Focus Points - What am I doing wrong?

[FaerieSherilyn]

Hi everyone at the Canon forum. 

My name is Sherilyn and I'm a beauty youtuber using a Canon EOS 70D with a sigma 18-35mm. (Although this issue occurs with all of my lenses bar my 28mm pancake)

I'm currently having some trouble getting my camera to focus. Granted, I use AF a lot of the time but that is because I have to sit in front of the camera from a distance away and so can only really reach out and use touch focus occasionally if I notice that my eyes seem to have gone out of focus. The problem I am experiencing at the moment is that the exact area I want to be in focus (centre of shot) goes blurry whereas the peripheral areas of the image seem to remain in sharper focus. Whatever I do apature-wise this problem still seems to occur. I will attatch some images which were recorded at a 5.0 f stop. You will see that the eye I want the camera to focus on is blurry whereas the rest of the footage isnt. Is the focal range of the lens really so limited that the fact this eye is slightly further forward is causing this? 

Currently my AF settings are face plus tracking. Should I change to 19 point mode in order to secure the focus point at all times or just find a way of working with Manual? Any advice and tips would be incredibly useful. 

Thanks everyone!!

Sherilyn

[Ray-uk]

I don't do video so am not the best person to reply but as nobody else has then I would suggest:

Turn off face tracking.

Turn on all focus points.

Use a small aperture, eg f8 or f11.

You should then have a greater depth of field and although the focus will be maximised on the part of the face that is closest to the camera the eyes should fall within the depth of field.

[BurnUnit]

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@Ray-uk wrote:

I don't do video so am not the best person to reply but as nobody else has then I would suggest:

Turn off face tracking.

Turn on all focus points.

Use a small aperture, eg f8 or f11.

You should then have a greater depth of field and although the focus will be maximised on the part of the face that is closest to the camera the eyes should fall within the depth of field.

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This seems like the safest, surest approach. The scene seems to be a little on the dark side from the stills you've posted. I don't think it could hurt to pump up your lighting as well. Which you'll want to do anyway to keep the aperture around the f8-f11 range. If you lack the lighting you could bump up your ISO too.