Which "M" to Master first??

[amolitor]

I should add one more point. Which I always forget in these discussions.

There is one major case where you should definitely use manual exposure, and that is where the lighting is essentially consistent, and you want to get consistent exposures (dark moments dark, light moments light, and so on). Sports photographers do this a lot. Meter off the grass every few minutes to pick up ambient lighting changes. This way the huddles come out dark, the wide field shots come out bright, and so on, everything "looks" consistent. You're shooting a bunch of different things, under the same ambient light, and you want them to look correct. It's essentially a powerful exposure lock tool.

 

[DiskoJoe]

Well it might just be me but I don't see much purpose served in manually focusing - unless there's actually some benefit to the final product that I'm unaware of or might not be considering. I mean if I look at a photo I can't tell if it was manually focused or auto focused unless someone tells me and frankly when I'm looking at photos that's pretty much the very last thing that I really want to know or care about. So unless you've got some lenses that won't autofocus for whatever reason, just doesn't seem like something worth taking th time to "master". Just my 2 cents worth of course, YMMV.

There is at least one situation where manual focus works much much better. If, let's say, you do street photography, have chosen your setting, the background etc., and you are waiting for someone to enter the scene, the best way to capture it is to focus manually beforehand. You can do it because you know the spot, or the range. This way you save time needed to autofocus when you to pull the trigger and avoid mistakes when camera focuses on the wrong object. Usually you have a split second for a shot and with autofocus you can easily miss. Also, when there is not enough light, manual focus often is preferable. And of course if you mostly shoot white walls. But I would not say you have to "master" it. It is quite simple.

Again, no argument with using prefocus techniques - and no argument that manual focus has it uses. Merely pointing out that for those of us who don't really use manual focus regularly it just doesn't, at least to me, seem to be a fruitful pursuit to practice skills that your not going to use in a timely enough fashion to have made your practice worthwhile. I don't really do street photography myself, but lets assume for a moment I spend some time this week messing around with prefocus, etc - now I've already read how to do it. I practice it for a few days till I get it down. 2 years later I actually find a situation where I might put that into use - well, since I haven't done it in 2 years that couple of days I spent practicing it really isn't going to prove all that useful. I'll have to default back to the information I have on it so really the practice didn't benefit me all that much.

I do a lot of club photography. Most places are dark black holes and AF is never an options since there is not enough light available for the cameras sensors. So I needs to not only know how to focus manual but more importantly I need to know how to enter my own setting to get the correct type of exposure that I am wanting to achieve. Manual focus is a pretty easy thing to master but knowing what settings to use in particular situation is something that takes practice.

Plus what you might find out is that maybe you can pick out better settings then your camera can for what you are doing.

 

[batmura]

I use manual focus sometimes if I have the camera on a tripod to take a still-life shot. I’ll turn on live view, zoom in 10x on the LCD, and manually dial in the focus to where I want it. Seems to work much better than autofocus for such shots, at least on my low-end camera (T3i).

How come this technqiue works better than autofocus? Why not simply use single point auto focusing?

 

[colinorinda12]

+1 for all manual.

Shooting that way for a little while can really sharpen the reflexes, which then improves speed with you return to the priority modes.

 

[imagemaker46]

Learn to master light.

But light doesn't start with M

You are quite correct, however understanding light is what photography is all about. If you learn to master light everything else starts to fall in place, making things easier to shoot available light in manual.

 

[TomWatson]

^^ I completely agree

 

[bc_steve]

I use manual focus sometimes if I have the camera on a tripod to take a still-life shot. I’ll turn on live view, zoom in 10x on the LCD, and manually dial in the focus to where I want it. Seems to work much better than autofocus for such shots, at least on my low-end camera (T3i).

Yep, I love this trick when I'm in no rush to get my shot. Basically, it ensures that you are going to get exactly what you want with respect to focus.