Focus seems way off in all my images. What's up with that?

I've been reviewing some of my raw and final images in the past couple days and it looks to me as though my images are out of focus. I typically use the manual focus point selection and focus on a specific area like an eye, nose or center of the face.

A lot of my concert images seem out of focus all across the image. I'll post up some images ASAP for reference but in the mean time can anyone share some tips on focusing in camera? I'm using a 50D with a 50 1.4 lens these days.

Also, is there no way I can use more that one focus point manually?

Maybe you're trying to use the camera beyond its design limits.

Maybe your camera and/or lens needs calibrated.

Maybe your images aren't sharpened enough.

What f stop are you shooting at? I am assuming that you are at f/1.4 for your concert photographs. Bear in mind at f/1.4 your DOF is very shallow. So your focus point may be right but the focus does not carry through the depth of the subject.
What shutter speed are you using. My rule of thumb for concert photography is no less then 125th of a second on the shutter to minimize motion blur.

StayLucky wrote in post #13162589
I've been reviewing some of my raw and final images in the past couple days and it looks to me as though my images are out of focus. I typically use the manual focus point selection and focus on a specific area like an eye, nose or center of the face.

What software are you using to view your Raw images? And do you apply Input Sharpening to those images before judging them soft?

If you can, it could benefit you to use the Canon Raw software Digital Photo Professional (DPP) to give these images a once-over. DPP uses your in-camera Picture Style to render a preview for a Raw image, meaning that when you look at that first preview you are seeing a "jpeg-like" image with things like Contrast, Saturation and Sharpening applied, along with your other in-camera settings. Plus, because you are dealing with Raw, DPP lets you change all those things around.

So, possibly you are seeing these Raw previews without any input sharpening applied, as well as other processing, because many Raw processors go light on these things until you decide to apply them. Adobe Raw processors are like that.

But of course you could be having other problems:

Yeah post some pics and we'll have a better idea of how to respond!

If you mean more than one point active at the same time, well, no...the reason why so many folks don't like to shoot with auto point selection is that we don't like the juggling act we have to go through whenever the camera selects the wrong point, which it does so often!

For your low-light concert shooting, you may be best served just using the Center focus point, although I'm not sure of the specifics of the 50D, but the center points do tend to be more reliable. However, if it was me, I'd use one or another of the outer points if the light allowed it, to get good framing/composition.

But, show us some stuff, and make sure that the pics will actually show us the problems you are having, cropping so that we can clearly see the "softness". And, get the exif to use, either writing out your aperture, shutter speed and ISO, having it embedded in your files, or copying and pasting it from your own Exif reader!

No.
And actually, even in Auto Point Selection you never use more than one point. When multiple points light up it is because they are within the DoF (DoF by Canon's wide definition), but only one of them is the point used for focus calculation.

Perhaps you, like me sometimes, keeps knocking the AF switch on the lens to MF (manual focus) accidentally

StayLucky wrote in post #13162589
I've been reviewing some of my raw and final images in the past couple days and it looks to me as though my images are out of focus. I typically use the manual focus point selection and focus on a specific area like an eye, nose or center of the face.

A lot of my concert images seem out of focus all across the image. I'll post up some images ASAP for reference but in the mean time can anyone share some tips on focusing in camera? I'm using a 50D with a 50 1.4 lens these days.

Also, is there no way I can use more that one focus point manually?

With the 50D this is impossible, with cameras like the 1D I think this is possible, not quite sure about the 7D though

StayLucky wrote in post #13162589
I've been reviewing some of my raw and final images in the past couple days and it looks to me as though my images are out of focus. I typically use the manual focus point selection and focus on a specific area like an eye, nose or center of the face.

A lot of my concert images seem out of focus all across the image. I'll post up some images ASAP for reference but in the mean time can anyone share some tips on focusing in camera? I'm using a 50D with a 50 1.4 lens these days.

Also, is there no way I can use more that one focus point manually?

Since you focus manually why not get the optional manual focusing screen?
I have it in my 40D and focus ANYwhere on the screen...when I focus manually with my MF lenses I don't use any of the boxes on the screen. [edit...MF this way is not easy....I have decades of practice shooting that way]

But, to better help you it would be helpful if we could see an example of your concert images to make sure that the blurry photo is not a result of camera shake due to (among many variables), too slow a shutter speed.

But the OP did not say he focuses manually. He said he selects the auto focus point manually.

With the 50 at 1.4 I find it easier to use the center point focus and after I have what I want in focus I compose the shot while holding the finger on the shutter release half way down.

Some say that the 50 1.4 is bad in dark rooms. Mine has it's days but the last 2 wedding shoots I did in reception rooms that were pretty dark, the 50 1.4 performed exceptionally well for me.

I was using the 50 1.8 on some model shots recently, using the centre point AF to take focus on the eye then re compose. On reviewing the raw files, a lot of the shots were out of focus, or rather the eye was slightly out of focus. I put this down to a number of reasons, the main one being that the dof is so shallow on the 1.8, about 20mm to 30mm that even if I did get perfect focus on the eye when re composing if either I or the model moved a bit then focus was lost. On the 1.4 the dof will be even thinner.
Another reason I have discovered is that often a tiny hair in front of her eye will be perfectly sharp, so I presume the auto focus has picked up on the hair rather than the eye.
Next time, probably this weekend, I will mostly be using Manual Focus, not as easy with the tiny digital viewfinder as it was with a film camera, but I am going to give it a go.

5x5 photography wrote in post #13162663
What f stop are you shooting at? I am assuming that you are at f/1.4 for your concert photographs. Bear in mind at f/1.4 your DOF is very shallow. So your focus point may be right but the focus does not carry through the depth of the subject.
What shutter speed are you using. My rule of thumb for concert photography is no less then 125th of a second on the shutter to minimize motion blur.

The DOF may not necessarily be that thin at f1.4. There could easily be 12 inches in focus and for a concert, focusing on someone's face should yield appropriate sharpness on that subject at least. If the distance was greater than 10' for example, there should be enough DOF to work with.

What was the AF mode set to? Hopefully not One Shot...

Please post an example I would assume it's a mixture of slow shutter speed and using very shallow depth of field meaning your pin point sharp area is likley very small examples and exif would allow us to assist you more. Finally bright lights and dirty lens are a image killer for concerts

TeamSpeed wrote in post #13164736
The DOF may not necessarily be that thin at f1.4. There could easily be 12 inches in focus and for a concert, focusing on someone's face should yield appropriate sharpness on that subject at least. If the distance was greater than 10' for example, there should be enough DOF to work with.

What was the AF mode set to? Hopefully not One Shot...

That would depend on how far away you were from the subject,

tzalman wrote in post #13163804
No.
And actually, even in Auto Point Selection you never use more than one point. When multiple points light up it is because they are within the DoF (DoF by Canon's wide definition), but only one of them is the point used for focus calculation.

Is Canon's definition any wider than other lens makers' definition? I agree it is wide, given how well sensors capture and how big a print one can make, compared to the standard size, but that's a little different issue. It is probably relevant for this discussion, because pixel peeping will reveal even thinner DoF than even in a moderately large print