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Author Topic: Autofocus vs. Manual Focus  (Read 13989 times)

samuel_js

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Autofocus vs. Manual Focus
« Reply #20 on: December 07, 2008, 12:31:14 pm »

Actually the original post said something like "if you're allergic to Canon stop reading here...". Some people just prefer the fuzz...
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rainer_v

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Autofocus vs. Manual Focus
« Reply #21 on: December 07, 2008, 12:36:31 pm »

Quote from: tho_mas
And in fact the discussion was intended as autofocus vs. manual focus in general by "ghwitf". So the stuffy "wrong forum" statement was totally out of place here.

well, i normally dont like this strictness too which showed up sometimes here, but a treat like this which is goind to 100% over canons has i.m.o. just a better place in the 35mm section. so why not to say this? more so as i understood the comment of foto z was written with enough self irony and not in a way that should be taken as personal "attak".
to the valuable posts of gwith.... i really like his photographs a lot and for sure he is one of the best photographers hanging around in this forums and sharing his experiences which are large and valuable. but after coming in the last years with several names in this forums, posting a lot and intense, after a while usually happened  the same thing:  something offended the person behind gwith and he left the place, not forgetting to remove all posts before.
everybody can behave here in relative "anonymity" how he wants but for me there is no reason to blame foto z, it seems to happen with some regularity.
at all it is to consider that this forum works pretty well and is probably the most valuable and best forum for mf photography. this might be the reason why people leave it but sometimes they come back after a while ....  i personally would like to see gwith back here ( although i cant see anything which  was offending him except his own expectations how a forum "should be" ). but even more i would not like to see foto z leaving this forum for being attacked in a very unfair way here as it seems to happen just now for wrong understood "star cult"..
« Last Edit: December 07, 2008, 12:40:40 pm by rainer_v »
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rainer viertlböck
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Autofocus vs. Manual Focus
« Reply #22 on: December 07, 2008, 12:38:49 pm »

Quote from: samuel_js
F##K! I was just about to post my experiences focusing with my 503CW (digital vs. film).

Sad...

Well keep the thread going in the true spirit of the topic creator. Don't let one person spoil everybody else's enjoyment and interest.

Pete
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rainer_v

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Autofocus vs. Manual Focus
« Reply #23 on: December 07, 2008, 12:42:58 pm »

Quote from: tho_mas
And in fact the discussion was intended as autofocus vs. manual focus in general by "ghwitf". So the stuffy "wrong forum" statement was totally out of place here.
i cant read it again to check if my impression was wrong.... because its removed.
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rainer viertlböck
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bcooter

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Autofocus vs. Manual Focus
« Reply #24 on: December 07, 2008, 01:17:54 pm »

Quote from: rainer_v
i cant read it again to check if my impression was wrong.... because its removed.


All of these categories are just bloody silly.   On the dslr section (which I think mentions "shooting gear", people talk about software, firmware, monitors, computers and it doesn't bother anyone because it's just knowledge.

If you put everything in the exact place some self proclaimed hall monitor wanted it, you'd never find anything and the conversations would never evolve.

Ranier, back in the RG days you posted at length on the Kodak 14 or whatever that camera was called and nobody cared, because it was useful information and stimulate discussion.  I don't remember anybody saying it should go into the 35m section or the almost as good as medium format heading.

Let's be realistic about this, for a lot of photographers that own medium format back(s) nearly to a person they have a Canon or Nikon and do a lot of cross use.  That's the plan . . . right . . .  to use your cameras.

Discussions like this on any public forum just forces people underground or to leave because nobody wants their name associated with some kind of argument or negative blowback.   Google has a 7 year memory.

We can keep this going and sooner or later it just all turns bad and everyone leaves or goes private.

Like it or not, they're are a lot of very good photographers that would never be open to sharing their experience with anyone.  Do you have any idea why you can't go onto some of the world's best retoucher's sites and see images?  It's because the photographers have demanded that the world never see the original images.  Do you know the number of photographers that retouch light reflections out of eyes so nobody can tell the source, or have assistants and crew sign nda's so they can't tell anyone how, what, where, when and why a photographer works?

