full-frame mirrorless shooter.
Canon Inc. has recognized this and has released firmware updates 1.4.0 and 1.3.0 for the EOS R and RP respectively, giving face tracking and eye detect AF on the two cameras a significant performance boost. The biggest issue users faced during testing the two full-frame cameras was the significant lag between the AF system locking onto a subject and the appearance of the blue focus box on the viewfinder.
With the new update, both cameras will be able to lock onto a subject’s face and eye from further away than previously, although no specific details have been provided on how much this has improved.
The cameras will also now be able to focus on and track smaller subjects, so keeping up with your playful retriever puppy or tracking a cheetah on your safari trip will be easier.
In the case of the EOS R, a bug that saw the AF frame size remain static in Servo AF mode has now been fixed, and users should now be able to change the AF frame from small to ‘normal’, depending on the situation. An EOS RP-specific update on version 1.3.0 sees a fix for “a phenomenon in which the main dial icon is not displayed when pressing the zoom in/out button while the image is playing”. So that would be in the review pane on the rear LCD, in case anyone missed earlier.
(With input from agencies)