Bill Pierce
Well-known
As someone who started photography when there was only manual focus and lives in a world where many shooters know only auto focus, it’s interesting to see adherents to one system or the other proclaim it’s the only way to go. That’s silly and getting sillier now that mirrorless cameras focus on the sensor itself, something that DSLR’s do only in LiveView. For most modern mirrorless cameras in most shooting situations autofocus is fine and fast. Add image magnification (and, at times, focus peaking) and manual focus achieves a degree of accuracy that it never had before. For most pictures, the choice is yours.
As an official old person who spent years in manual, let me speak on behalf of manual. For one thing, you can adapt old manual lenses to your modern mirrorless. The lenses aren’t going to cost very much; so, use the money you save to get a good adapter like the Novaflex line. Dave Burnett has always been interested in shooting with old cameras and has done some really good work with 4x5 Graphic/Graflex cameras. But he’s also fascinated with old vintage lenses for his full frame Sony digitals not so much for the sharpness, but for their character. On the other hand, I tend to be a sharpness freak and tend to use the same system to mount Voigtlander Apo-Lanthars and Zeiss Loxias, lenses that make us sharpness freaks drool. What’s the common denominator? Given the focal length and maximum aperture, these lenses are small.
We know that highly magnified, wide-open manual focus in mirrorless cameras is exceptionally accurate. Is there focus shift when you stop down? A little testing will tell you. For many lenses there is no appreciable shift. For other, magnified focusing a stop or two down from wide open will give you good results. But in actuality we are often making a meaningless fuss. Focus peaking when you are stopped down will not show you the point of sharpest focus as much as it will show you the area and range of acceptable focus, which is actually what you want when you are street shooting. This is a good way to get focusing out of the way so you can concentrate on what is happening in front of you. But so is scale focusing that takes into consideration the depth field (or just a good guess if you stop down enough).
I have a tiny bag that often travels with me just so I have a camera. It’s a body and 4 manual focus lenses, 21 to 85, with maximum apertures of f/2 and 2.8. I also have the gear that would allow me to travel with 4 similar focal lengths, excellent lenses with high apertures and auto focus but it wouldn’t be fun. It would be very heavy; actually, it would be impossible.
I don’t think autofocus needs any defense. It’s doing fine on it own. But I’d like to know your thoughts, especially if you think my choices are wrong.
As an official old person who spent years in manual, let me speak on behalf of manual. For one thing, you can adapt old manual lenses to your modern mirrorless. The lenses aren’t going to cost very much; so, use the money you save to get a good adapter like the Novaflex line. Dave Burnett has always been interested in shooting with old cameras and has done some really good work with 4x5 Graphic/Graflex cameras. But he’s also fascinated with old vintage lenses for his full frame Sony digitals not so much for the sharpness, but for their character. On the other hand, I tend to be a sharpness freak and tend to use the same system to mount Voigtlander Apo-Lanthars and Zeiss Loxias, lenses that make us sharpness freaks drool. What’s the common denominator? Given the focal length and maximum aperture, these lenses are small.
We know that highly magnified, wide-open manual focus in mirrorless cameras is exceptionally accurate. Is there focus shift when you stop down? A little testing will tell you. For many lenses there is no appreciable shift. For other, magnified focusing a stop or two down from wide open will give you good results. But in actuality we are often making a meaningless fuss. Focus peaking when you are stopped down will not show you the point of sharpest focus as much as it will show you the area and range of acceptable focus, which is actually what you want when you are street shooting. This is a good way to get focusing out of the way so you can concentrate on what is happening in front of you. But so is scale focusing that takes into consideration the depth field (or just a good guess if you stop down enough).
I have a tiny bag that often travels with me just so I have a camera. It’s a body and 4 manual focus lenses, 21 to 85, with maximum apertures of f/2 and 2.8. I also have the gear that would allow me to travel with 4 similar focal lengths, excellent lenses with high apertures and auto focus but it wouldn’t be fun. It would be very heavy; actually, it would be impossible.
I don’t think autofocus needs any defense. It’s doing fine on it own. But I’d like to know your thoughts, especially if you think my choices are wrong.
