I think he is assuming that you need to refocus every single time, which...with many modern digital camera is just not the case.
What auto focus???
- Thread starter Bill Pierce
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I think he is assuming that you need to refocus every single time, which...with many modern digital camera is just not the case.
Cascadilla
Well-known
All of my DSLRs have had autofocus, but I've rarely used it since it doesn't work all that well with the kind of work that I do. It isn't a moral issue for me, just a functional one like auto exposure which also doesn't work for me since my professional work is mostly done with studio strobes.
The history of photography is one of continuing technological change that results in better results for most people with less effort and skill. This is usually accompanied by laments that people don't have to know much to make photographs, and the consequent decline in the quality of the resulting images. Because the process becomes easier there are undoubtedly more bad photographs being made, but there are probably more good ones aa well. Not all daguerreotypes were wonderful, after all.
The history of photography is one of continuing technological change that results in better results for most people with less effort and skill. This is usually accompanied by laments that people don't have to know much to make photographs, and the consequent decline in the quality of the resulting images. Because the process becomes easier there are undoubtedly more bad photographs being made, but there are probably more good ones aa well. Not all daguerreotypes were wonderful, after all.
Bill Clark
Veteran
Bill, I’m going to make a stab and guess you know sbout this stuff, especially hyperfocal distance.
For me, especially when with clients, auto focus was only good in very few certain situations.
It was a problem such as doing group photos at a wedding and the auto focus would zero in on objects behind folks. Or searching during a dimly lit environment. It was even a problem in my studio when making photographs of people as I demanded the eyes be tack sharp. So I turned it off!
With my old cameras, they feel like home to me. All manual, no electronics. It causes me to spend my time and energy on what I want to photograph. I don’t think about settings I just do it just like when I talk I don’t think about how to say each word.
Matter of fact, I usually didn’t use auto focus. Still don’t. Unless I’m forced to when making photos with my iPhone or iPad.
Have you tried using hyperfocal distance?
Here is a little ditty that makes it easy to understand:
https://photographylife.com/landsca...e-explained#using-a-hyperfocal-distance-chart
For me, especially when with clients, auto focus was only good in very few certain situations.
It was a problem such as doing group photos at a wedding and the auto focus would zero in on objects behind folks. Or searching during a dimly lit environment. It was even a problem in my studio when making photographs of people as I demanded the eyes be tack sharp. So I turned it off!
With my old cameras, they feel like home to me. All manual, no electronics. It causes me to spend my time and energy on what I want to photograph. I don’t think about settings I just do it just like when I talk I don’t think about how to say each word.
Matter of fact, I usually didn’t use auto focus. Still don’t. Unless I’m forced to when making photos with my iPhone or iPad.
Have you tried using hyperfocal distance?
Here is a little ditty that makes it easy to understand:
https://photographylife.com/landsca...e-explained#using-a-hyperfocal-distance-chart
css9450
Veteran
Prefocusing at infinity (or close to it) to shoot birds in flight is really just hoping to catch a lucky break with a sharp photo. Focus at infinity, and you run the risk of a perfectly-focused background (such as distant mountains) but an out-of-focus bird which in reality isn't at infinity; it's perhaps a hundred or a few hundred feet from the camera. With long lenses, that makes a difference.
Prefocusing at some estimated distance just shy of infinity leads to the second example that I posted above. If DOF is shallow enough that the bird's wing tips could be in focus but the head isn't... well, it could be equally likely neither of them could be in focus because the bird is a few feet closer or further away than what was pre-focused.
Bill Clark
Veteran
You don’t need to prefocus at infinity if you use hyperfocal distance.
It’s very easy when using primes, many which mark the hyperfocal distance on the lens. Take a look at the article.
And with digital it’s even easier because you can move the iso around which allows a change in aperture to achieve the hyperfocal distance you want to get sharp photos.
It’s easy.
Smiles.
Michael Markey
Veteran
Bill Clark
Veteran
Here is a good video explaining depth of field and hyperfocal distance.
https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/...-of-field-explained-for-landscape-photography
https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/...-of-field-explained-for-landscape-photography
Evergreen States
Francine Pierre Saget (they/them)
I prefer manual focus generally, while my favorite implementation of autofocus is selecting a single AF point with a joystick and back button focusing. My only digital camera is a Fuji X-Pro1, which doesn’t have a joystick to select the focus point. Selecting the autofocus point involves too many steps so I leave the AF point in the center. Newer Fuji cameras have both full frame phase detect AF point coverage and a joystick to select the point (or zone if you like).
Focusing an X-Pro1 for me goes as follows:
Set the AF mode switch to manual
Frame the shot
Press the rear scroll wheel to magnify the focus point
Manually focus
(alternately, autofocus with the back button and manually fine-tune)
Half-press the shutter button and hold
Recompose with the field-corrected frame lines
Fire
In some situations, with 23mm and 35mm lenses I scale focus using the distance scale in the viewfinder, framing with the optical viewfinder.
