[frank]

Nowadays it seems every camera company except the stubborn leica is focusing on AF systems and trying to improve AF abilities with every effort. They want AF can do everything. But, I doubt, is AF really that important for every kind of photography?

 

Yes, I understand that for some kind of photography AF is very important, e.g. for sports photography and bird photography.

 

But, for many other kinds of photography (I would call them regular photography), I feel that AF is not very important, maybe not needed at all. For example, for candid photography, I definitely think MF is more convenient than AF---of course with a good MF lens with a good MF ring, a precise distance scale, and precise DoF marks. Since in candid photography basically you use zone focus technique. With an AF lens you can also do zone focus, but it is far not convenient as with a good MF lens.

 

For landscape photography, you can use AF but AF is not necessary. With a good MF lens with a gprecise distance scale and precise DoF marks you can do a lot better.

 

For portrait photography, AF is not enough at least. You need MF to do critical focus.

 

With an emphasis on AF performance, I am sad to see that many or most modern lenses have no or very crude distance scales, no or very crude DoF marks, with only very rare exceptions like Leica and Zeiss. And many or most modern DSLRs have their view finders/focus screens optimized for AF but not good for MF, though on some mirrorless cameras focus peaking and image splitting exist in their EVFs.

 

I don't know why there is no company (except the luxury leica, again) dare to make a camera designed purely for MF lenses...if they do for some high level cameras I think they would sell them well at least not as bad as they may think.

 

Of course, design and production of a new line of MF lenses may be an issue...but I think it deserves.

 

With AF being so popular nowadays I think people and companies may have forgotten and ignored MF...and have forgotten that MF is at least as useful as AF and in some situations better than AF.

[frank]

These thoughts came into my mind when I tried to find a good in-production MF lens of 50mm for street candid photography. After some search I only find the Zeiss 50mm F1.4 ZF has the features that I need: good MF ring, good distance scale (presumably precise enough), good DoF marks (presumably precise enough). Of course Leica (and Voigtlander lenses for Leica) are a lot better designed but i cannot suffer the Leica system.

[exuvia]

the problem is that almost all the modern digital cameras show a worse (smaller, darker) viewfinder vision than pretty much any old "analog" camera. I was here with a (younger) friend of mine, who was bragging about his D800's viewfinder and how it was large and bright bla bla bla. well, it muight be, in comparison with other DSLR... but I picked up my 40 years old Olympus Om-1 (which is half the D800 in size) and put it in his hands. So did I with a Pentax ME-super, possibly the tiniest reflex of its years, if not the smallest ever. It was not fun to me to see his jaws dropping, and the sad expression on his face. I don't think he spoke about the D800's viewfinder anymore ever since.

Just another world, or day and night if you want, and a shame for the modern designers.

Yes: faster lenses could help; changing focusing glass could help. But generally speaking it's very difficult to proper focus with the current OVFs, even if you are a landscape photographer, it's simple like that.

And pretty much impossible if you are in a hurry.

[JJ_SO]

Even with very bright screens is the AF module in low light conditions superior in speed and accuracy with a lens wide open. In the same conditions, I never focus faster or as accurate. Although I changed the D800's screen to a microprism version, but I noticed a slight difference in focus accuracy. Also, I appreciate very much the using of the outer AF points - and with each focusing screen I would depend on a simple matte screen. I had that on Medium format and it is not easy or remotely fast to use.


I would never buy a MF only lens. Due to manufacturing quantities they won't be much cheaper than good AF lenses - or they already are, like Samyang / Rokinon. Or they are much more expensive, like Zeiss Otus.


Changing the motor in a car will not be a big improvement unless the rest of the car can handle the higher performance. And I don't see any modern focus screens being as accurate as a well (fine)tuned AF. If I want MF, I prefer the damped rings if the Sigma Art series about the far too easy moving rings of "normal" Nikkors. They remind me to the stickiness of Zeiss in the old Yashica/Contax days.

[Brightcolours]

Nowadays it seems every camera company except the stubborn leica is focusing on AF systems and trying to improve AF abilities with every effort. They want AF can do everything. But, I doubt, is AF really that important for every kind of photography?

