Leonard Shepherd wrote:

Laqup wrote:

forgot to mention: I did not use zones, but my default AF mode is full frame subject detection AF.

AF benefits from input from the photographer - with any brand of camera.

Full frame AF is about as inappropriate an AF starting point as can be selected when wanting AF to detect a subject occupying a very small percentage of the image area, similar to your examples.

And here ladies and gentleman we have him. ("I will not go into all details of the settings, as I know that someone always has "a better idea"). Congrats to you, sir.

So how would you explain subject detection working flawlessly if this is the "most inappropiate mode ever"? Subject has always been detected and eye was selected (opposite to what you actually stated, you made it sound like subject detection did not work), it's only the AF system that failed to achieve focus on the selected eye.
Just for double clarification: You can see the selected focus point in my examples, it's the little red box in the vicinity of the eye.. Why do you think that "additional input from the photographer" is needed in that case?

And why do you think a clearly defined motive that covers like 30-40% pixels in the frame can be described as "very small percentage"? Care to elaborate?

Maybe you didn't understand what I was showing, this is a single, uncropped photo, I marked the subject for you: