I remember when Minolta first came out with AF. I was shooting a Nikon FE, Fujichrome 50 (it didn\'t have a name like Velvia back then) with a 75-150 Series E & a Tamron 300 5.6 and never even flinched about using AF.
I was \'kicking butt\' just fine with such a simple approach. I put the camera down for a couple decades and then when I decided to pick it up again, things aren\'t the same.
I bought some nice AF glass and a well reviewed AF body. AF was working ok enough for general stuff, but when I tried to do anything with critical focus by \'flipping the switch\' ... I couldn\'t get the glass to do it. I would even come up oof on a GBH that was sitting still. I even went to the eye doctor TWICE for new prescriptions (which were the same, corrected to 20/10).
THEN, I switched to a 1D MK II for its pro AF system ... SAME STORY when trying to \'flip the switch\' and use AF glass in MF mode. THEN, I found this place called ALTERNATIVE GEAR & LENSES ... picked up some old MF only glass and VOILA. Now when I shoot MF with MF lenses, I get MF precision (depends on me of course).
But what is really kind of neat is when you couple a tight tolerance MF lens that has good handling, with an adapter that as AF confirmation (or a Nikon body), you can gain some advantage of technology (focus confirmation) with great precision engineering. On some bodies, you can even get an audible indicator that coincides with focus confirmation. Use it a bit, and you can even develop a Pavlovian response ... hear the beep, fire the shutter. Of course, this is limited to the same AF points as with AF lenses, but it can be helpful for certain types of shooting as well. I can only imagine what it might be like to use \'Live View\' with MF lenses.
Oh, and somehow the MF lenses don\'t seem to overshoot focus all the way to mfd or infinity before trying to come back.
Also, when using MF lenses ... I\'ve never had a \'mis-fire\'. It is possible for the camera to not let you release the shutter when the focus point is not in focus (as in recomposed). I literally had a mis-fire for my daughter\'s graduation using AF (even though I had prefocused) for THE Diploma-Handshake shot. My next daughter\'s graduation was shot MF ... no mis-fire.
Feb 12, 2010 at 10:51 PM
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