Comments on: Manual Focus in Photography: The Ultimate Guide

By: Krishna Sujeev

Krishna Sujeev — Sat, 13 Nov 2021 06:46:58 +0000

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By: Rodrigo Echegoyen

Rodrigo Echegoyen — Thu, 11 Nov 2021 17:18:56 +0000

For all amateurs with big aspirations, you may also want to mention that all Leica lenses are fully manual and some of the most famous photographs worldwide have been taken that way.

By: NV_tele_watcher

NV_tele_watcher — Thu, 11 Nov 2021 09:32:57 +0000

Tim, you totally missed a very important point. When a novice (and many professionals) wind up continuing to focus hoping their focus gets better, but what happens is that the lens of your eye becomes the focus lens. The proper way to focus a camera is to focus once and forget it which then gets proper focus without creating your eye’s lens to work overtime in its focus point and that tends to throw off the camera’s focus.

By: Carmen Ray Anderson

Carmen Ray Anderson — Wed, 09 Mar 2016 07:45:00 +0000

Thank you so much. I have just switched to manual focus and have been experimenting. This article offers the encouragement I need to stick to the process

By: Barry Levy

Barry Levy — Wed, 25 Nov 2015 22:36:00 +0000

I have been a photographer now for about 55 years and I love manual focus. I now use digital cameras, for most of my work and am disappointed, not by my work, but in the focusing screens. The old, manual, cameras had ground glass with microprisms and/or split image areas available (in some of the better cameras, interchangeably). Digital cameras, even the top of the line, do not have this available. I still get fine focus with my digital tools, but yearn for the speed that the older cameras had when focused manually. I hope that these will become available over time. It would be a worthwhile tool to have.

By: Rcfarago

Rcfarago — Wed, 11 Mar 2015 00:12:00 +0000

I think this is a very good point to make to all those photographers that have become reliant on auto systems that may detract from the act of thinking about what one is trying to achieve! I also liked your article on back focus button use… Good to jog people into thinking and shifting away from shooting as many frames as possible in the hope that one is ok

By: Tim Gilbreath

Tim Gilbreath — Fri, 06 Mar 2015 02:14:00 +0000

In reply to manicdee.

Thank you for reading!
Definitely, that’s also an applicable scenario, and great job outlining the steps 🙂

By: Carlos J Encarnacion

Carlos J Encarnacion — Fri, 06 Mar 2015 00:25:00 +0000

I wished for auto focus when I was learning back in the 70’s in order to work fast moving subjects, it is here and sometimes it does not cut it. For fast moving subjects I use a movie filming technique, although they know excatly where their subjects are going to be at a specific time and scenes can be repeated. Practice predicting where the subject is going to be and what position your hand should be on the focusing ring. It is not easy… I will use autofocus for unpredictable subjects and kind of hope for luck, for about everything else I prefer manual. That is why I prefer Pentaxes and Nikons, they have kept their original mounts and there are millions of lenses out there for them. I can live sans auto focus.

By: manicdee

manicdee — Thu, 05 Mar 2015 21:47:00 +0000

In reply to Matt Vargo. I have the Nikkor 105mm Micro, which doesn't have the aperture control ring (as Ken Rockwell states, the G stands for "gelded"). I still adjust the settings through the camera though, and I have to agree that the mental exercise of deciding how I want this shot to work means I end up taking better pictures.

By: manicdee

manicdee — Thu, 05 Mar 2015 21:42:00 +0000

Thank you for the clear and succinct article Tim! I especially like that you’ve broken the article down by scenarios, explaining why manual focus is helpful in each scenario.

Another scenario in which manual focus is useful is photographing objects that are moving past at a rapid rate but with predictable positioning, such as people walking past on the sidewalk, cars zooming past on a race track, or a flower bobbing in the breeze.

The catch with this scenario is that using autofocus will usually fail because the camera spends time trying to find the target, ending up with perfectly focussed footpath, race track or garden bed with intended subjects either out of focus or out of frame.

So what you do is switch to manual focus, adjust the focal plane and depth of field so that you know where the subject needs to be for a clear shot, then trigger the shutter when the object has moved to where you want it (or even triggering the shutter when you know the object is moving and will be in the right place by the time the shutter actually opens).