Canon M6 Mark II: Back Button Focus and Focus Peaking

[@91airspeed]

Thank you thank you so much for your expertise on the m6 mkii you have made my usage of this camera so much more. You show and explain quite well. All that you have done I appreciate. S

[@whiskeyisajourney]

Thanks! I appreciate the feedback and I'm happy to help.

[@barryriches6023]

What a relief to find a review that doesn’t start with the presenter stupidly saying “Hey, what’s up guys “.... gibberish !! I find your reviews refreshingly straightforward with no gimmicks. This particular one has saved me hours trying to work out my perfect autofocus setting, as I am also shooting birds in flight and fast moving creatures. Your final setting in the video has worked out brilliantly. Left to my own devices I’d still be searching. Thank you sir, keep up the reasoned, intelligent reviews.

[@faspete2nd]

Thanks. I try not to fill up my videos with a bunch fluff.

[@850Tech]

Very informative ! Thanks Peter ! Subscribed ! and anyone else using M6 II in 2022 😁👍

[@faspete2nd]

Thanks!

[@aquaman5464]

Thank you this really helped me with my M6 mk ii

[@faspete2nd]

You're welcome.

[@stevenwilliams3657]

Very useful and helpful... thank you Peter

[@faspete2nd]

You are welcome. I'm happy it helped.

[@PromoMoviescomau]

Fantastic tutorial on this topic Peter - thank you!

[@faspete2nd]

You're welcome. Happy to know it was helpful.

[@acwhite5246]

Stumbled upon your Your Tube videos this morning. Am SOOO glad I did! Much easier to learn than thumbing through the 600+ page owners manual. ...and actually gives me the answer I was looking for! Thanks and keep up the good work.

[@faspete2nd]

You are welcome. I'm happy it helped.

[@smartintech2]

Thank you. This will refine my workflow.

[@faspete2nd]

You are welcome.

[@DavidTramacchi]

Amazing detail thanks. This is the best explained Back Button focus video!! 👍

[@faspete2nd]

Glad it was helpful and thanks for the feedback.

[@dct1]

Thanks for the back focus button explanation!

[@faspete2nd]

You are welcome.

[@dct1]

@@faspete2nd enjoying your M6 content. Since moving from a 77D I'm struggling with the M6 mkii, not sure why? I find the Zone AF box/area quite tight so if I wanted lots of a subject in focus I don't feel the camera offers that. I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong? Switch to one shot rather than servo?

[@faspete2nd]

@@dct1 The autofocus settings are one of the things that I change the most on this camera. It would be very difficult for me to suggest one of them that helps in most situations. I find myself using single point autofocus and utilizing the touch and drag focus option as well. That seem to work for me.

[@drmaddi0959]

Very nice, Peter. Cheers, mate, for a great informative video. Helped heaps. Have subscribed 👍

[@faspete2nd]

Much appreciated. Happy it helped.

[@GemmaAndrews]

Well done, this is high quality content that I needed. I was really struggling with the m6ii focus and it was really annoying me as I was not getting the results I wanted. Hopefully this should now be sorted thanks to this vid. Thank you

[@faspete2nd]

You are welcome. I hope everything works out for you.

[@CountryMindful]

Love your M6 videos! Thanks so much for explaining truly helpful stuff!

[@faspete2nd]

Thank you so much! I appreciate the feedback and I'm happy the videos are helping you.

[@kjtubed]

@Peter Fasciano this is the most comprehensive video on autofocus on KZbin!... thank you so much for sharing!.... I do have one question: does the focus tracking by pressing down the back button work for video too?...

[@faspete2nd]

Yes. Back button focus works in video mode as well. Side note...you might be fighting against continuous auto focus in video mode if you have the option selected. Just keep that in mind.

[@ApexFuturesTrader]

I've been watching all your videos on the M6 MII. Thanks. (English not my first language)

[@faspete2nd]

Cool. Thanks for watching them. I'm currently doing a tips, tricks, and hidden features video. Should be out next week (end of June beginning of July.