Feel lucky that someone that shoots as well and as prolific as gwtif shares with anyone, in public or private and don't pat anyone on the back for sending him/her away.

Also get real about this medium format vs. 35mm thing.    In digital there really is no format difference like we had with film.   in fact if you wanted to name this section correctly it would be "the almost medium format section".

Let's also get real about what photography is about and the camera is like number 22 on the list of importance.

Ranier, your a good photographer and you and I both know that you could shoot film, 35mm, 645, a cambo, artech or any camera and get the results you want.

The size of the hole in the back of the camera really doesn't make that much difference.

A lot of camera makers would probably love it if this forum only was full of medium format  fanboys that sung their praise, but honestly for every manufacturer that monitors these forums, if it was all just a PR section they'd never learn anything and their participation would eventually be limited.

Since most of us are in the advertising business we know that the only way to control a message is to take out an ad.

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tho_mas

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Autofocus vs. Manual Focus
« Reply #25 on: December 07, 2008, 02:49:20 pm »

Dear Rainer,
Quote from: rainer_v
a treat like this which is goind to 100% over canons has i.m.o. just a better place in the 35mm section
Maybe it was by accident that so much Canon users replied. But there are some few answers with regard to Hasselblad and Contax and view cameras, too.

I don't know "ghwift" or his other usernames or his real name nor his photographs (unfortunately)... and I do not know anything about the previous history so I can't comment on this. But I read his posts thoughtful.
The same with those of "foto-z" and I don't want to miss him (and his works) here, too.

Beside this: usually I just read over "foto-z'" "wrong forum" comments and ignore them.
Because I don't like this kind of concierge attitude and finally I just find it clownish.
Why don't he just read another topic if there is nothing interessting for him in this thread? I really can't get it.
To me the AF/MF topic is totally cross platform... so instead of the insisting repetition of "wrong forum" (with or without irony) it would have been much more constructive to share experience from focussing his MF-camera, no?
Either way... the ordinary forums skirmish.

Best Regards,
Thomas
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rainer_v

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Autofocus vs. Manual Focus
« Reply #26 on: December 07, 2008, 02:59:22 pm »

Quote from: bcooter
All of these categories are just bloody silly.   On the dslr section (which I think mentions "shooting gear", people talk about software, firmware, monitors, computers and it doesn't bother anyone because it's just knowledge.

If you put everything in the exact place some self proclaimed hall monitor wanted it, you'd never find anything and the conversations would never evolve.

Ranier, back in the RG days you posted at length on the Kodak 14 or whatever that camera was called and nobody cared, because it was useful information and stimulate discussion.  I don't remember anybody saying it should go into the 35m section or the almost as good as medium format heading.

Let's be realistic about this, for a lot of photographers that own medium format back(s) nearly to a person they have a Canon or Nikon and do a lot of cross use.  That's the plan . . . right . . .  to use your cameras.

Discussions like this on any public forum just forces people underground or to leave because nobody wants their name associated with some kind of argument or negative blowback.   Google has a 7 year memory.

We can keep this going and sooner or later it just all turns bad and everyone leaves or goes private.

Like it or not, they're are a lot of very good photographers that would never be open to sharing their experience with anyone.  Do you have any idea why you can't go onto some of the world's best retoucher's sites and see images?  It's because the photographers have demanded that the world never see the original images.  Do you know the number of photographers that retouch light reflections out of eyes so nobody can tell the source, or have assistants and crew sign nda's so they can't tell anyone how, what, where, when and why a photographer works?

Feel lucky that someone that shoots as well and as prolific as gwtif shares with anyone, in public or private and don't pat anyone on the back for sending him/her away.

Also get real about this medium format vs. 35mm thing.    In digital there really is no format difference like we had with film.   in fact if you wanted to name this section correctly it would be "the almost medium format section".

Let's also get real about what photography is about and the camera is like number 22 on the list of importance.

Ranier, your a good photographer and you and I both know that you could shoot film, 35mm, 645, a cambo, artech or any camera and get the results you want.

The size of the hole in the back of the camera really doesn't make that much difference.

