I just want to reiterate what I found through another weekend of testing the camera.
The AF assist is just that, an assist. It is not absolutely necessary, as the camera
will focus down to EV 1 without the assist, although the assist does help with the
speed of the focus. (MF is always an option as well). EV 1 is pretty darn dark, so
it may not be that much of a problem for some people. (The Elan IIE, the EOS 3 and
the EOS 1v will AF down to EV 0.)
To again point out, if you don't want flash in low-light, the AF assist will not
operate at all because you need to pop up the flash for the AF assist to fire. If you
do want to use flash, there is a CF that will turn off the AF assist, but still fire
the flash.
As for pros using MF, two recent books, Bird Photography by Arthur Morris and John
Shaw's Nature Photography Field Guide (I'd call these books "new," but I don't want to
get flamed), point out that AF is extremely useful (and accurate) when photographing
moving subjects, such as birds and mammals. You can add sports to that list as well.
Therefore, bird photographers, wildlife photographers, and sports photographers all
use AF. That sounds like a sizable portion of the "pro" photographers out there.
Tom D.
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