Idiot???

[Greg M.]

" I just wasn’t carrying the 100 plus page manual with me."
1989-ish... Newsweek sends my friend Ira Wyman a couple of Nikon 8008 cameras, and a couple of SB-24 flashes. IW has a job, for Newsweek, that day, so... on Newsweek's dime... he hands the flash manual to his regular assistant, the (now) late Al Johnson... and calls me up, to carry the camera manual. There we are, chasing Wyman around a small elementary school, in single file (and jostling with everyone else who has a couple of cameras), while he's trying to get a Meaningful Photo of a local college president who's running for Governor, and shouting instructions at him, on how to set the camera and flash... thankfully, IW figured the camera out, eventually...

Greg.

 

[Godfrey]

I have yet to use a camera that requires I always go into the "menus" to change from AF to MF, or vice versa. Of course, that doesn't mean that the AF/MF switch, or AF-Lock, is always easy to find.

There's nothing wrong with letting an AF camera focus each time, if the delay isn't a problem, if its focusing speed is fast enough, and if the AF system is targeting what you want to be the focus plane correctly. That's a lot of "ifs", but the real problem is the assumption that you have to because you believe that the AF system will always do a better job than you can by yourself. What I see is that too many people today are simply dependent upon the camera's automation to do the job and don't engage their brain and see that in some cases they can get better results without it.

G

 

[willie_901]

I use my Fujifilm X cameras the same way I used every other camera. I mostly focus and recompose. I call the AFL method Jamie mentioned using the AF manually. I focus this way all the time. I did the same thing with my Zeiss Ikon ZM and manual focus SLRs.

Obviously focus and recompose is not a universal solution. Optical RF focusing is not a universal solution. Letting a 24 X 36 mm sensor DSLR with an advanced phase-detection system is not a universal solution either.

 

[john_s]

When I use an AF SLR (film or digital) I set it up so that auto focus is not on the shutter release but on the AF_ON button on the back. It's so liberating to focus once and then get on with it.

 

[Oscuro]

Uhrm... I've never known you to be an idiot. You're not one now, and the subtext is, I believe, your disbelief that your younger photographers would accept that the "camera does that" as the end point in problem solving.

So are they just not reading the manual? Or are they buying and using cameras that don't provide that rather straight forward functionality?

If I've misunderstood your post/question, apologies.

 

[thegman]

I think sometimes it's just easier to do what the camera wants, like a lot of complicated technology, we can try to make it work as we want, or we can just learn to use it as it's makers intended.

I normally tend toward the former, but maybe as I get older I tend toward the latter, just for an easy life.

 

[Duane Pandorf]

Like us pilots say about today's cockpit automation: "What's it doing now?" or "It's doing that again!"

Then again all you need is one pilot and a dog in the cockpit. The pilot's job is to feed the dog. The dog's job is to bite the pilot if he touches anything.

Kind of reminds me how complicated today's digital cameras have become.

 

[burancap]

Duane, you're not instilling much confidence in those who don't particularly enjoy those human Thermos contraptions!

Focus lock and all of that ... I never really think much about it. I do, however, use it almost exclusively on the Contax G2. It just feels natural on that body -though more of a "prefocus" than a focus lock.

 

[nongfuspring]

Many of the latest cameras having reliable near instantaneous AF, movable focus points, 3D tracking, eye detect, etc., I can understand why many people would just choose their settings then point and click. Since I mostly use film cameras and fujis (that have quite slow AF) I opt for AF-L, but having tried out cameras like the EM5 MKII and the D750 I would have no qualms about refocussing on every shot the vast majority of the time.

Moving from one manufacturer's menu structure to another can be an irritating learning curve with often totally irrational barriers, but modern AF systems offer some genuinely useful advantages in many situations that I think are worth the extra effort to figure out. I don't think it's stupid to not know how to use these cameras, but I think it goes without saying that the better one knows the tools at hand the better equipped one is able to make the most of them.

 

[JP Owens]

I always use back button focus to separate the focus from the shutter button. Won't buy a camera that doesn't allow that.

