Manual

[Bill Pierce]

When autofocus is linked to the shutter release, it annoys me. Convenient and beneficial as non continuous autofocus is to quickly making a single shot, trying to keep the focus locked by keeping shutter button half depressed over a longer shooting session with changing framing is not simply inconvenient, it’s near impossible. I guess that’s why it is called single-shot focusing. Naturally, I have gravitated to moving the focus function from the shutter release to a separate button, i.e. “back button focusing.” I think that’s the way many folks choose to focus these days. Just look up “back button focusing” on the web. It looks like it is a more popular topic than even “raw vs jpg.”

But I find that now there are occasions where I am going even further from the out of the box single-shot focusing. Increasingly, I am using manual focus. There are a number of often mentioned advantages to manual focus. Autofocus systems to varying degrees can be disadvantaged by low light or low contrast subjects. Probably even more important, mirrorless systems in which you are looking at the actual sensor image can with a highly magnified image give you exceptional wide-open focusing accuracy (and in situations where there is focus shift on stopping down also do a pretty good job if the camera’s autofocus doesn’t). For a lot of folks, the ability to adapt older lenses which only manual focus means a lot. None of these are the major reason I have started to use manual focus more often.

If you are dealing with a full frame digital camera, between lens designs that deal with the problems of thick sensor packages and autofocus motors, you’ve got some pretty big lenses. If you are one of those folks that likes to almost always have a camera with you and perhaps an additional lens, even if you are using mirrorless, if you are in full frame, you’ve got an inconveniently large package. Modern manual focus lenses designed for digital cameras can deliver extremely high quality in a small package. For example, Voigtlander offers a number of manual focus lenses for Sony full frame. The 50mm f/2 App-Lanthar is an exceptionally good lens and tiny compared to what you normally see in a slightly faster autofocus. Available in a Leica M mount, it can be adapted to a number of cameras. Word is that they will be introducing a 35/2 App-Lanthar in a month or so. Equally impressive in quality is the Zeiss Loxia line up of small manual focus lenses often thought of as cine lenses, but absolutely solid in the full frame still world. Focal lengths run from 21mm to 85mm. The 85 is only an f/2.4, intentionally “slow” to keep the size down, but that’s what we are looking for. It also makes it easier for Zeiss to design a lens whose wide open performance doesn’t vary much at all from the smaller apertures.

So, there are a lot of reasons for using manual focus in an autofocus world. Size is mine, but there are certainly a lot of others. I wonder what your thoughts are and if anybody else out there is becoming a little bit old fashioned.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

I look at the Nikkor 50/1.2 for the Z-Mount and wonder "What are they thinking!" Look at the AF-S Nikkor 58 F1/.4 with its 72mm filter thread- and think they have gone crazy. Makes it easy to walk away from these new cameras and lenses.

I prefer manual focus: for the control, the size, and performance.

 

[Pál_K]

On my D700 there are 51 AF points - I’ve selected to use just the center one; just like my F4. I don’t understand many of the AF digital cameras where you half-press the release and an irregular pattern of a dozen or more illuminated AF points clutters your view. Just what, exactly, is being focused on?

So, if I’m going to use AF, it’s a single AF point and I’ll recompose.

One advantage of the full-field all-microprism H2 screen I got for my F3/T is that it’s very easy to see the plane of focus anywhere in the image.

That’s an advantage which manual focus lenses have with medium and large format as well: as you adjust the focus and aperture, you can see the plane and depth of the area in focus shift backwards or forwards until you’ve got exactly what you want.

Well, that works for static subjects. Naturally, that may not work for those who photograph active subjects, sports, street photography, etc.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Canon 5D MKII back button AF is not functioning. They knew, but it was ignored by Canon.
These days with RP I like tap on the screen for AF. It is 4779 AF points 🙂
And manual focus is so much better with RP. I’m glad I could use my RF lenses, except uwa 21, but I have some cute 21 and 19 slr lenses.

