Starting down the path...

[Bill Pierce]

Autofocus or manual focus? If it’s a popularity contest, autofocus wins. On self-improvement alone, it deserves the win moving from an unreliable teen age braggart to a mature adult, who, like all of us, has a few weaknesses and makes a few mistakes. And it’s in those areas that elderly manual focus comes to the rescue.

What are those areas? I think it varies from photographer to photographer. On the street and certainly in other situations from fashion photography to news to portraits where the moment is fleeting and there is no time whatsoever to focus if you are going to catch that moment… You can call it manual focusing. In truth, it is prefocusing. It’s focus now, get it out of the way and concentrate on the subject. You can do it in a variety of traditional ways, depending on your camera, or, with many current cameras, autofocus on an object at an appropriate distance and just lock the focus. We’ve had conversations that touched on this in the past. But I was just at one of those places that folks gather on a holiday. It seemed like a lot of folks thought the “decisive moment” was when the camera was in focus rather than when something visually interesting occurred. I wasn’t worried about them. I wondered if I was starting to do that.

Thoughts?

 

[farlymac]

I was home for a family reunion two weeks ago, and found that either I was trying to time the AF with the moment, or just held the focus until the moment finally came. A lot of two person conversations were like that.

What I didn't care for was when it took too long, and someone would say "Oh look, Phil is taking a photo, let's pose." But hey, they're family, so it was all good.

PF

 

[Ko.Fe.]

For family pictures I prefer AF. For street and reportage - MF.

I'm using AF in servo, tracking mode. I realised how important it is then it was horse ride at dark evening. I was not able to use MF lens and large aperture. I ditched it soon after it and went for 50L (f1.2 AF) lens. Taking pictures of moving kids and else became possible. Like kid on the trampoline. Good luck with MF and trying to get kid close and in focus. I let go to 50L because at f1.2 here is never enough DOF to have two in focus, but even at f8 jumping around trampoline kids are challenge to focus.

Here is my MF shot 🙂

 

[willie_901]

When "the moment is fleeting" I use focus and recompose with an OVF just as I did when I used film rangefinder cameras. This eliminates any chance to slip into letting the camera decide when to open the shutter.

For the X-Pro 2 and X-100T this means MF mode using back button AF or just rotating the fly-by-wire lens collar and use the ERF (electronic range finder - FUJIFILM's description not mine). I tend to use focus peaking in the ERF window instead of the split-screen mode. The ERF window view is zoomed in so most of the confusion and learning curve to understand focus peaking is moot.

The ERF can also be used in AF-S mode with a single, centered, phase-detection focus region. But I don't like using a half press that much. With the X-Pro 2, the AF-S + Zone option three larger AF regions with up to 77 focus points could be a viable alternative, but I haven't bother to explore this mode.

As an aside, for "fleeting moments" I often take a burst of three exposures. Occasionally one of the second or third images is more interesting. I delete the least interesting two during post-production.

 

[Godfrey]

For me, autofocus is/was/will likely ever be a convenience that is occasionally useful. The only cameras I have now that I tend to use AF with most of the time are my Light L16, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPad Pro, and even there I direct the AF system a good bit of the time with touch focusing and locking functions. I don't own any AF lenses for my CL and of course my Ms don't have any AF capability at all.

You might think, "Ah, just another old curmudgeon with a chip on his shoulder." Not so. If I found a camera with an AF system that would focus consistently and reliably on what I wanted it to focus on, I'd be delighted. The problem is that I haven't found anything like that yet, so I do my own focusing.

My eyes have been trained by over fifty years of doing this stuff to see correct focus, and I pick cameras to shoot with that make it easy for them to do their job. I make mistakes sometimes too. Give me an AF camera that does at least as well and doesn't put more crap in the way of making my exposures and I'll be happy for it.

G

 

[Roger Hicks]

Today I thought of using the 50/1.8 autofocus I was forced to buy with my Nikon Df . I couldn't find it, which is a clue to how often I use it...

Cheers,

R.

 

[Contarama]

Today I thought of using the 50/1.8 autofocus I was forced to buy with my Nikon Df . I couldn't find it, which is a clue to how often I use it...

Cheers,

R.

It is to heavy anyway sir lol 🙂

 

[Roger Hicks]

. . . You might think, "Ah, just another old curmudgeon with a chip on his shoulder." Not so. If I found a camera with an AF system that would focus consistently and reliably on what I wanted it to focus on, I'd be delighted. The problem is that I haven't found anything like that yet, so I do my own focusing.

My eyes have been trained by over fifty years of doing this stuff to see correct focus, and I pick cameras to shoot with that make it easy for them to do their job. I make mistakes sometimes too. Give me an AF camera that does at least as well and doesn't put more crap in the way of making my exposures and I'll be happy for it.

G

Dear Godfrey,

Well, quite, The trouble is you need Autofocus 22.17, with the telepathic control of the focus point. Shame it hasn't been invented yet.

Cheers,

R.

 

[shimokita]

I got started with manual focus equipment (Pentax SP / SP F) so when good auto focus rolled around I was a happy guy. Still using AF, Canon 5DII (back button focus) and Fuji X100T (face recognition) but the main go-to cameras are the Nikon F3P and Leica MP.

Earlier this month I shot eight rolls of 135 format 36 exposure in four days in Ifugao, Philippines using the F3P and an AI'ed Nikkor-H 2.8cm f/3.5, 50mm f/1.2, & AI'ed Nikkor-P 10.5cm f/2.5 ... K focus screen and -2 diopter. What's not to like about manual focus.

Edit: four rolls each of Fujifilm Neopan 100 and Kodak Gold 200

 

[Bill Pierce]

Dear Godfrey,

Well, quite, The trouble is you need Autofocus 22.17, with the telepathic control of the focus point. Shame it hasn't been invented yet.

Cheers,

R.

Roger - Telepathic focus control has been invented. The problem is you can only see the sharp, in-focus image in your mind’s eye.