I have been a professional photographer for over 15 years now,
and I learnt my trade on manual focus "Hasselblad" and Canon FD cameras.
However, after shooting autofocus for the last ten years or so with EOS, going back to ZE "manual" focus did take a little bit of getting used to.
I have the ZE 50mm 1.4 and absolutely love it.
In fact you would need to pry it, (and my 400mm 2.8LIS) from my cold dead hands...lol
My experience over the years has taught me that, certain lenses have such good quality glass and outstanding design in their construction, that it doesn't really matter if they are autofocus or manual.
If you have an eye for detail, you will love ZEISS...so will the people who see your images.
regards
pk
I have a lot of glass, both Canon and alt. I use the back focus button on my cameras. I swapped in darker but more accurate focusing screens. I would say that about 70% of the time I am using manual focus regardless of what lens I am using. Getting good focus with a fast lens wide open is not that easy. Sometimes manually focusing gets the job done better.
A lot of people have never used a manual focus camera with a clean, bright viewing screen with a lens with a great focus barrel. Someday you should try focusing a Pentax LX with a 1.4 lens. The experience might surprise you.
A lot of guys will get a really fast lens and then discover how poorly their new camera focuses. For many, the path is testing, calibration, new focusing shims/washers and better screens.
PhotoMaximum wrote:
A lot of people have never used a manual focus camera with a clean, bright viewing screen with a lens with a great focus barrel. Someday you should try focusing a Pentax LX with a 1.4 lens. The experience might surprise you.
First you should try focusing with the MP-E 65mm with no focus confirmation or even focus ring at 5:1 magnification and around 0.3mm DOF then you can come back to me and talk about manual focus.
Well, using exotic macro lenses at 5:1 is sort of a different arena.
I use auto focus a lot when using long lenses on moving subjects.
But using moderate wide lenses, my 58/1.2 Rokkor, or EF100/2 with precision focus (where I want it, not the auto focus point) I usually use manual focus.
This is not a one size fits all argument. A lot of people like to compose their images carefully (for fun or profit) and manually making sure the focus is exactly where they want can quite often be achieved very nicely with manual focus.
I have added a number of lenses to my kit: the Canon 45 TS-E, 58/1.2 Rokkor, 50/1.4 Super Tak etc, and all of these have to be manually focused. The one thing I have noticed with using these lenses more is that I use more manual focus when using my EF glass. I do quite a bit of work with the 16-35/2.8 L II and I manually focus that lens most of the time as well. My 70-200/2.8 and 400/2.8 I use auto focus most of the time. Like I said this is not a one size fits all arena...
Oh I realise that. It's just that in your sentence that I quoted, you presumed that some people like myself have never had the experience using manual focus with a fast lens wide open where the DOF is very thin, right? Well, I was merely trying to say that when it comes to MF and thin DOF I have actually gone beyond "very thin".
And just to add to the challenge of using this lens, the 5:1 magnification should make it similar to shooting a supertele with no IS when it comes to camera shakes. The VF is also very dark at that magnification level.
Just trying to establish that I do have the experience when it comes to manual focus.
Peter Kotsa wrote:
I have been a professional photographer for over 15 years now,
and I learnt my trade on manual focus "Hasselblad" and Canon FD cameras.
However, after shooting autofocus for the last ten years or so with EOS, going back to ZE "manual" focus did take a little bit of getting used to.
I have the ZE 50mm 1.4 and absolutely love it.
In fact you would need to pry it, (and my 400mm 2.8LIS) from my cold dead hands...lol
My experience over the years has taught me that, certain lenses have such good quality glass and outstanding design in their construction, that it doesn't really matter if they are autofocus or manual.
If you have an eye for detail, you will love ZEISS...so will the people who see your images.
regards
pk ...Show more →
I bought the ZE last week, and although I like the fact that it is a fast lens, what I really love about the lens is the solid construction, contrast and sharpness. It's not auto-focus but like you I feel that this is one of those lenses that set a standard, and it is so realatively affordable. If this lens had a Leica label on it it would cost five times the asking price. Thank you Zeiss!
EB-1 wrote:
Manual focus is fine for certin types of work, but I cringe at memories of missed opportunities with the old teles.
EBH
The auto-focus confirm feature on the ZE aids in manual focusing. I'm enjoying this feature very much since my eye sight is not the best and I need to wear glasses.