 

[Dogman]

My eyesight is poor. I use AF 99% of the time for this reason. I do own several manual focus lenses in Nikon mount and I do occasionally use them but it's not fun. The only mirrorless cameras I like and use frequently are the Fuji X-Pros and X-100 series and that's for the OVFs. EVFs do not mix well with my eyes and I really find them annoying and difficult to see very well in bright light or they become overly bright in dim light. PITA, IMO. I would rather just use the back screen and hold the camera like a dead rat at arm's length. If reflected light doesn't interfere.

Touch screens for focusing? Ah...no. Just no. I already press buttons on the back of some of my cameras with my nose and I'm always messing up things in my iPad/iPhone and Kindle because of touch screens. So, no to touchy-feely screens for me.

When I first began using AF cameras, it drove me crazy when they refocused every time I touched the damn shutter release. Then I learned about back button focus and it's been my preferred method ever since. I don't use it on the Fujis because it's not real back button focusing. A real AF ON button would be preferred but I can live with the way the Fuji operate by locking focus when necessary.

 

[shimokita]

Canon 5D MKII back button AF is not functioning. They knew, but it was ignored by Canon.

Can you provide a source for this. I did a search and could not find any information. I use back button focus on my 5D MII with single-central focus point and have not experienced any issues.

Note: I also use a chipped Canon to Nikon adapter (Nikon Ai-S 50mm f/1.2 on Canon 5D MII) with manual focus and back button focus. The in-focus indication works and focus is not a issue.

Thanks, Casey

 

[Darthfeeble]

"Hold the camera like a dead rat"!!! I think you have finally named that posture, at least for me.

 

[Pál_K]

"Hold the camera like a dead rat"!!! I think you have finally named that posture, at least for me.

Seconded!!!

 

[tbhv55]

On my D700 there are 51 AF points - I’ve selected to use just the center one; just like my F4. I don’t understand many of the AF digital cameras where you half-press the release and an irregular pattern of a dozen or more illuminated AF points clutters your view. Just what, exactly, is being focused on?

I agree @Pál_K. I have never really understood what advantage (perceived, or actual) is considered to be conferred by having multiple focus points.

I use single-point focus with BBF (when not using manual focus), and have done so for about a decade. These days, if I use an AF camera which isn't set up for BBF, it seems rather compromised, and clumsy.

 

[Andrea Taurisano]

So, there are a lot of reasons for using manual focus in an autofocus world. Size is mine, but there are certainly a lot of others. I wonder what your thoughts are and if anybody else out there is becoming a little bit old fashioned.

One of my reasons for going fully manual is my preference for simplicity, be that in photo gear or anything else. I just find most modern cameras (and stuff, generally) overly and unnecessarily complicated. Way too many features and choices. They've made most of us believe that more megapixels, more frames per second, more AF modes is what we need to take "better" photos, while the only thing we really need for that is a more interesting and meaningful life.

A quicker AF may improve my "hit rate" and a more advanced lightmeter may give me fewer over/underexposed shots. But I try to see a teaching in missing some shots because I didn't focus quick enough, I didn't carry the right optics or I underestimated light. The number of shots I miss because of technicalities will always be tiny compared to the shots I miss simply because I didn't "see" them.

 

[zuiko85]

What! No one has mentioned money?!!?
That has been a main driver for me, plus all the other size and weight considerations already mentioned.
Already have plenty of lenses including several half frame Pen F Zuiko’s that do very well on my EM10, ancient as it is in digital years.

 

[Dogman]

I was watching a video series of Helmut Newton at work, shot by his wife June. In one segment he holds up his camera--a Canon EOS 5 (A2E) I think--and says, "It's all set to automatic. Let the camera work." He then taps his head and smiles and I think he said, "I'll do the thinking."

I'm really beginning to like that guy.

