If the technology is a true replacement, I'm happy to make use of it. I see no merit in being able to do, by hand, something that a simple mechanism can do as well or better.
Personally, for what I do, auto-focus has been a great benefit. It's not perfect, but it's useful. It gets things wrong sometimes, but not as often as I was missing shots (especially with the greater control on AF point selection that I have with the *ist-D). But that's mostly because of the sort of photography I do - in other situations, manual focus would produce a better image (in the hands of a sufficiently skilled photographer). Unfortunately a consequence of the trend to auto-focus has been to make manual focus a great deal harder. > It's true. I agree with that very much. Taking action shots with a manual > focus lens is very difficult at first. Man I was photographic this duck > when suddenly it took off and I thought I was going to get a great in flight > shot... but then I realized I was turning the focus ring the wrong > direction, then I turned it back the other direction, but due to the > direction the duck was flying the focal area passed quicker than I expected > and by that time it was pretty much too far away to be worth taking a > picture of... Better luck next time I guess. So yeah, all those features > are neat and all, but in the end they just took being a photographer away > from the photographers and gave it to the hacks who will do anything for a > buck. Seems that lots of jobs are going this direction thanks to > technology. > > -Shawn > > -----Original Message----- > From: William Robb [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2004 8:20 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Pentax * ist D doing badly in Fotomagazin test > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Rob Studdert" > Subject: RE: Pentax * ist D doing badly in Fotomagazin test > > > > On 11 May 2004 at 19:07, tom wrote: > > > > > The latest IS versions have a panning option which works well for > some types of > > > action shots... > > > > Maybe so but I just hate seeing it being touted as a panacea. > > It's a replacement for a particular skill. > All that features do, is allow the photographer to get by with less > developed skills. > > William Robb > >
