Back/Front focusing issues.

So I've been playing with my new 70D and kit 18-135mm STM lens. Is it normal for me to have micro adjust the lens to the body? I think mine is front focusing by +1 as I have so many test shots where there is no detail in the subject.

This is a shot I took before the adjustment but noticed her eyes were really soft and her skin has no detail (also there is no eyebrow or eyelash detail).

http://i.imgur.com/Nh9​JM7P.jpg

BTW my 55-250mm EF-S F4-5.6 has quite a bit of miss-focus. I think I had to adjust the long end to -4 and the wide to -2. I am wondering if the mount on the 70D is the issue. There is some play on the lens and mount when I twist it but that might be normal?

Have you considered that neither of those lenses is going to be as sharp as an L or any of the primes? Pixel peeping is going to start costing you some real money since your camera outperforms the consumer grade zooms.

ChunkyDA wrote in post #16351100
Have you considered that neither of those lenses is going to be as sharp as an L or any of the primes? Pixel peeping is going to start costing you some real money since your camera outperforms the consumer grade zooms.

For sure. But the problem is it's not locking focus correctly on where I had the middle AF point. The face. The focus was sharpest on her arm (can see the hairs on her forearm) but no detail on her face. This happened on a lot of shots before I pulled the micro adjust back by -1. I need to go do another run of test shots of some people (I live alone so it's problematic at the moment) at -1 on the tele end though to be certain. Oh and the other thing is the AF would sometimes not focus or be slow to focus and not let me take the shot. This can happen with low contrast or low light shots but I was seeing it on things where there was plenty of light and enough contrast so it could be confusing the AF system if the lens is slightly out.

OK I give up for now. I have found that my methodology is too unreliable and my tripod too unstable to perform a proper lens adjustment. I have cleared all settings on the camera and will go back to square one.