 

[peterm1]

As I do a lot of street work I find that manual focusing is useful. Of course it suffers from obvious disadvantages but the thing I have never been able to fully trust with most auto focus cameras are the decisions they make about what the main subject is - very often in street photography there are many distractions that cause the camera to make the wrong choice - so I end up with the wrong person in focus or a tree or a litter bin. In other words, too often I have found that if I turn on the multi focal point feature the camera decides to focus on the wrong subject. (Though I admit this is getting better with later cameras and single point AF with focus tracking is not a bad compromise).

Of course I can just decide to use a single AF focus point - say the centre one, focus and manually recompose but this is never wholly satisfactory either as I find it hard to compose accurately on the fly like this.

The end result is that more often than not I just manually focus. I confess that because I tend to use longer lenses fairly wide open, if not fully open, this makes it hard to hit the mark but the big thing that really helps with (some) later cameras is accurate focus peaking. At least when I hit focus I know exactly that I focused on what I intended. And I get the warm and fuzzy feeling of joy that comes from me exercising a skill.

 

[Tom R]

Focus (along with selection, framing, exposure, ....) is a question of intent. I cannot imagine any device "knowing," "guessing," or "learning" my intent. I have used cameras that auto-focus in those situations where I was asked to use someone else's camera (usually a phone) to take a photograph in which they were to appear. Needless to say, I never bothered to examine those photographs so I couldn't say how well the "auto-focus" feature "worked."

 

[olakiril]

AF has become so good that I mostly don't think about it any more. My camera seems to find the proper thing to focus at without me even needing to half press the shutter.
Long gone are the days of half pressing to focus + reframing.

And when I want to enjoy photography, a manual lens is a must.

 

[agentlossing]

I have mostly had camera systems which were either manual focus or were designed from the ground up for AF, and I dislike the manual focus options for the latter. AF lenses often are focus-by-wire, meaning a complete lack of feedback or hard stops when twiddling the focus ring. You can always magnify live view to make sure you get things in focus, but the combination of looking at a shaky magnified square on an LCD plus moving an endlessly spinning "dead" ring drives me nuts. Even with lenses with actual hard stops at the ends of the focus range, generally there is only a tiny fraction of movement between somewhere around 3-5 meters and infinity, making it hard to tell if it's really in focus, and easy to just nudge the ring a tiny bit and end up past where you wanted. Even on my Pentax, which has a marvelous little focus indicator in the viewfinder even when using a manual lens, that tiny amount of movement through the "distant" end of the focus throw makes it difficult to be confident about.

I much prefer manually focusing on systems which were built for that, with good focus throws, accurate distance scales and large focus aids like RF patches or split prisms. I know you can get MF focusing screens for some DSLRs, which does sound interesting to me. But on a digital AF camera, it's AF on the shutter or else back button focus for me. Or snap focus on the brilliant little GR III. I do like the standard implementation of back button AF which disables shutter AF when it's locked. That's quite handy.

 

[jsrockit]

My eyesight is poor. I use AF 99% of the time for this reason.

Me too... though a bright RF patch still works well for me. I also bought a 4x5" camera recently, but I can take my time there! 😉

 

[jsrockit]

Focus (along with selection, framing, exposure, ....) is a question of intent. I cannot imagine any device "knowing," "guessing," or "learning" my intent.

Somehow I can do this with AF... the camera never guesses for me.

 

[Bill Clark]

Manual is great for making photographs and when driving a car.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Can you provide a source for this. I did a search and could not find any information. I use back button focus on my 5D MII with single-central focus point and have not experienced any issues.

Note: I also use a chipped Canon to Nikon adapter (Nikon Ai-S 50mm f/1.2 on Canon 5D MII) with manual focus and back button focus. The in-focus indication works and focus is not a issue.

Thanks, Casey

I'm on second 5D MK II which acts like this with all AF points enabled. It just stops focusing at some point. My 5D and 500D just works with same lenses.