Auto-Focus camera

[falob089]

I’m experiencing an issue with the video feed on Zoom where the camera appears to automatically focus on me, leaving the background slightly out of focus, even though I don’t have the background blur enabled. My FaceTime HD camera works fine in other apps like Photo Booth, so I don’t believe it’s a hardware issue.

I have already tried the following troubleshooting steps:

Verified that "Touch Up My Appearance," "Adjust for Low Light," and "Portrait Lighting" are disabled.
Toggled "HD" and "Original Ratio" in video settings.
Checked the "Advanced" video settings for any relevant features.
Updated my Zoom app to the latest version.
Ensured no third-party apps are interfering with the camera.
Despite these efforts, the issue persists. It seems Zoom may be automatically prioritizing focus on my face or applying some kind of framing or processing feature that I cannot disable.

Could you please advise if there’s a way to stop this auto-focus behaviour or if this might be a software issue?

[bstrelko]

FaceTime HD camera works fine in other apps like Photo Booth, so I don’t believe it’s a hardware issue.

Can you triple check this before moving forward? Most modern cameras are designed to auto-focus at the hardware level, regardless of application. Very unlikely that Apple (no agency or power for its sheep users) would not employ this type of 'smart' technology.

Note that newer versions of MacOS have a specific menu for camera functions (independent of the application's settings) for each application that shows up on the top taskbar of the OS once the camera is launched in-app. Here's the one I'm looking at for Zoom:

And here's the one for PhotoBooth - no changes made on my end:

You may wish to play with those settings as well.

Also, it would be helpful to know some other details:

• How out-of-focus do non-facial elements become? Does it seem like a blur or true AF?
• What are the lighting conditions? Different aperture/exposure settings (as a result of a complex lighting situation) may change how out-of-focus a non-subject appears.
• How far away from your face (physically) are the background elements that appear out of focus?

[prisid]

Hugely helpful! I just got my MacBook pro 2024 version and i just did my first zoom call for a yoga class and it was super auto focussed. Meddled with the video settings in the app and no luck. Your solution and the screenshots helped. So it's the option - centre stage that was making the auto focus. Clicked on it to turn off and it zoomed out. Thank you!

[cyogi]

Same issue! Need steady camera ratio to Zoom my yoga classes, camera autofocus completes disrupts this. It is not the hardware.

[cyogi]

Maureen’s on which device you’re using; in Zoom app on my iPad 10, problem solved by turning off “Centerstage” in upper right corner Zoom app, go to “Gallery”.

[MrE-User]

I figured this out! The "Portrait lighting" was turned on. To get to this setting, click on the arrow beside the video in the meeting taskbar. Go To "Background and effects" and unclick the Portrait lighting box. The camera will revert to everything being in focus. 

I am using a Windows PC and an external USB webcam. The camera worked fine when using the camera app in Windows, so I knew it wasn't a camera setting. When using Zoom, everything was substantially blurred except for one face or one object if no face present, much like a camera set to a shallow depth of field.