I've enabled the playback option to display focus points when viewing photos on my D7000. When shooting in AF-A with focus point Auto, it often displays multiple active focus points for each image.
My question is, what does it really mean for a focus point to be indicated as active? That the camera thought that point was in focus? Or that it was trying to use that point to focus, but maybe didn't achieve it?
The question was prompted by a candid portrait of my son shot with a 35/1.8 wide open. The indicated focus points are mostly on his face, but one is on his ear, and one is completely off his face on the out of focus background. The actual sharpest focus ended up being on his ear, with the front of his face significantly out of focus despite most of the "active" focus points being in that area.