However, the autofocus and framing with the 60mm lens is much trickier with the older body, so I have the AF mode as auto and frame with the EVF, which allows the AF point box to be made small. If the camera misfocuses, it’s faster just keep trying until it locks where I want it.
Some of Fujifilm’s wide angle lenses for the X series have a clutch mechanism for rapidly switching between autofocus and manual scale focusing. On my 14mm copy, the scale is not accurate and, stupidly, the distance scale is not visible in the viewfinder when manually focusing like it is on my other lenses. I usually zoom in on the image with the scroll wheel and manually or autofocus, but having to engage and disengage the clutch messes with my muscle memory. The 2.8/14 is my least-used lens.
Focusing an X-Pro1 for me goes as follows:
Set the AF mode switch to manual
Frame the shot
Press the rear scroll wheel to magnify the focus point
Manually focus
(alternately, autofocus with the back button and manually fine-tune)
Half-press the shutter button and hold
Recompose with the field-corrected frame lines
Fire
In some situations, with 23mm and 35mm lenses I scale focus using the distance scale in the viewfinder, framing with the optical viewfinder.
However, the autofocus and framing with the 60mm lens is much trickier with the older body, so I have the AF mode as auto and frame with the EVF, which allows the AF point box to be made small. If the camera misfocuses, it’s faster just keep trying until it locks where I want it.
Some of Fujifilm’s wide angle lenses for the X series have a clutch mechanism for rapidly switching between autofocus and manual scale focusing. On my 14mm copy, the scale is not accurate and, stupidly, the distance scale is not visible in the viewfinder when manually focusing like it is on my other lenses. I usually zoom in on the image with the scroll wheel and manually or autofocus, but having to engage and disengage the clutch messes with my muscle memory. The 2.8/14 is my least-used lens.
Ambro51
Collector/Photographer
When Ernst Leitz visited New York Oskar Barnack gave him the UR Leica to use. His advice, “don’t bother to focus, let depth of field take care of it”. Still absolutely good information.
willie_901
Veteran
Me too! (X-Pro 2 and X-100T).
This is how I used my 1968 Mamiya-Sekor SLR, Nikon F3, Cannonet QL-17 and Zeiss Ikon ZM.
In some situations - still life with shallow DOF - it's very effective to move the focus region around in the finder. Occasionally I will use the auto-eye detect feature. But for most of my work focus and recompose gets the job done.
LCSmith
Well-known
As I said I'm a manual man, but AF when I need it. It would have been impossible for me to make this image with my manual cameras:
Pentax K1 by John Carter, on Flickr
Nice shot. Having photographed in public skate parks (e.g. Venice Beach) I would humbly disagree that this shot is more difficult when manually focused. On the contrary, nothing could be easier. Set the focus on the edge where the athlete is about to be. Wait for it. Grab the moment. Using this kind of technique (preset focus) I am much more successful in getting the picture I want. I have used the latest Sony cameras, and their AF is amazing especially in burst mode -- but more often than not, when I used those cameras, I ended up with 6 non-keepers of the same scene, as opposed to one keeper which was snatched at the right moment. That's just how I work.
Here's a shot from Venice Beach with my M4 and 50mm Summicron. I focused on the bar and waited for him to come to me. Aperture was F/11 or something so DOF was no big deal.
Filter Factor
Established
That'll work for the skateboarder photo posted above (35mm lens at f7.1) but not for the bird-in-flight example also posted above, shot with a 150-600mm zoom. The latter example is where AF really shines.
peterm1
Veteran
This thread prompted me to try something different with my Leica Q - thank you Bill!
Today I was in my city's CBD and decided that instead of just trying single focus point or multi focus point AF options I would instead try focus tracking to see how well it worked in a crowded city street with people walking in every which direction. Interestingly I found that the Leica Q's implementation of focus tracking is much better than those I have tried with other cameras.
Most especially my Nikon DSLR. With the Nikon, for example, when focus tracking is activated in some modes at least, I had no way of knowing which focus point would activate and lock on - that was a mystery reserved for the camera until I actually half pressed the shutter and some focus point lit up. If it happened to select a subject that I did not wish to focus on, I had to try again and if necessary keep trying till the camera randomly selected the subject I actually wanted. By then the photo opp. was long gone. There always seemed to me to be little point in having a smart technology to track subjects if it selected subjects that were irrelevant to me. And more especially if I had no way of telling it otherwise. This seems to also be the complaint of other shooters about this type of technology when implemented this way. As here: "The camera is purported to distinguish human subjects from the background. I have no reason to disbelieve the camera manual on this, but I am perhaps too much of a control freak … I like to see and control which AF point the camera is using. In AF-C mode and Auto Area AF, the camera doesn’t show which AF points are used. (It does so for AF-S mode though.)" (https://neilvn.com/tangents/nikon-focusing-modes-d300-d700-d3-d3s-d3x/ )
With the Q though, the camera presented me with one focus point which was visible from the get go and which I could therefore position over the subject I wanted to focus on and when I then half pressed the shutter it would lock on and start tracking that subject. This works whether the subject is moving relative to me, or I am moving relative to the subject, or whether I am simply reframing and recomposing the shot - hence I do not need to worry about losing accurate focus when I reframe. Which also should mean that this mode is potentially of value for more static subjects. Something I had not considered before.
