Because power consumption has always been a concern with mirrorless cameras, I've assigned the 'AF point' button (top right) to the 'Display Off' function for topside shots on my Canon R5 for years.

For some reason, however, I can't activate this function in my Nauticam housing.

And it's only this function that's affected!

If I assign the button to, for example, 'drive mode', I can activate that with the 'AF point' button - and this applies to all other buttons as well: 'Display Off' can't be activated.

Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this?

From what I understand, then, the button on the Nauticam housing works.

I don't have a Canon, but... check the EVF settings.

In Lumix cameras, there are settings where the EVF and the display can be set to activate exclusively. As soon as you bring your eye close to the EVF, the display turns off. There is a proximity sensor near the EVF. When you close the back of the housing, it's as if you were bringing your eye close to it.

Maybe there is some setting causing this mess.

Without the housing, try covering the EVF with a finger and using the button to see if it works.

Ciao

Hi Davide,

thanks for your reply!

I already tested that:

There are four different viewfinder/display options on the R5, but unfortunately 'display off' doesn't work with any of them.

On 6/7/2026 at 4:46 PM, waso said:

Because power consumption has always been a concern with mirrorless cameras, I've assigned the 'AF point' button (top right) to the 'Display Off' function for topside shots on my Canon R5 for years.

For some reason, however, I can't activate this function in my Nauticam housing.

And it's only this function that's affected!

If I assign the button to, for example, 'drive mode', I can activate that with the 'AF point' button - and this applies to all other buttons as well: 'Display Off' can't be activated.

Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this?

So you are saying pressing the AF point button outside the housing activates display off, but inside the housing it won't work, but other functions assigned to that button work inside the housing?

Maybe there is a eye detection function in the camera viewfinder and inside the housing it thinks there is an eye at the viewfinder and won't activate the function, because it thinks you are still using the viewfinder? You could test by covering the eye sensor to see if it stops activation outside the housing?

8 hours ago, Chris Ross said:

So you are saying pressing the AF point button outside the housing activates display off, but inside the housing it won't work, but other functions assigned to that button work inside the housing?

Exactly!

9 hours ago, Chris Ross said:

Maybe there is a eye detection function in the camera viewfinder and inside the housing it thinks there is an eye at the viewfinder and won't activate the function, because it thinks you are still using the viewfinder? You could test by covering the eye sensor to see if it stops activation outside the housing?

Yes, that seems to be the case, I just tested it.

It works with the R5II, by the way.