Autofocus or Manual Focus?

[lawrence]

Do you prefer autofocus or manual focus?

 

[DNG]

Hummmm

I have both a Manual Focus Film, and an AF Digital that I use both AF and MF lenses on...

So, I use both AF, and MF...
On my Digital, I use I guess more AF, than MF.. but, there are times I use MF lenses way more than AF lenses on it...

For Digital = more af than mf most of the time...

 

[CK Dexter Haven]

I would imagine that what one prefers might be different from what one most uses.

I LOVE AF, but my new favorite lens is... old.

 

[Mablo]

I've carefully adjusted my Nikon AF cameras in such a way they work almost like MF cameras. One button for focus, another for exposure. It's quite close and I can live with it but I still prefer my MF Nikons especially with MF lenses.

 

[icebear]

There is no such thing like autofocus on my M's 😀.

 

[johannielscom]

Ricoh GXR-M only manual (LTM lenses on an adapter)
Nikon D600 mostly manual (Tamron Adaptalls from the 1980s)
Nikon D3100 mostly manual (Nikkors from the 1960) and an 18-55AF kit lens
Leica II and Tower 46 only manual 😀
Zeiss-Ikon 532/16 only manual 😀

12 lenses of which 1 AF lens.

 

[Murchu]

I prefer to manually focus, or not focus at all and use zone focussing or let the camera use face detection. When I use autofocus, I tend not to consider my point of focus the way I should, thus my preferences.

 

[Takkun]

Obviously my RFs are manual.

On my AF cameras, I really just use AF--single point, one-shot on Nikon (since I'm too lazy to figure out multipoint most of the time), and on the Fuji, MF is almost unusable.

 

[colyn]

When shooting film I always use manual but I do have a DSLR and a Panasonic G1..but I use manual focus when using my manual lens on it..

 

[Godfrey]

I do whichever achieves the focus I want the least annoying way.

G

 

[Photo_Smith]

I don't own an AF lens, not even for my DSLR Nikons so the choice is easy...

 

[f16sunshine]

The Hexar AF is nice.
I use my Fuji cameras with in Manual focus with the "snap" button to set distance.
In general AF drives me nuts but I can see my aging eyes will eventually come to depend on it more and more. with small format.
The Rolleiflex and 4x5 are a different story. Big focus screens are super!

 

[Prest_400]

I use both MF and AF albeit in different media. MF in my OM on film and AF on the EPL2 for digital.
I prefer MF because it gives me full manual control, and when I shoot with film it's what I want. Gives up speed but doesn't matter in my film shooting mostly.

AF in the m4/3. I like how you could be handholding the camera with a single hand, arms at almost full extension while riding a car and have a quite useable shot.
However, the AF points drive me crazy. Usually the thing focuses opposite of where I want (when it's set to any focus point) and sometimes even with the selected focus point it gets it wrong. But it's faaaast!

 

[daveleo]

I am struggling to believe results so far. Most people here are shooting digital cameras and always mentioming autofocus speed as a killer buy/no-buy criteria. But here we have 70% of the voters are primarliy or exclusively manual focus-ers.

I am skeptical.


EDIT: see #20 below !

 

[healyzh]

I am struggling to believe results so far. Most people here are shooting digital cameras and always mentioming autofocus speed as a killer buy/no-buy criteria. But here we have 70% of the voters are primarliy or exclusively manual focus-ers.

I am skeptical.

This is the Rangefinder Forum. How many rangefinder cameras do you have that have Autofocus? I can't autofocus with my M6 TTL or M9.

I couldn't even take part in the poll, as for me the correct answer is that it depends on what I'm shooting (both the subject and the camera). BTW, almost all of my gear is manual focus.

 

[Robin P]

Mostly when I'm using a manual focus lens I'll cheat by setting it to infinity or some guessed hyperfocal distance, with my old eyes real manual focus is reserved for very rare very close subjects.

 

[yanchep_mike]

I use whatever is available, with autofocus lenses and a camera which can autofocus (some say they can, but really can't) i will use it, otherwise manual it is.
Maybe i'm to simplistic.

 

[Godfrey]

I am struggling to believe results so far. Most people here are shooting digital cameras and always mentioming autofocus speed as a killer buy/no-buy criteria. But here we have 70% of the voters are primarliy or exclusively manual focus-ers.

I am skeptical.

RFF not DPR. Different audience. 🙂

I'm happy to use AF when available and when it does the job. It's not available with all my cameras and lenses, and it often doesn't do the job I want.

Such it is ...
G

 

[lawrence]

Well that's interesting, so far no one just uses autofocus. Yes, it is RFF but I would have expected Hexar AF users and similar to have selected this. Anyway, one reason I'm interested is that I just cannot get on with the autofocus on my Nikon SLRs like the F4, F100 & D700, and end up focussing manually even with lenses like the 60mm AF-S G. Seems I may not be the only one.

 

[daveleo]

Sorry folks, I missed that it was the rangefinder subforum. 😱