A lot of camera makers would probably love it if this forum only was full of medium format  fanboys that sung their praise, but honestly for every manufacturer that monitors these forums, if it was all just a PR section they'd never learn anything and their participation would eventually be limited.

Since most of us are in the advertising business we know that the only way to control a message is to take out an ad.

sounds quite reasonable. convinced.
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rainer viertlböck
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Morgan_Moore

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Autofocus vs. Manual Focus
« Reply #27 on: December 07, 2008, 03:09:06 pm »

I dont know where the wrong forum bit came from

It seemed to be about all cameras to me certainly my posts

We all know that this board is where good photo chat is or was

Why do these thinigs all fall apart nowadays

I think 'I have canon error code 123654' could be somewhere else but mostly its about the most approproate tool for the job for professional use - something that just happens to be canon quite alot

I dont own a canon but sometimes think I should just all my glass is nikon and hassy

cant we quit the backstabbing esp of the great image makers - to lose them is to lose all

the MF title was great because it kept the idle dentists out - maybe the forum should be renamed Tax and Accounting then it would stay a lovely haven

I have been thinking of posting some EX1 footage in the Professional Works thread...

S

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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Autofocus vs. Manual Focus
« Reply #28 on: December 07, 2008, 04:02:09 pm »

Perhaps some might find useful the following essey titled "Focus Fallibility: Lens Test Fallacies " that you can find here.

Here is a part of its Summary:

"... For critical lens testing, trying to precisely set the focal distance of the lens can be an exercise in futility, regardless of how you try to do it. Rather than relying on setting focus accurately, it's vastly preferable to set it approximately, and then determine the actual focal distance through direct measurement of image sharpness. Once you've determined the correct focal distance, perform the rest of your measurements at that lens/camera position...."

Also of interest might be the following subtitle from the article: "Close, But No Cigar: Manual Focusing via Magnified Live View"

As a side note, and as far as I know, Contax N series of film and digital cameras (introduced in 1999, but short-lived) were the first to offer a unique feature: focus bracketing. These days some Canon p/s (the last one to be G10) offer the same.

Carsten W

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« Reply #29 on: December 07, 2008, 04:07:37 pm »

Quote from: bcooter
I think it's just strange how most of us could manually focus a Nikon F3 all day long and though we'd miss some, what you would see on the ground glass translated very well to film.  Same with almost any medium format camera though some were more difficult to focus than others.

Now with digital something is different and I don't really know if it is the digital tolerances are so demanding, or we are just much more critical of digital than we were of film.  After all we see digital files on a 30" loupe.

I have been thinking and reading about this, and have come up with the following hypothesis: film records the image in a sandwich of many partially transparent grains, i.e. at multiple depths, whereas digital records at a single depth. The tolerances of the placement of a sensor are much finer as a result, and as soon as you miss, you are not just shifting the focus from one place in the sandwich to another, but missing it completely.

This would also explain why so many lenses had to be redesigned for digital. In film days it was possible to design lenses which focused the various wavelengths of light at different depths, as long as they were all focusing somewhere within the film emulsion, but with digital, this would yield blurs in colour channels, and so the tolerances had to tightened up considerably.

This is all just educated guesswork, however.
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Mitchell Baum

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Autofocus vs. Manual Focus
« Reply #30 on: December 07, 2008, 08:06:30 pm »



As a side note, and as far as I know, Contax N series of film and digital cameras (introduced in 1999, but short-lived) were the first to offer a unique feature: focus bracketing. These days some Canon p/s (the last one to be G10) offer the same.
[/quote]


The Sinar Hy6 and Leaf AFI have focus bracketing.

Best,

Mitchell
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ziocan

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Autofocus vs. Manual Focus
« Reply #31 on: December 07, 2008, 10:16:58 pm »

Quote from: tho_mas
To me the AF/MF topic is totally cross platform... so instead of the insisting repetition of "wrong forum" (with or without irony) it would have been much more constructive to share experience from focussing his MF-camera, no?
Best Regards,
Thomas
Getting some know how and experiences by a colleague using  a different system, can be helpful to solve problems with a different camera or platform, especially on something that is "mechanic" and human dependent as focusing is. Sometimes someone else experience with a different tool, can be very revealing and can lead to a solution.


