Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/11/23
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]
I've addressed the individual questions below...I've used manual and AF
for many, many years. I'd never go back to a purely-manual system for
wildlife (except perhaps for sleeping elephants and wading hippos). My
best advice, since this is the Leica group, Leica do not make AF, and so
at least the R-owners here will undoubtedly try to persuade you that AF
is the devil's doing, is that you rent or borrow an F5 and AF-S lens for
a day and have a see for yourself.
Regards,
Nigel
On Mon, 23 Nov 1998 12:37:06 -0500 "Gary D. Whalen"
<whalen@whalentennis.com> writes:
> I would appreciate some help from anyone in this group who has
>extensively used both autofocus and manual focus.
> My main questions:
>
> 1. How quick is autofocus?
With EOS 5, EOS1n, very fast. With Nikon F5,
lightning fast. With all the rest, they're good for people with poor
eyesight; speed isn't even in the game.
> 2. Aren't there a lot of false focusing mistakes (ie
>autofocusing
>on the wrong point of interest) that you wouldn't have with manual?
With the EOS5/1n and particularly the F5, not
really, once you get the hang of it.
>
> and 3. If you use autofocus what percentage of the time do you
>use
>the camera in manual?
With the Nikon AF-S lenses, you can stay in AF
and still manual-focus as you wish. That's what I use and recommend for
wildlife. In that respect you have the best of both worlds at your
fingertips. For a quickly-moving subject the F5's AF is unbelievable.
Frame a flying bird on any sensor, hold down the shutter release, and you
get tack-sharp images at 8fps no matter where the bird flies in the
frame, even if it goes off and on the various sensors. Truly amazing, as
is the percentage of dead-on exposures with reversal film using the
1005-pixel RBG evaluative metering.
___________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html
or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]