Canon 7D, unintentional switching from manual to auto selection of focus points

<p>Hello! I am a proud owner of the Canon 7D and love everything about the body so far EXCEPT for the unintentional switching from manual to auto selection of focus points. I know that there is a built in accelerometer (or something similar) that allows you to set different manual focus points to "jump to" when you switch from portrait to landscape, but the issue I'm having is when I'm shooting those in-between shots (45 degree angles). The camera seems to leave manual focus selection and go to a full auto selection, which is making me miss shots because I need to control the focus point (shooting at wide open apertures 2.8 etc). This problem also happens sometimes when I'm directly over the subject shooting down (overhead shots of newborns, etc). Is anyone else having this issue? It's literally my only complaint about the body. I have read the manual but didn't find anything that helps resolve this. Any help is much appreciated!</p>

<p>I haven't had this problem on my 7D, but I don't use the feature that jumps the AF point when switching orientation. Even that feature shouldn't switch from manual selection to full auto, it should just switch the point. Which AF setting are you using? Is it possible you're pressing a button to switch AF modes while you're repositioning the camera? Consider disabling the AF modes that you don't use, in C.FN III 6.</p>

<p>I've played around with this a little with my 7D. If you intend to use the same manually-selected AF point (or zone in Zone AF) when shooting, regardless of camera orientation, then C.Fn III-12, "Orientation linked AF point" must be set to 0 (p. 214 in the manual). If it is not, you can set a different manual focus point, focus zone, or fully auto, etc., for each orientation - portrait or landscape (vertical and horizontal by the book).Just because you set a point for one orientation, doesn't mean it will be using that, or any other point for a different orientation, so you've got to be careful.</p>

<p>By the way, the camera sees "grip at top" and "grip at bottom" as two different vertical orientations, so you actually have three possibilities.</p>

<p>That's where I'd start looking, anyway.</p>

<p>@Jay - It switches points correctly when going from portrait to landscape if the camera is perfectly parallel or perpendicular to the ground, but when I want to shoot an angled shot for effect, or when I'm directly over the subject is when I experience the camera switching into something that appears to be full auto focus. I am most often using One Shot AF and the Manual AF point mode. No, I'm sure that I'm not pressing any buttons because of the frequency that it happens. I'll have to check out that C.FN III 6. Thanks.</p>

<p>@Larry - I actually like the idea of the camera automatically jumping to a predefined manual focus point based on orientation because I like to set my subject off-center quite often, but if I can't get the camera to stop switching to an auto-focus mode so often, I may have to try C.FN III 12. Thanks for the tip. </p>

<p>@Tom - The thing is, you have to tell the camera what you want it to do in each orientation. I would love the idea that I could tell the camera to always use "the leftmost manual focus point in each orientation", but the camera doesn't think that generally. You can do that, but you have to tell it explicitly in each orientation. So, you have to first set C.Fn III-12 to 1, then in landscape, set your (for example) leftmost focus point, then rotate the camera clockwise, and set the leftmost point in that orientation, and then rotate it 180 degrees, and set it in the third orientation. Then, each mode will have a different point selected, but it will always be the leftmost.</p>

<p>You can set , for example, landscape to be left most, then portrait 1 to be center zone, and portrait 2 to be full auto. I also imagine that the camera could disagree with you on when you changed orientations! What is 45 degrees to us might be 46 degrees to the camera, and a different orientation!</p>

<p>Of course, if you've already set a manual point in all three orientations, I can't explain why it would be going into an automatic mode...</p>

<p>AF selection mode can be set differently for each orientation. I set point AF selection for landscape, and 3 point zone set for portrait. Tom just needs to to set the AF selection for portrait mode to his liking. (I would look it up in the manual, but messing with the CF settings are among my most hated activities. Make a fresh pot of coffee, unplug the phones, and put out the do not disturb sign until the job is done.)</p>

 

<p>Are you sure you are not hitting the AF point selection button by mistake during the heat of passion ?</p>

<p>Had the same problem. Before I read the manual, I always check the firmware version. My 7D came with 1.2.1 and the most recent version was 1.2.3. After I updated the firmware to 1.2.3, the problem was gone. Not sure if firmware version 1.2.3 is the solution or has some other solution to another problem that covers the autoswitching. Canon tells me it is not a known problem, but still advised me to update firmware (which I already did by the time they told me)<br>

grzz.</p>

<p>@Swier, thanks so much! Problem fixed with firmware upgrade!</p>