Any time I look back to my old scans, I realized that what was considered in focus and sharp by an AD, printer tech or a fashion/beauty editor, it looks pretty out of focus to me today, when I watch it on the 30" monitor. Yet, few years back on a smaller monitor with a larger and not as crisp dot pitch, I though was sharp enough to be proud of my focusing capabilities and those images printed pretty well.

Since when I have been able to look at my images on a large crisp screen, right after they were shot, I slowly became more obsessed with sharpness and the quality of my lenses. Earlier I was not paying much attention to that, as since i was shooting Hasselblad or Mamiya, I knew that as long that they were in "focus", it would have been good enough. Today, i'm still shooting he same brands of cameras +canon, but I have learned so many things about the optics that I use, that i'm always in doubt if something better should be used. Surely my images are some how technically better today, but they may miss the spark they had when they were not so razor sharp and i was just shooting without many worries.

In any case when I got familiar with the AF of a new camera I'm using, and I have learned the strengths and weaknesses, I get better results than focusing manually. I think I'm still good a focusing manually, it is just that the information delivered by these new cameras, shows how good I am. Before I did not exactly know how good i was. definitively tolerances, technical and hardware tolerances have tightened up and therefore also out tolerance has evolved. but more than that i think is the capability that we have of seeing what we could not see few years back. yes we could look at a large photo print and get an idea of what we had achieved on term of quality, but we could not pan that print around at 100% magnification using the "cursor hand" few second after we shot it. And we could not see, within a snap of a sec, the frame we shot right after and the following ones.

For me that I shoot people (mainly fashion models) with at least a bit of movement, I think a good use of AF is preferable, rather than getting nut on focusing manually, because by focusing manually we will never reach the degree of reliability and accuracy that an Af system can give if the camera is pointed at someone walking around. I think  that a 20 or 30mp advantage, can be immediately negated if the clothing or eye brows are front focused by 3 or 4 centimeters.
I eventually relay on manual focus, when i shoot beauty close ups and I cannot place the AF sensors where I would like. Also by incident when I'm so close to the face, I can clearly discern eye lashes and wrinkles that I can actually be sure if i'm tack sharp. With a medium format, is nearly impossible to shoot beauty close ups in AF, at least for me.
« Last Edit: December 07, 2008, 11:52:23 pm by ziocan »
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BruceHouston

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« Reply #32 on: December 07, 2008, 11:21:07 pm »

Thanks all; this topic is very interesting and timely for me.

Bruce
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Morgan_Moore

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« Reply #33 on: December 08, 2008, 02:15:24 am »

Quote from: ziocan
Any time I look back to my old scans, I realized that what was considered in focus and sharp by an AD, printer tech or a fashion/beauty editor, it looks pretty out of focus to me today,
 
..but they may miss the spark they had when they were not so razor sharp and i was just shooting without many worries.

Yeah I did an a job at a school I think it was 1/30th with the D3 on an 80-200 non VR - partly testing 'how low can I go' with the high ISO ' - can I just capture some moments rather than concentrate on lugging all my flashes around

I was trying to rediscover my photographic joy from when I was a kid with a Nikkormat and a roll of self rolled Tmax that was probably fogged at the edges and would be developed for 'one beer' if it was sunny or 'two beers' if it was dark

I got a picture with a bit of emotional spark and also a bit of movement

The picture editor who also happens to be a Canon using Flash 'guru' when not picture editing was most displeased with the technical imcompetence of the picture I think they had forgotten

1) that it was a pleasing image
2) that it was only going to be printed on toilet roll

I think that anyone who wants technical perfection at high MP will be let down by most current technology, AF , GG whatever - you need tripod live view/tethered to shoot at the resolutions of current cameras

And nothing kills spark like a tripod and tethered computer for me !

The MP race is therefore futile (unless you are Rainer or in a studio)  IMO because you just get to look at shit better

ps I have been focus bracketing with my body since owning my 'off' mamiya/proback combo which is now gone

S
« Last Edit: December 08, 2008, 02:23:31 am by Morgan_Moore »
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