To auto focus or not?

[billy_the_kid43]

I am curious if the majority prefer to use auto focus or manual focusing and why? Do you tend to get better (sharper) pics with the auto focus or manual?

 

[reznap]

I am curious if the majority prefer to use auto focus or manual focusing and why? Do you tend to get better (sharper) pics with the auto focus or manual?

I can't speak for myself since I don't have a choice with my current camera.

BUT, I think in low light conditions auto focus doesn't work too well.

Also, I'm willing to bet the guys who have been into photography for a long time like to manual focus still, but that's just an assumption and a generalization.

 

[Natural_Disaster]

I have started taking every photo with manual focus, just so i can learn to do it myself.

 

[rufus5150]

I use autofocus about 90% of the time and occassionally make use of the FTM to make fine adjustments. Sometimes I'll let AF do its work then flip it into manual to lock in the focus. If I'm doing macro work, it's almost always manual and almost always by moving the camera rather than the focus ring.

 

[kkamin]

I started on a manual focus film camera and it was instructive. But I really appreciate auto focus and think it is crucial if you are working with moving subject and a shallow depth of field. You need every edge you can get in photography and need to embrace it. The goal isn't your cool camera or how tough a shot was to get, but rather the resulting image.

 

[RTamer]

I have one autofocus lens, but I purposely use my older, manual focusing lenses to practice. With my macro setup, I can only use manual focus.

 

[Overread21]

It all depends is my answer.

The key is understanding the advantages of each mode as well as being able to use them correctly and understanding which is best for the given situation you are in.

For example when I shoot macro I do it all in manual focus - the auto focus is too slow and inacurate to get a good lock on the subject (I find) and can be a pain when it misses and starts to hunt around the focus range - at which point the insect will often fly off.
So manual focus it is! Heck one of my macro lenses has no auto focus motors in it at all.

Then we get to auto focus situations - which for me is pretty much everything else apart from macro. The camera is far quicker and more accurate than myself with manual focus. I do use the central AF point only however - this gives me a control over the auto focus and lets me point the camera at the subject and tell the camera what I want it to focus on - rather than leaving all points active and having it focus on random things.
I also use backbutton auto focus control - by which instead of the shutter button activating the auto focus on a half depression, a button on the back of the camera activates the AF. This means that I can start and stop the AF at any point and is a great tool for allowing you to stop AF and use manual should the AF be failing (eg shooting through reeds or zoo wire the AF can often lock onto reeds or the wire instead of the subject) or should I wish to recompose the shot so that it no longer has the subject in the dead centre; the af gets a lock and gives the base line focus - I then recompose the frame, adjust manual focus if needed and shoot - and because the shutter button no longer activates the AF it does not try to refocus when I take the shot.


As for manual focus only and "the old ways" one must remember that DSLR viewfinders are small, dim and not as well suited to manual focus work as the older manual focus only cameras were. DSLRs are made with auto focus being the intended main focusing method - however there are newer DSLRs with larger viewfinder images on the market now. Also live view allows for magnification of the image to be taken and for slowtripod work its an ideal method to use to get fine focus

 

[Dao]

Most of the time, I use Autofocus. But in some occasions, I will use manual focus.

i.e. Last time when I took a photo of the moon, I setup the camera on the tripod and use liveview with manual focus.

 

[IgsEMT]

I came from MF so AF (as well as zoom lenses) are blessings.
On occasion, ESPECIALLY when shooting small object or macro, I'll MF. But if you really want to nail MF, split screen in my opinion is a way to go.

 

[rufus5150]

Most of the time, I use Autofocus. But in some occasions, I will use manual focus.

i.e. Last time when I took a photo of the moon, I setup the camera on the tripod and use liveview with manual focus.

I'm curious about this because you have a bright object in a dark sky (sorta like the autofocus dream moment) and it's at a distance where even if you took an 800mm lens wide open, your DOF is big enough that the autofocus would need to miss by around 1,191,277,627 feet before it fell out of the in-focus region Why choose manual in this situation?

 

[Dao]

Most of the time, I use Autofocus. But in some occasions, I will use manual focus.

i.e. Last time when I took a photo of the moon, I setup the camera on the tripod and use liveview with manual focus.

I'm curious about this because you have a bright object in a dark sky (sorta like the autofocus dream moment) and it's at a distance where even if you took an 800mm lens wide open, your DOF is big enough that the autofocus would need to miss by around 1,191,277,627 feet before it fell out of the in-focus region Why choose manual in this situation?

It seems that the DoF is big .... however, it is not when you take the photo.

In the past, I use my EF 70-300mm IS lens and take the moon shot with AF. I tried using IS or tripod without IS. The result seems OK.

But last time, when I tried it with a cheap 2X teleconverter. For one thing, the camera cannot do AF due to I lost 2 stops of light. But, when I use liveview with magnification on the camera screen, I notice that the DoF for the moon to be perfectly focus is very shadow. I had to position the lens to focus on the upper part of the moon so that I can see the craters for focusing. Just a tiny little bit of focus change (I really mean tiny), the craters will become blurry on the magnified image on the camera screen.

Here is the result. Of course, my lens is not too sharp at 300mm and the teleconverter doesn't help neither.

100% crop (the image maybe a little over sharpening)

 

[ghache]

i started with a manual focus lens since it was on a d60 and lens i had didnt had the focus motor. like it was said above, it was really instructive. i use manual on macro or when i use a lightbox.

 

[Derrel]

Autofocus works pretty well with autofocus lenses, under most, but not all circumstances. The majority of autofocusing lenses have VERY short focus throws, which makes precise,accurate,and repeatable manual focusing quite difficult at longer distances. Autofocusing macro lenses however, have long, deliberate focusing throws in their macro and close-up ranges, so they are reasonably easy to focus at close distances; hpwever, beyond about 1 meter most autofocusing macro lenses have an incredibly narow range of focusing ring travel with many macro lenses roaring from 1 meter and out to Infinity in as little as 20 degrees of focus ring rotation--making it incredibly difficult to reliably and repeatably to focus a macro lens at "sports" or "portrait" distances.

Autofocusing cameras and lenses have come a long,long ways since the 1980's. Learning how to best use an AF camera and lens requires some practice and understanding of the system and its design principles and its actual capabilities under various conditions.

 

[Pugs]

I can't focus worth a damn without AF or a focusing aid like a microprism or split-image prism. With my D300, I have no focusing aids and ONLY use manual focus when trying to do macro shots. The other issue that I have with trying to manual focus my AF lenses is that the focusing rings suck. They're often WAY small, are hyper-sensitive (Derrel mentioned this above), and move too freely. The MF lenses for my film cameras all have focusing rings that are large and you can get a grip on, plus, the motion is smooth, but stiff so that the tiniest little jostle doesn't affect the focus.

 

[matfoster]

AF for shoot and scoot. MF for fun. auto can be sharper but manual offers more choices, subjectively.