Focus settings for video?

[AntonLargiader]

I was using the R3 shooting some theater video last week. I do very little of this so it's a real learning process for me. One of my difficulties was with focusing. I cannot change settings while shooting video, for one, so it wasn't possible to click through different ones to try. I had to adjust and shoot again.

There were many people onstage (Nutcracker rehearsal) and I wanted to follow my daughter. I was at f/8 so I think there shouldn't have been a major DOF issue but the whole stage was not in focus.

At first I had eye/head/person tracking on, but ran into the same issue I run into with some sports, which is that when the subject turns their face away the focus will jump to a nearby subject that still has a face. At that point I disabled tracking and went with fixed AF Areas like 9-point or even larger with a Flexible Zone. But even when the subjects were within the zone, sometimes I had focus racking for no reason that I could determine and it seemed that pressing AF-on didn't change anything,. Maybe they were not actually in the zone; I don't know if I can determine this after the fact as DPP does not seem to open the files directly.

Any general suggestions on this sort of activity?

 

[BlueBomberTurbo]

On my R6 III, I turn off tracking completely. It gets too distracted by other faces and "faces" at times. I just create a custom AF box size for my needs. Usually a rectangle the size of the center of the rule of 3rds grid works well enough, sometimes moved up a bit from center, but sometimes a taller thin box is better if I know the subject won't get crossed over.

I also have M-Fn set to Pause Movie Servo AF for times when I know there won't be significant movement, so the camera doesn't trail off or get distracted. Puts up a nice large text notification so you know when it's on and when it's not.