Need some focusing help

[Ravikantsharma]

Hey Guys,

I am a Canon shooter and have a Canon 7D with 24-70 & 70-200 lens,I guess when ever I shoot close close up of ppl e.g face..my images are very very sharp..I can see person eye lashes very clearly....I normlayy use zone focus sp that entire face is sharp in an image.Aperture is close to 2.8 or 3.2 in Av mode.

When I shoot full length from a far of distance with external flashes mounted on a softbox (580ex ii) triggered by radio trigger (max sync speed of 250 of sec), I see that my subject eyes are not that sharp.Aperture I set to 2.8-3.5 for a single person shoot...depending upon how much I need background in focus.

Wt I wanted to ask , for long distance shots, whats are best focus modes one can use so that eyes are sharp...If I increase shutter speed then ,I am killing the ambient light, Max I can go is 250sec with my flashes ....

for a full length body shot...can I choose 4-5 point focus mode or single point focus mode and focus on eyes and recompose the body..will the image be sharp....

plz help....(Ignore ISO details now .boz i Know I can increase that to get more ambient light that way..)

plz help guys

thanks in advance.

[TPF Sponsor]

[Big Mike]

Welcome to the forum.

Using more or less focus points probably isn't your problem. The lens can only be physically focused to one specific distance at a time...so use one point that is where you want the lens to focus (the face/eyes). Your DOF probably isn't the issue either.

Is this mostly happening with the 24-70mm lens? As great as a lens as that is, I've been hearing plenty of stories from photographers who are unsatisfied with it's focus performance. Specifically that it focuses well at some distances and not so well at other distances.

Can you show us some examples?

[Alpha]

1) Switch lens to manual focus.
2) Stop down a little.
3) Manually focus on eyes.