Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/11/23

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Subject: Re: [Leica] auto vs. manual
From: Harrison McClary <hmcclary@earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998 21:36:39 -0600

Monday, Monday, November 23, 1998, William H. Cassing wrote:


> A friend of mine, a pro photographer, once remarked that AF and AE are for
> those who are really bad or really good.  I'm not too sure I agree with him
> totally, but he has an interesting point.

There  is  a lot of truth to this. AF does not make a bad photographer
good,  but it will help someone who just can't focus well. For example
the following story relates how AF can help someone who knows a little
about photography and is familiar with point and shoot cameras:

I  was  covering the Kentucky / Vanderbilt basketball game with the VP
of  our  company  who  is  a  huge UK fan.  He doesn't know much about
photography.   He knows a little, his dad owns a newspaper and he did
shoot some photos but had to have the camera set for him.

Anyway  there was one player we were needing photos of. I had gotten a
cred for Stephen since he is such a huge UK fan and gave him an EOS A2
and  300  4.0L. I figured he could get some good sidelines stuff. Just
set  the camera for him, it is AF so like a big point and shoot. I was
concentrating on the game action.

After the games is over Stephen hands me the camera, 30 frames or less
shot.  I kidded him about using so little film. After getting the film
souped  he  had a shot of the player we were needing photos of walking
off  the  floor,  mid  stride,  giving a thumbs up and winking! Damn I
never  lived that down around the office. Me, the only photographer on
staff to have covered 2 world series, a Super Bowl, the Masters, more
NCAA  tournament games than I can remember and out shot by an amateur.

But,  I still could not shoot AF. Just learned the old way and that is
the  way I shoot.  Concentrating on the focus is second nature now and
to  try to remember where the focus point is in the frame is too hard,
it  detracts from my paying attention to the action taking place in the
finder and I loose the "moment".

AF  is one of those things you have to play with to see if you like it
and want to use it.  Just be aware that on the high end AF cameras the
view finder is much darker and harder to focus than the R8.

The  EOS  stuff  screams, don't know first hand about the Nikon F5, but
the sonic wave or whatever they call it is supposed to be micro seconds
faster than the canon, but is only on a few lenses, I think.

Best regards,
 Harrison McClary
http://people.delphi.com/hmphoto
preview my book: http://www.volmania.com
mailto:hmcclary@earthlink.net

Everyone has a photographic memory, some just don't have film.