The R10 definitely does have focus modes. I imagine they’re the same or similar. You have the R5 and the 200-800 as well, right? For birds in particular, I have learned that the “Spot AF” setting is the only one that works anything close to consistently. There are modes that employ focus areas that are larger portions of the frame, but these inevitably result on the camera fixating on some random leaf or twig in the foreground and not the bird.

There is also a “Point AF” setting that is one notch to the left on the dial which purportedly works the same way but provides an even smaller target area. Pundits on the internet have suggested that this is actually the correct setting for birding, presumably to help you poke through foliage and foreground branches. But my problem there is that in my experience leaving it set to Point AF results in it never actually finding focus on anything. I can put it right on a stationary bird’s eyeball and the stupid thing racks all the way through the focus range from zero to infinity and back and won’t settle on anything. So I gave up using it. Updating the firmware to the latest also seemed to accomplish nothing, despite recommendations found online.

Manual focus is an a absolute fool’s errand unless you’re looking at sleepy birds who you know will hold still. If that’s your situation you can get very good results when coupled with the viewfinder magnification (which I have bound to the front button on my camera body). But on my RF 200-800 lens in particular, the location of the focus control ring is also rather unfortunate and nearly impossible to use freehand while keeping the camera on target unless you have a lot of time on your hands to line back up again, especially at long zoom ranges.

I’m sure you already know. For anyone who didn’t drop a double kilobuck on one of these, however:

I’m sure the R5 has subject tracking. The R10 certainly does. I’d be interested to hear if it actually works on the R5 because on mine it sure as hell doesn’t. When in servo focus mode the camera seems to focus hunt constantly regardless of subject tracking or not, and most maddeningly of all it will fidget around with itself and lose focus periodically, oscillating between in and out of focus, in 1-2 second intervals even when the target in the center of the box was already in focus and neither the subject nor the operator are moving. It’s like wielding a cheap camcorder from the late '90s. The subject tracking itself pretends to identify moving wildlife by drawing a little bracketed box around it, but despite this it insists on locking focus on various parts of the foreground or background instead. It basically never produces usable results, even in what to my uninitiated eye appears should be ideal conditions.

Unfortunately it’s basically impossible to determine if a bird-sized object is acceptably within focus or not through the EVF when it’s a long way off, and focus peak highlighting apparently only works when you are in true manual focus mode, with the little toggle on the front of the body or your lens switched, which precludes you from using autofocus at all until you set it back. (You can at least override the autofocus at any time by wrenching on the lens’ control ring, provided you have that ring set up to do focus and not, say, twiddle your aperture. But while we’re at it, why the hell does the 200-800 only have one control ring? Somehow even the 100-400 has two…)

I have no idea what the bird in the headline pic was. I assume a mountain chickadee, but I could be wrong.