 

Yes, I understand that for some kind of photography AF is very important, e.g. for sports photography and bird photography.

 

But, for many other kinds of photography (I would call them regular photography), I feel that AF is not very important, maybe not needed at all. For example, for candid photography

AF will avoid many missed images with candids. MF often just is too slow here.

, I definitely think MF is more convenient than AF---of course with a good MF lens with a good MF ring, a precise distance scale, and precise DoF marks. Since in candid photography basically you use zone focus technique. With an AF lens you can also do zone focus, but it is far not convenient as with a good MF lens.

No idea what use a distance scale is. At short distances I am not accurate enough to judge if something is 25 or 40 cm away from the film plane. Same with 3,  or 5 meters? Only thing I can "judge" accurately is infinity. AF is way more precise.

For landscape photography, you can use AF but AF is not necessary. With a good MF lens with a gprecise distance scale and precise DoF marks you can do a lot better.

DOF markings are nonsense, in my opinion. Just an inheritance of the past, where small prints and low res. film and MF without helping view finders were the norm. Now, just focus on the subject or infinity and do the "Merklinger" method.

For portrait photography, AF is not enough at least. You need MF to do critical focus.

Of course AF is good enough ^_^ . Unless your camera needs calibration.

With an emphasis on AF performance, I am sad to see that many or most modern lenses have no or very crude distance scales, no or very crude DoF marks, with only very rare exceptions like Leica and Zeiss. And many or most modern DSLRs have their view finders/focus screens optimized for AF but not good for MF, though on some mirrorless cameras focus peaking and image splitting exist in their EVFs.

In the film days I NEVER used DOF markings, nor distance scale. I used the view finder and the split prism focus screen (OVF). If I had a Leica, I would use the range finder (and again not the distance scale). With my 6D, I use the OVF with precision focus screen. Still no need for distance scale. Only time I use it is to set my Voigtlander 20mm to almost infinity.

I don't know why there is no company (except the luxury leica, again) dare to make a camera designed purely for MF lenses...if they do for some high level cameras I think they would sell them well at least not as bad as they may think.

Leica uses a range finder. One can't rely on guessing distance to a subject, and measuring distance is even less an option.

Of course, design and production of a new line of MF lenses may be an issue...but I think it deserves.

 

With AF being so popular nowadays I think people and companies may have forgotten and ignored MF...and have forgotten that MF is at least as useful as AF and in some situations better than AF.

I can use MF just fine on my 6D. The AF on the body does not hinder MF usage. Just like the continuous shooting option does not hinder my one shot usage, for instance. If I can't get by with my Eg-S super precision focus screen for MF, I can always order different kinds of split prism focus screens, to see which has my fancy.

And I can use AF in its different modes too, when the situation calls for it.

 

I don't understand the call for an MF only camera... I don't dislike my DLSR because it has video either, even though I don't use that...

 

PS: my MF lenses include a 140mm f1.8 Old Delft, 20mm f3.5 Voigtlander, 50mm f2 Nikkor, 55mm f1.2 Canon, 55mm f3.5 Nikkor, 55mm f1.2 Nikkor, 85mm f1.8 Nikkor, 135mm f3.5 Nikkor, 135mm f2.8 Nikkor, 500mm f8 Tamron.

 

PPS: I have one use for the distance scale. I have a no viewfinder 6x9 MF (medium format) film camera. To judge distance, I focus with my DLSR with MF (manual focus) lens and read from the  lens barrel the distance to the subject. Then I can set the same distance on the 6x9 camera and make a focussed image.

[popo]

I like to have the best tool for the job. Most of the time for me that is AF, AF and more AF. But there are also times when MF makes better sense. If there is no time pressure at all, I like to use magnified live view to absolutely nail the focus (particularly for sallow depth of field work). So lenses are designed as compromises between AF speed and MF performance, at least in the DSLR range. Long focus throw means slow AF. I don't think anyone has found a great way around that yet.

Particularly when moving into mirrorless it gets even more complicated. I'm really not a fan of focus by wire as it doesn't feel right. Even worse if it is speed adaptive. So I'd almost regard those lenses as AF use only.

