Sports photog goes manual focus
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Roger Hicks
Veteran
Dear Adam,
Yeah, but what does he know? All he did was get some brilliant pictures, for publication, in very difficult conditions. Amateurs know that autofocus is 100% reliable...
Cheers,
R.
Yeah, but what does he know? All he did was get some brilliant pictures, for publication, in very difficult conditions. Amateurs know that autofocus is 100% reliable...
Cheers,
R.
hepcat
Former PH, USN
What? Seriously? You can turn autofocus off? Really? 😀
hellomikmik
Well-known
Climate change adaptation.
Texsport
Well-known
Timmyjoe
Veteran
Great article, thanks for sharing.
jsrockit
Moderator
Yeah, he simply did what he had to do. This is a little much though ...:
"As far as I can compare it to anything, it’s like taking power steering out of your car, or trying to fly the space shuttle without autopilot. But, I tried it anyway. If you don’t dare to fail you’ll never succeed. (I don’t know if someone famous said that before, but if they didn’t I’m claiming it.)"
newsgrunt
Well-known
the power steering analogy is correct but the other ? pure hyperbole
Photographers have had to deal with this before but we never blogged about it cuz it was what it was and really, it's not that big a deal tbh. Same thing happened to me/everyone at the SLC 2002 Olympics at the sliding events. If you can't focus manually, and you're a professional, then I don't know what to say...
Photographers have had to deal with this before but we never blogged about it cuz it was what it was and really, it's not that big a deal tbh. Same thing happened to me/everyone at the SLC 2002 Olympics at the sliding events. If you can't focus manually, and you're a professional, then I don't know what to say...
defconfunk
n00b
That should read "Photographers today..."
I shoot football games with a MF lens all the time. In fact next season will be my first in three years shooting with AF. Granted no one pays me for it, but really it isn't that hard.
I do really like some of his shots. Hyperbole or not, he walked away with some great photos.
jsrockit
Moderator
And I guess that's the bottom line really.
Margu
Established
man, that is why his a "pro"........
iamzip
Ambitious, but rubbish
But, he makes a point further on, that todays lenses aren't really built with manual focus in mind... So maybe it should read, "Lenses today."
swoop
Well-known
I photograph sports with a Leica.
Sejanus.Aelianus
Veteran
I'm trying to work out why this should be important. I photographed sports for the press and got sharp images much of the time. I used manual focus, because that was all I, or anyone else, had. The technique was simple: focus where you expected the action to be and press the trigger when the subjects reached that point. For football and such like, put the camera on a tripod and adjust the focus continuously. After a very short time, you can follow the ball around quite easily.
Things like this become remarkably easy, when next week's food relies on getting two or three images in the paper. 😉
Things like this become remarkably easy, when next week's food relies on getting two or three images in the paper. 😉
css9450
Veteran
defconfunk
n00b
Very true. The dfference in ease of focusing manually between an AF designed lens, especially a focus-by-wire lens, and a MF designed lens is significant. Having a MF aid (such as split prism) helps a lot too, although I did without, I often wanted one. I now have focus peaking, but it cuts the refresh rate of the EVF significantly, so if I use my MF lenses for football again, I'll just go back to my old process (aka what Sejanus described).
Ko.Fe.
Lenses 35/21 Gears 46/20
Same reaction here.
Provided article has some too wide assumptions.
"Lenses aren’t built to be relied on for manual focus anymore either".
Which isn't totally true for different versions of professional AF glass, equipped with full time manual focus with classic DOF scale.
Like my 70_200, it was mentioned in the article too.
He writes about his 400mm prime. May be he has this one:
http://gdlp01.c-wss.com/gds/6/0300005626/03/ef300-400f28lisiiusm-im3-eng.pdf
Which seems to have strange way to operate it in MF.
css9450
Veteran
Maybe all those over on the SLR forum who are complaining that the new Nikon DF isn't really the type of "pure photography" that they'd somehow assumed it would be, should try shooting the DF in these conditions. Look, you can just turn the AF off! Who'da thought!
Fraser
Well-known
Its not really the lenses that make manual focus difficult its the focusing screens which make everything appear in focus, I changed the screen on my 5d for that very reason. Also if you have the camera setup up for back button focusing you can tweak the focus at anytime helpful if you are shooting through glass or a fence etc.
De_Corday
Eternal Student
I shoot sports with a battered old nikkor 300mm f/4 IF ED on my D200. Silly smooth focus on that lens, very easy to handle. Now if only there was a split prism screen that wouldn't screw with the d200 meter...
Folks who are focusing FF dSLRs manually... Is the viewfinder a big improvement over the DX cameras? I use an E screen with no split prism in my F3HP and very rarely want for a split prism...
Folks who are focusing FF dSLRs manually... Is the viewfinder a big improvement over the DX cameras? I use an E screen with no split prism in my F3HP and very rarely want for a split prism...
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