In principle this is MUCH better way of working (than the Nikon model). Not so much because the focus tracking is necessarily technically better than say with the D700 (I will know more about that with more testing- e.g. will the camera continue to track accurately if the subject is momentarily blocked by an intervening person or object). But instead it is better because its design is better - the Q pays more attention to the actual needs of real photographers and its focus tracking is based on how they work.
So I can now comfortably say I will be trying focus tracking on my Q more often.
Today I was in my city's CBD and decided that instead of just trying single focus point or multi focus point AF options I would instead try focus tracking to see how well it worked in a crowded city street with people walking in every which direction. Interestingly I found that the Leica Q's implementation of focus tracking is much better than those I have tried with other cameras.
Most especially my Nikon DSLR. With the Nikon, for example, when focus tracking is activated in some modes at least, I had no way of knowing which focus point would activate and lock on - that was a mystery reserved for the camera until I actually half pressed the shutter and some focus point lit up. If it happened to select a subject that I did not wish to focus on, I had to try again and if necessary keep trying till the camera randomly selected the subject I actually wanted. By then the photo opp. was long gone. There always seemed to me to be little point in having a smart technology to track subjects if it selected subjects that were irrelevant to me. And more especially if I had no way of telling it otherwise. This seems to also be the complaint of other shooters about this type of technology when implemented this way. As here: "The camera is purported to distinguish human subjects from the background. I have no reason to disbelieve the camera manual on this, but I am perhaps too much of a control freak … I like to see and control which AF point the camera is using. In AF-C mode and Auto Area AF, the camera doesn’t show which AF points are used. (It does so for AF-S mode though.)" (https://neilvn.com/tangents/nikon-focusing-modes-d300-d700-d3-d3s-d3x/ )
With the Q though, the camera presented me with one focus point which was visible from the get go and which I could therefore position over the subject I wanted to focus on and when I then half pressed the shutter it would lock on and start tracking that subject. This works whether the subject is moving relative to me, or I am moving relative to the subject, or whether I am simply reframing and recomposing the shot - hence I do not need to worry about losing accurate focus when I reframe. Which also should mean that this mode is potentially of value for more static subjects. Something I had not considered before.
In principle this is MUCH better way of working (than the Nikon model). Not so much because the focus tracking is necessarily technically better than say with the D700 (I will know more about that with more testing- e.g. will the camera continue to track accurately if the subject is momentarily blocked by an intervening person or object). But instead it is better because its design is better - the Q pays more attention to the actual needs of real photographers and its focus tracking is based on how they work.
So I can now comfortably say I will be trying focus tracking on my Q more often.
Scrambler
Well-known
The reported Sony element is a feature. It's switchable - on/off/colour - in the menu. I have my screen set to be monochrome and the focus indicator is red.
When you zoom the screen in, the focus indicator is sharper too. Vertical lines are its friend so sometimes you need to rotate the body for focus and then rotate back to shoot.
Interesting comment, Peter, and I too will give this a try with my Q!
RichC
Well-known
That's not what I mean - with the focus indicator off in my Sony A7R I get a slight shimmer on edges. It's almost like some kind of interference. Definitely a technology failure - but a useful one. This describes it well: https://phillipreeve.net/blog/manual-lenses-sony-a7/#The_8220flicker_method8221
I find the "official" focusing overlays really distracting, so never use them.
Pherdinand
the snow must go on
thats also what i was thinking first time i started reading Bill's post.
Rangefinders do exactly that: they focus (make you focus) in the middle of the frame, then you have to recompose🙂
The only'advantage" of RF (or a manuasl SLR with focusing aid in the middle) is it doesn't automatically refocus for the next shot. So there he has a valid point.
but it can be "fixed" in the AF settings.
Anyway, i do like mf and af both, sometimes AF is a PITA to get under control (e.g. for macro or in dark) sometimes it's a breeze...
My konica hexar af does it great.
I consciously use AF camera or rangefinder/tlr camera and rarely have the need to switch an AF camera to manual because of this. Except for macro.
Like for underwater i dont even consider trying to use the manual focus of my soapbox olympus.
But on the same camera outside of the water i can go to 1cm distance from the subject and use it for macro - manual focus helps there
peterm1
Veteran
In some modes (and maybe some cameras) you don't control it. With multi AF point mode the camera decides what to focus on based on an algorithm that is supposed to select the most likely subject. I have posted about this in a separate post below. In single AF point mode (which is what you seem to be discussing above) this does not happen of course.
Of course...
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