 

[Paul Jenkin]

Just because the technology to have a camera re-focus for every shot exists, doesn't make it essential to enforce its use so, no, you're not an idiot.

However, the advent of auto-focus lenses and, subsequently, digital cameras seems to have led to an increase in the speed of technical innovations. Most are useful but we need to be able to switch them off if they get in the way.

We're the consumer and camera companies should sell us what we want and not try to persuade us that we should want what they have to offer.

 

[jsrockit]

I would say use whatever works for your style of photography. The only way you could be an "idiot" is if you use a method that doesn't work for your photography and ignore other methods that may work better.

 

[oftheherd]

When SLRs first began to get auto-focus, the word was on how slow it was. It was obvious manual was going to be faster for me. Later, I got a couple of auto-focus P&S digitals. The auto-focus was slow. Unfortunately there was no ability to switch it off. From reading, I understand focusing is faster now, just some AF systems may not think the point you want in focus agrees with the camera's 'thoughts.'

I remain happy with my film non-auto-focus cameras, and use the P&S for those things it was designed to do. I can still focus quickly and accurately.

As was said, you aren't an idiot, you just got hold of an idiot camera.

It would be interesting to find out what you think of it now if you read the manual and found out how to use the auto-focus to any advantage.

 

[willie_901]

Operating many digital cameras can be a minimalistic experience. You don't need a Leica or RD-1 to keep it simple.

I completely reject the notion contemporary cameras require complexity and reliance on automation. Even a DSLR can be set up as though AF and all the other highly automated technologies did not exist.

I do concede it does require some effort to figure out how to use these cameras in a minimalistic way. And, in the case of Fujifilm continuing re-education is likely due to firmware updates that add new features. At the same time, sometimes those changes improve minimalistic usage.

Occasionally the complex features are useful. I recently photographed my grandson (a ranked USTA youth competitor) during a pracice session. I had to study my X-T1 manual, read some blogs/posts and practice a bit so get the most out of a feature I never use... high-speed, auto-tracking phase-detection AF. I did not enjoy figuring out the AF system, but my grandson and others enjoyed the results.

 

[Addy101]

I love Fuji's approach to this issue. Set the camera for manual focus, then if wanted, just push the AF-L button and it resets the focus point. Perfect... best of both worlds.

My Sony A900 (and KonicaMinolta Dynax 7D and Minolta 7 before that) does the same. But I'm in the lets AF if we can camp - I keep it on AF and disengage AF if it can't lock 😀

 

[Spanik]

I'm in the manual idiot club then.

But I do not take 15 photo's of the same thing before going to the next as I only have 16 frames on a roll.

 

[traveler_101]

The other day I was working with a new camera. Not that familiar with the controls, I found myself autofocusing with every frame, not because I couldn’t find the button or lever that let me switch between autofocus and manual, but because I couldn’t find the focus-lock button. Of course, there was a way to lock focus. I just wasn’t carrying the 100 plus page manual with me.
. . .

Am I an idiot?

We're all idiots (orig. meaning - ignorant), if born before 1970 or so. I have separated focus from exposure and assigned it to another button that I hit with my thumb. Not necessary to refocus unless I wish to, but I mostly do so. It is very quick. Olympus E-P5, Pen camera.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Operating any camera without RTFM is an act of the idiot.
I'm the one currently with Konica Off-Road received today, but manual only in Japanese available 🙂

Trying to use modern camera with AF by same way as old manual focus camera is foolish for many, if not most situations.

RTFM, if you step out with new camera out for taking pictures, without RTFM, consider to be entitled to OP's thread title.

 

[Graham Line]

Fellow idiots: I've gone from having focus, aperture, shutter speed and framing controls to having uncountable numbers of variables. Although I now get a higher percentage of correctly exposed and correctly focused images, the manufacturers haven't done a thing about framing. Why not?

 

[f16sunshine]

Fellow idiots: I've gone from having focus, aperture, shutter speed and framing controls to having uncountable numbers of variables. Although I now get a higher percentage of correctly exposed and correctly focused images, the manufacturers haven't done a thing about framing. Why not?

Should there be auto framing???
Maybe you should re-frame the question 😛