[@jimvriesacker9246]

Thanks, Peter. I use tracking and servo mode 90% of the time for candid shots of my dogs; I use “one shot” for posed photos the other 10%. Therefore I set up “C 1” for action shots and set up “M” for stills. One thing I do that you didn’t mention is set “Continuous AF” to Enable.” That way once I touch the screen to focus on my subject the camera continues to track the subject without my having to hold down any buttons. I can now attend to pressing the shutter without distraction.

[@faspete2nd]

Sounds like you have it all dialed in. That's great! Happy shooting.

[@kamnisenmaki]

I think that "Continuous AF Enabled" is consuming battery when you have the camera in stand by mode, cause the lens is hunting focus all the time.... Personally I Disable that option

[@jimvriesacker9246]

- Kamnisenmaki Of course you are correct. However whether that amounts to a serious battery drain depends on how you use your camera. I would hesitate to use the feature for continual shooting during a two hour sporting event; you might miss an important shot while changing batteries. But on long hikes infrequently interrupted by one or two minute photo shoots it works fine. Naturally I always carry an extra battery during the cold or just in case.

[@ericdanthon2]

@@kamnisenmaki I was wondering the same thing in why my M6 was always focusing when I was walking. You have to turn it off each time I suppose. So I turned off disabled AF. Maybe I will use that when I hike. Good point.

[@faspete2nd]

What focusing method do you use most? Leave a comment and let me know below.

[@recipebook7307]

I don't have camera I love photography I love this video tutorial👍🏻

[@michaelmurty8481]

Hi Peter, thanks for this. Helped me a bunch. 4 years on and the video still is as important as ever. Quick question, do you still use the M6 Mark 11 for birds? Besides the 55-200 are there any other zoom lenses that can work with this camera?

[@faspete2nd]

I no longer own the camera. I have moved on to the Canon R5 and R6 MKII. the 55-200 is nice because the effective focal length is 320mm and anything over 300mm is good for wildlife. The lens that took my birding to another level was the workhorse beast 400mm EF f/5.6 L USM lens. You can find it used and it gives you an effective focal length of 640mm. If you get lucky you can get a used one for 500.00 but, usually sells for $700+ You can also look into the Sigma or Tamron lenses variable zooms.

[@kenweb27]

Hey Peter, thank you for your series on the Canon EOS M6 MK II. I have seen almost all the videos. I would be happy about the following videos: - How to film KZbin videos with the M6? (Like your videos.) - How do I film my table with the M6? (Overhead) - How do I do portraits? - How do I photograph birds? - Which lenses do you recommend? - How do I manage to make videos as long as possible? As an inspiration for next topics. I have subscribed your channel. You do a great job! Stay healthy.

[@kenweb27]

And maybe: How to work with the Canon App! That would be nice too!

[@faspete2nd]

I keep coming back to your comments. I have stuff in the works, but takes some time to produce them.

[@naijafootballphotographer]

Good job sir. In my own case, I am a new sports photographer in my country Nigeria. I want to use Canon EF 400mm f/5.6 lens. Can I use it with the the M6 mark II?

[@faspete2nd]

Yes, but you need the EF-EOS M adapter.

[@grantrush8823]

Did you use this combination? I own the 400mm and was thinking about picking up this camera and was curious how it tuned out. Thanks.

[@eerofi]

@@grantrush8823 I have used with Canon EF 300 and Tamron 150-600 and both work well.

[@LisasLife]

Least I wasn't crazy 😜 I was looking for this video yesterday. To see how I set back button focus. I was like where did it go? I know I watched it.

[@faspete2nd]

Sorry about that. I literally yelled out loud as soon as I realized what I did.

[@eerofi]

Five stars for the content, thank you! The background music on your videos is somewhat distracting and makes it difficult to focus at some points, even though it is not too loud.

[@faspete2nd]

I've stopped using background music. I did not realize it was that distracting until people started telling me. Thanks for letting me know and thanks for the view and complement.

[@eerofi]

@@faspete2nd great! +1 follower

[@keykey1401]

Can you please make a video which lenses are best with m6 markii for still photography- 🙏🏻

[@faspete2nd]

Unfortunately, I don't have the resources to do that. Watch Christopher Frost Photography on KZbin. He covers all types of lenses and the quality of them.

