Canon's Action Priority and Register Face Priority modes are the sporting world's worst kept secret for top soccer shots

A screengrab from a Canon camera showing the Action Priority locking on to a soccer player with a blue autofocus box over the head of the player with the ball.

As a journalist writing photography news for over a decade it takes something rather special to make a new camera feature stand out. I must admit, I can’t but involuntarily roll my eyes when another new camera model surpasses the old one with little more than a few more megapixels to sing and shout about – it’s not quite the photographic revolution I’m hoping for when I see the press release land in my inbox.

However, two features that did genuinely get me very excited in recent times both came from Canon with its Canon EOS R1 and Canon EOS R5 Mark II flagships were launched in tandem back in November 2024.