[davidmanze]

One can really discuss if AF on portraits is a major necessity and I think it all comes down at how dynamic a setting in a portrait session changes. In a studio, with ready lit background and the "portrait chair" one could weld the focus ring ... Out in the wild, photographer and model tend to move. I'm not certain AF will always be better than manual focus - by the way, "better" is what? More precise? Quicker? An aid like optical glasses for people with eye problems? The older I get the more I tend to trust a good AF, especially at night.

 

As Laowa stated, phase detection AF is useless, we have to look at contrast detection (that's how Fuji's autofocusing their APD version ) which brings up the question - is that a DSLR lens?

 

"Shooting wide open all time" is a statement I will not even remotely discuss. What sounds ridiculous to me might just be the thing for somebody else. Now, the Nikon lens is a quite dated version, no update in sight, and the Fuji... I could get one as a left over for 150 francs less but even then, I don't intend to spend more than 1k on a DX-only thing. I don't see this lens as something the market was longing for ages.

Manual focus is fine in a studio where the subject isn't moving, but at wide apertures how you get good eye focus on "live life" is beyond me, but then I've got more glasses than spec savers!  ....

 

  Talking of all manual....

  My first SLR was a "Zenith 3M"...... bought new for £13 19s 6d, it had the industar 50mm F3.5 uncoated lens in the "39mm leica mount".....I think 3M stood for "three times manual".......no mirror return and manual diaphragm........ now that was really painful, the 70% viewfinder was dim and even darker at the edges (non fresnel) and you absolutely had to focus wide open....then you had to take the camera from the eye and brace yourself  holding the focusing ring still while you fought with the stiff no click narow aperture ring mounted on the focus ring itself to stop down........if you were lucky the subject hadn't gone home, you could then click the shutter..........kershlock.....and everything went black!....it brought a new dimension to the word clunky.....took good pictures though.....Wow I had an SLR!..... I thought it was the bees knees..... see here!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gl61E5lIdQ

I couldn't afford the case.

 

 They made 760,000 of them, incredible, not so cheap either

 

http://www.ebay.fr/sch/i.html?_pgn=1&LH_...w=zenit-3m

 

 

 

 

 Photographic reminiscences.......waving a sixty watt light bulb over the negative clipped to my Johnson enlarging box to make postcard prints.......

 

http://www.ebay.fr/itm/Vintage-Johnson-J...1431504829

 

 

.............. and the Johnson exposure calculator... then 4s 6d......available here...

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/bhp/exposure-calculator

 

  Those were the days!............hummm.....err...or were they?

 

  What we take for granted now!

 

     ...I digress where was I?

 

  Oh yes, how's the Fuji project going JoJu?