If modern made MF lenses are your thing I guess there are two obvious general providers: Samyang and Zeiss. Obviously not in the same market niche! Is there much lacking in MF optimised lenses that can't be met between them and a few other smaller players?

[Brightcolours]

I like to have the best tool for the job. Most of the time for me that is AF, AF and more AF. But there are also times when MF makes better sense. If there is no time pressure at all, I like to use magnified live view to absolutely nail the focus (particularly for sallow depth of field work). So lenses are designed as compromises between AF speed and MF performance, at least in the DSLR range. Long focus throw means slow AF. I don't think anyone has found a great way around that yet.


Particularly when moving into mirrorless it gets even more complicated. I'm really not a fan of focus by wire as it doesn't feel right. Even worse if it is speed adaptive. So I'd almost regard those lenses as AF use only.


If modern made MF lenses are your thing I guess there are two obvious general providers: Samyang and Zeiss.

And Voigtlander.

Obviously not in the same market niche! Is there much lacking in MF optimised lenses that can't be met between them and a few other smaller players?

[davidmanze]

Hi,

    Is AF precise at large apertures? in general yes (if well callibrated)  in fact I have changed my mat viewfinder screen for a split screen and although it's very good, the AF nails it more reliably and that's at F1.4 on an APSc screen, full frame I am sure would be easier.

  But, a lot of progress has been made in terms of live view and also electronic viewfinders, "focus peaking" (creates a white/coloured border around objects in focus) is a very reliable and is a precise method of manual focusing , albeit from the screen, I use it quite a lot as it gives me access to cheap S/H MF lenses that to me would be otherwise to much of a pain to bother with.  Fuji I think have this feature in some of their electronic viewfinders, cleverly implemented so as to appear as a an enlarged rectangle with focus peaking and /or splitimage rangefinder operating within it.

 As has been said, Samyang make MF lenses which are excellent quality/value and are expanding their range, so it shows that MF is still no where near over, not to forget Zeiss!

[frank]

I don't know if I have expressed it clearly.

 

In a situation when you need nail focus with a shallow DoF, as popo said, it would be better to use magnified live view and MF ( and a tripod maybe). But it also depends on the lens that you are using. Many AF lenses have a too short focus throw, which makes it painful to get precise focus. And not every camera has live view that is good enough for precise focus.

 

While for candid photography, in my experience the most frustrating thing is pointing your camera and lens to the target, AF focusing, then reframing and firing. The time lapse during the entire process is often big enough to caught attention of the target and let him/her respond. It may be a little better if you can move the focus area in your VF away from the centre to avoid reframing but it can only improve the situation a little. Moving around the focus area in the VF frequently is also very boring and take time. With a good MF lens I would just set the lens focus at a distance that I guessed and raise you camera and fire.  To get a sufficient DoF of course an appropriate aperture need be preset.

 

Of course it is a question how precise the distance that you guessed is. But I think the precision can be improved with more practice.

 

Yes I know in the digital era DoF markings are probably not as useful as in the film era. But in my opinion they are still useful since they can give you a reference for the DoF that you will get.

[thxbb12]

AF or not AF depends on one's photography. Personally, I never use MF unless I'm doing macro work.

Because it takes time to MF the moment is either gone or blurry. Another issue is that the subject may become impatient, waiting for you to properly MF...

 

I can understand the need for MF when using a SLR/DSLR wide-open since the AF might not be accurate enough or not accurate often enough. With mirrorless, AF accuracy is almost spot on so it's a non issue.

 

For portraits, I actually find the feature detection of MFT absolutely invaluable. It's able to pick the closest eye at a surprising high hit rate. Amazing! Quite a game changer. No more fiddling with focus points or worrying about the subject being outside the array of focus points. I can't imagine going back to a DSLR, let alone MF. We've gone such a long way, it's now so much easier to capture candid moments.

 

It's quite funny to see how much people nit pick about the tiniest IQ difference between lenses when any AF inaccuracy will offset any of the supposedly sharpness advantage of one lens versus another. It's become even more an issue with super high pixel counts. Great, one has 36MP, but in the end 16MP would have done the same job if not better because AF was spot on.