> Shel asked:
> Can an AF sensor focus on something as small as an eye? It
>seems that, from what I understand you to be saying, it may not
> be possible to get that precise, and that MF may well be a
> better, more accurate, method of focusing when making typical
> portraits, especially if one were to be using wider apertures.
> Is that a realistic conclusion?
Shel,
from my experience it is a realistic conclusion. When I try to
focus right on the eye,sometimes AF locks onto the nose or forehead
an inch or two shorter than the eye is, since the eye is simply an inch
or two deeper than the rest of the persons head and the sensor is
simply to big to do the job. In general, if one uses spot AF ( only
one AF sensor that is), this isn't a big problem, since the DOF
covers it. But when it comes to wide apertures, this becomes a bigger
problem. I have more than one portrait photo where the forehead of
the person is perfectly sharp, but the eyes are already beyond the
range of the DOF. That is why many times I prefer to use my ME Super
for portraiture.
But, to be honest, I have to add that sometimes, especially when the
subject is moving, autofocus simply does better job than me trying to
manually follow the person. So bottom line is that one needs to
understand what's going on and the results get better with better
focusing technics (AF or MF). I'd say that even with AF, there is a
lot of room for improvement in focusing skill of the photographer.
Matjaz
Matjaz Osojnik, B.Sc.M.E.
Hajdrihova 4, IBE, d.d., 1000 Ljubljana
Slovenia
Europe
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