On 17 Apr 1998 22:27:46 -0700, derrick@sonic.net (Derrick Low) wrote:
>JMM Garza (jmmgarza@sirius.com) wrote:

>: I feel that there is no reason for a professional photographer to use auto
>: focus. That is unless he/she is lazy, has bad vision or slow at focus. Yes
>: there are rare times when you want the camera to do all the work. But I find
>: that I trust my wrist and eyes more than any form of auto focus. I do love
>: precise light meters though!

>I totally agree. And I take it even farther than that.
>
>I never use the remote because I find I can change channels more
>accurately and quickly by getting up from the couch, walking 10', and
>going through each individual channel than by using the remote.
>
>When I need to add up some money, I always write it out by hand,
>because my calculator is always off a little, and somewhat slow. To
>tell the trught, I don't even use those "handy" little techniques
>everyone learned in school; I just draw a dot for every penny, and
>count them all up in the end. It works much faster than my TI-36.
>
>If I want to hear some music, I just stare at those "microscopic" pits
>(you know we all can see them; most people are just to "lazy" to look
>closely enough), and figure out which frequencies to use in my
>head. Then I figure out how the CD should sound on a normal player. Of
>course, when I play the music in my head, its much closer to the
>original recording (even better than vinyl!).
>
>In fact, I didn't type this post up. Whenever I need to use the net, I
>just pick up the phone, dial my ISP, and whistle *VERY* carefully into
>the reciever. Much easier and more accurate than using a modem.
>
>(ps: one big smiley for the whole post :-)

Hey, I totally agree!!! ;-), ;-), ;-)
Seriously, though, I personally find AF more of a pain-in-the-neck
than a real aid - I have even shot baseballs about to be caught or struck, in focus, even with a zoom lens using MF (with AF, I would not have been sure that either the shutter would fire at the right time, or that the small object I wanted in focus would actually be in focus). I find that there is often too quick an acceptance of auto features without an understanding of their shortcomings - and
for me the shortcomings of both AF and AE simply slow me down.
In manual, the whole process of selecting the subject, framing, focusing, and determining the exposure is one integrated smooth operation - with auto, it is more of a lurching process of letting the
auto feature first make its determinations, then comes my evaluating their accuracy/validity, then there is my taking the time to override the mistakes - which are not at all uncommon. In the end, it may boil down to, well, "laziness" and "good enough" standards vs. a concern (and ability...) to do better. If I can use an F3 to correctly expose and focus virtually every slide in 50 rolls on an architectural job, I would not accept the higher error rate I would get shooting the same job with AF gear. If MF helps me when shooting people to more quickly select and accurately focus on the correct point for focus (without always needing to lock focus and reframe), why would I put AF in the way? Someone who "snap-shoots" a few rolls of film a year using color negative film and getting tiny prints may be better served by AF/MF - or maybe better yet by a good "point-'n'shoot" instead of a good SLR system camera... I must say I have been surprised by the one-sidedness of the responses in this thread - especially since whenever someone brings over the latest whiz-bang camera for me to check out, I point it at something, hit the shutter release to start the AF, and half the time it visibly misses the focus slightly, right there on the ground glass! Accurate it ain't! (The ONE exception so far has been the rather too expensive Nikon F5...) If you stop the lens well down, do not care about the greatest accuracy, make small prints from color negative materials, do not shoot available (low) light, just "shoot the odds", and/or just don't care, AF/AE may be just fine. Personally, I have rare use for either...
(So, I guess I agree with the original poster, JMM Garza...! ;-)
David Ruether
http://www.fcinet.com/ruether