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A new patent suggests Canon’s eye-controlled focus may be coming back

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For those who hear about the fact that Canon used to have 35mm SLRs with eye-controlled AF, but have never had the opportunity to try it themselves, it’s an intriguing proposition. Look at something, and the camera just focuses on it. Sounds great, right? Well, for those that have actually used it, the response is very mixed. My dad had it on his EOS 5. He loved it. I tried it and I hated it.

The theory’s great, but the implementation wasn’t. Canon seemed to abandon the idea, but now a new patent suggests that they might be looking to reintroduce the concept into future EOS R mirrorless cameras at some point.

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Watch: Video tests to see if the Nikon Z6 II Eye AF really that much better than the Z6

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Some of the biggest complaints about the Nikon Z6 have been addressed with Nikon’s new Z6 II. It now has dual card slots for redundancy and its continuous shooting speed has been bumped up from 12fps to 14fps. But one somewhat embarrassing setback of the Z6, even after the firmware updates, was its Eye Autofocus abilities.

Manny Ortiz has had his hands on a pre-production model Z6 II for a little while, and he wanted to put it to the test to see if the Eye AF issues, particularly in low light situations have finally been resolved. And, well, it looks like they might have been.

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Firmware update adds real-time Animal Eye AF to Sony RX10 IV

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Some two weeks ago, Sony announced a firmware update for the RX10 IV which would add real-time Animal Eye AF. We didn’t know the release date back then, but now it’s officially out. Sony RX10 IV can now have the Animal Eye AF in their camera and nail focus when photographing their four-legged friends.

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Tests show the Eye AF on the Canon EOS R nails it after latest firmware update

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Earlier this year, firmware update brought Sony-like Eye AF to Canon EOS R. But is it really harder, better, faster, stronger than before? Well, Manny Ortiz got to test it out in some tricky lighting conditions, and it turns out Canon nailed it! In the fun video below, Manny demonstrates Canon R’s improved Eye AF in action and shares some of his impressions.

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Sony’s Real-Time Animal Eye Autofocus is coming to the RX10 IV

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Released in 2017, Sony’s RX10 IV has become a pretty popular all-in-one camera. It features a built-in Zeiss 24-600mm equivalent field of view lens with an f/2.4-4 aperture and a 20.1-megapixel BSI CMOS sensor that lets you shoot stills at up to 24 frames per second. Now, that two-year-old camera is seeing something of an upgrade.

A post on the Sony Japan website states that real-time Eye Autofocus support for animals is coming to the RX10 IV. It’ll only be available for stills, and not video, but it’s on the way in an upcoming firmware update.

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Canon may be bringing back eye-controlled focus to future cameras

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Way back when, before DSLRs, Canon had the EOS 5 (that’s the A2E to those in the USA). It was a pretty decent camera. My dad owned one. But one of the things it did which no other camera on the market could do, was eye-controlled autofocus. This wasn’t like the Eye AF we get today where the camera focuses on your subject’s eye. No, this was where the photographer used their eye to look at what they wanted the camera to focus on.

It was only ever used in a small handful of Canon’s 35mm SLRs before the idea seemed to be abandoned. But now, it looks like Canon might be reintroducing the system. Canon recently filed a patent (Japanese patent #2019-129461) for a very similar system so the folks at DPReview decided to do a little look back on the system and what it might mean for the future.

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Canon just teased a major upcoming autofocus firmware for the EOS R and EOS RP cameras

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Canon has shown off a pretty major upcoming firmware update for the Canon EOS R and EOS RP cameras to enhance their autofocus capabilities. Specifically, the update seems to deal with the speed and accuracy of Eye AF and object tracking.

A video demo posted to YouTube by Canon shows side-by-side comparisons of the current firmware vs the new one, which should be arriving in September.

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Eye AF is coming to the Nikon Z6 and Z7 on May 16th

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Earlier this year, Nikon announced that its new Z6 and Z7 firmware update will include Eye AF among other features. There was no word on the exact release date, but now it has been officially revealed. You won’t have to wait much longer, as the Eye Detection AF is coming to the Z series on 16 May 2019. And what’s more, Nikon has shared a video to demonstrate how it performs.

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Canon EOS R Firmware update brings Sony-like Eye-AF

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I guess Eye-AF is the future. Following Sony’s and Nikon’s Eye-AF releases, Canon could not afford to be left behind. So, Canon is releasing their own firmware for the Canon EOS-R which mainly includes a new eye-AF functionality.

While Canon HK published the news about two weeks ago, the actual update became available via Canon Canada only now.

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