[@local9]

back button is the way, the only way, I like using a digital camera

[@faspete2nd]

It took me a while to get used to it, but now I have it set for all my cameras.

[@derekoneill6727]

Can you still use focus peaking when you use 10x magnification

[@faspete2nd]

No. It's disabled when magnifying.

[@Mtgslade]

Can you move autofocus without using the touch screen?

[@faspete2nd]

There is a scroll wheel on the back that can be used to move the focus points so you don't have to touch the screen.

[@chicodefrutos]

helo My name is Arturo Chico, I don't know English, but I have seen his videos on the Canon M6 MarkII camera. I wanted to ask you a question and it is: how can you hear the audio in a video recording if the camera does not have a headphone output? If you have the microphone input, but I don't understand that they haven't put a headphone output.

[@faspete2nd]

You will have to play back the video on the computer to check audio or you can play it from the camera and you will hear the sound from the built in speaker on the camera. It is not the best speaker, but at least you will hear if you have audio.

[@chicodefrutos]

@@faspete2nd Thanks a lot

[@rajkishor6535]

is the focus peaking good enough for hand held?

[@faspete2nd]

It works great as long as you have the right peaking color selected for the subject you are shooting.

[@CompareBikes]

The manual focus peaking is the worst I've seen. I'm coming from a Panasonic GX85 where the focus peaking was way visible even on low setting than the high on this camera. I can't, for the life of me, see the peaking dots, no matter the color. I need to be super close to the screen. I'm feeling like a surgeon trying to distinct the colored peaking pixels. I tried with all 3 colors... The worst part is when I use it on gimbal, the screen is far from me so I can't see the peaking pixels. It's just bad, veeeery bad. How can you improve the intensity of the peaking pixels even more? Is there a way?

[@faspete2nd]

I agree. I struggle with the peaking visibility from time to time.

[@mansiu-lifechannel]

Taking pan shot say from room ceiling to floor....as there is movement from top to bottom....how to take a sharp video....if using canon mk ii...? I found video taken from mobile camera is sharp but for mirrorless camera like canon m6 II, may some out focus especially object not yet in the focus zone....would like to ask, is it possible all area inside the video shot are sharp? please help. thanks

[@faspete2nd]

If you are doing a panning shot of a room the room has depth so not all "objects" will be in focus based on depth of field. If you want a certain object to be the focus point of the shot then try to pre-focus on the object and then start your pan. If you want a certain portion of the room to be in focus try to close down the aperture to f/11 or f/16. You can also select a single point auto focus point in camera and whatever that single point focus point travels over the objects in the room the focus will shift to that point. You can also try manual focus and pull focus as you pan so you control what is in focus and what's not. There are too many methods to mention here, but I hope this gives you a starting point.

[@mansiu-lifechannel]

Thank your help and advise.

[@satanstrilogy2288]

W.O.W.

[@faspete2nd]

Thanks.

[@DonnieDispersed]

Is the focus peaking active while recording 4k video?

[@faspete2nd]

As long as you have focus peaking activated in the menu it will be available whenever you switch to manual focus in any mode.

[@DonnieDispersed]

Peter Fasciano ok. I’m asking cause I was looking at the RP. And canon said the focus peaking is not available when filming 4k. Seems silly to me.

[@megiMove]

How can u punch in focus I see alot of streetphotographers do? Kinda hard getting focus on people that sometimes are far away.. Would be great to have

[@faspete2nd]

With your camera on manual focus you will see a magnifying glass symbol appear in the bottom right corner of the LCD screen. When you touch it it will zoom in 5x or you can touch the symbol again and you will zoom in x10. Focus on your subject and capture the image.

[@megiMove]

@@faspete2nd oooh... Thank u so much! =)

[@sheldonmiller6596]

😊i feel as though you are rushing

[@faspete2nd]

I think I just talk fast. I'm a middle school science teacher and my kids tell me all the time I need to slow down when I talk. 🤦‍♂️

[@derbi123]

After watching this video, I am confused as hell. I disliked this a lot.

[@faspete2nd]

Sorry it was confusing. I tried.