Manual Focus?

[Patriot]

Always use manual, autofocus takes a lot out of the photography in my opinion.

+10

This!!! I seem to always use it now that I have only one AF lens and that my 35mm 1.8G lens. The rest are older Nikkors, Takumars, Helios and soon to be Jupiter lens. MF lens have taught me a lot about predicting where a moving subject will be to focus. However I still have a long ways to go. Anyone can push a button and let a computer do it. I even managed to get a few good shots of birds shot. Bird shooters would laugh at me, but hey I'm getting there.....slowly.

-Hunt

 

[ph0enix]

Always use manual, autofocus takes a lot out of the photography in my opinion.

How so? Not trying to argue. I'm just wondering what your reasoning is.

 

[imagemaker46]

I use manual when I need to. I grew up using it and don't want to lose the ability to do it. It adds a challenge to shooting sports and puts more fun back into photography. Letting a camera do all the work gets boring at times.

 

[Radical]

Only when I can't afford a AF S lens.

 

[gregtallica]

As someone who's really just started out putting more into this hobby, I'm AF probably 80%+ of the time. Like stated plenty of times already, it's in the dark and when AF gets silly.



This may sound silly, but I always worry about my eyes blowing it. I feel that a $1,000 machine is going to be sharper than my eyes. I wear contacts, I see pretty clearly. Does anyone else have that problem? That is, without a doubt, my bigest hindering portion to the "technical" aspect as far as I'm concerned.

 

[ABJayce]

I usually use Manual, unless I'm doing any kind of action shots. I just like being able to focus it myself. I've done a few parties/events where I was in autofocus in crowded rooms and my autofocus wanted to focus on everything I didn't want it to lol, so in situations like that I'll manually focus especially if I'm trying to isolate a subject out of the mess of people

 

[David8]

As someone who's really just started out putting more into this hobby, I'm AF probably 80%+ of the time. Like stated plenty of times already, it's in the dark and when AF gets silly.



This may sound silly, but I always worry about my eyes blowing it. I feel that a $1,000 machine is going to be sharper than my eyes. I wear contacts, I see pretty clearly. Does anyone else have that problem? That is, without a doubt, my bigest hindering portion to the "technical" aspect as far as I'm concerned.

I have this problem as well... I'm shortsighted... So I prefer to use auto focus when I can. Only use manual when AF goes wacky, or doesn't do exactly what I want it to do...

 

[Solarflare]

I think manual focus can be fun if your camera supports it.

I use manual focus quite a lot on my compact, a Ricoh GR Digital IV. That camera doesnt only display the distance to the current focus plane, it also offers a depth of field scale.

 

[daggah]

The problem with manual focus is that most modern cameras don't support it that well. The matte viewscreens in today's modern DSLR viewfinders can't show depth of field accurately wider than F/4 or so from what I've read, so if you're shooting at a very wide aperture, you're not seeing what's actually in focus.

I'm going to sell my 55-200 hopefully on Wednesday, and I'm starting to consider selling my 18-105, so if I end up with only fast primes and zooms for my D7000, I will get a KatzEye focusing screen. I have a MF only Voigtlander that's a pain in the rear to focus with using the digital rangefinder...compared to a split prism focusing screen, it's just not up to the task.

 

[daggah]

Oh yeah, and to answer the question, for the most part, I use manual focus for well-planned shots when using my tripod. For example, if I'm using an ND filter for long exposures, I set up, autofocus, and then switch over to manual after putting the filter on. Otherwise, the ND filter is depriving the camera's focusing system of light and rendering it ineffective.

 

[Josh66]

Oh yeah, and to answer the question, for the most part, I use manual focus for well-planned shots when using my tripod. For example, if I'm using an ND filter for long exposures, I set up, autofocus, and then switch over to manual after putting the filter on. Otherwise, the ND filter is depriving the camera's focusing system of light and rendering it ineffective.

Umm ... Aren't you still using auto-focus in that scenario? I mean, I totally understand why you switch it to manual, and why you focus before the filters are on - but I wouldn't exactly call that an example of when you use manual focus.


edit
And I totally agree that most digital cameras are not made for easy manual focus.

 

[daggah]

True, I suppose. That's mainly the only time my camera's in MF mode, how about that? Other than if I'm using my Voigtlander, Holga, or fisheye lens, anyway.

 

[Patriot]

I don't need to auto focus anything to tell if it's in focus. The camera does a well enough job to let me know with the focus indicator. I also have the Katzeye focusing screen which works wonders.

 

[daggah]

Are you using all of those adapted lenses on your D7000? I thought that Nikons didn't work well with adapted lenses.

 

[Patriot]

Are you using all of those adapted lenses on your D7000? I thought that Nikons didn't work well with adapted lenses.

Yes I'm using all of these lens and more that I'm adding to the list now. Maybe I should organize it like yours haha. They work just fine!! The vivitar, Rokinon are the only ones that are F-mounts. The others need an adapter with glass to get to infinity because they are M42 mounts. If you don't need infinity then the quality is greater. So I carry two adapters with and without glass. With the glass the quality goes down just a bit, but it isn't noticeable unless you know what to look for. Also some lens doesn't work wide open as should with the glass in adapter. The Jupiter doesn't work on the Nikon at all unless it's modded. I have a FED 5B for that.


Backhoe by Jarrett_Hunt, on Flickr

This was taken with the Takumar 135mm 2.5 which is my favorite manual prime lens.


Shoot in Warm Bokeh by Jarrett_Hunt, on Flickr

This was taken with the same lens just to show the bokeh.