Help, problem with the EOS M

[dracdoc]

Hi Everyone , I am looking for some help!  I am a bit of a camera newbie so please keep that in mind.  This may be an obvious answer so I apologize in advance.

Model: Canon EOS-M Mirrorless Digital Camera with EF-M 22mm f/2 STM Lens - Black  

I bought the Camera primarily for use in recording Youtube videos.  I personally think its great quality but I have run into an issue that I can't figure out how to solve.

To create my videos , I bought a Tripod which I set my Camera on , turn on record and sit in front of my couch (about 4 feet away).  The camera records the video , but the problem I am having is that it will continuously hunt for focus.  Obviously this is a problem because while the video quality is great, its not useful to me if its constantly looking for focus.  I figured the problem MIGHT be in the lighting, so I ended up adding additional lighting to the area, but that only seems to have made the problem worse.

Is there anyway for me to solve this issue?  Such as possibly just setting the focus manually (and turning off auto focus) or getting the Camera to somehow not autofocus nearly as much?

[TCampbell]

Due to the way focusing works on mirrorless cameras, if anything goes just slightly out of focus, it would need to "hunt" for focus.

It would be easier to pre-focus the camera to the distance you'll need to be and switch the lens to Manual Focus mode (so the camera cannot focus.)  

Set the aperture value (Av or "f-stop") to a middle to high value.  This will increase the "depth of field" (range at which subjects will still appear to be in acceptable focus).  That way if you should move your head just slightly closer or farther you wont go out of focus.  This would be a value such as f/5.6 or even f/8 (or higher.)  Avoid lower values such as f/4 or f/2.8 because the depth of field will be a bit narrower.

[ezpop]

go to the camera menu select second tab from the left, scroll down to

AF continuous - and disable.  Then pre-focus before you shoot a video, hunting will not occur.

Another way is to use a manual vintage lens with adapter on your M and it works very well that way.

And it's cheap and fun.

[dracdoc]

Thanks a ton everyone!  I've gotten much better with it thanks to the suggestions and have since solved the auto focus nightmare issue.