On Sat, Jan 14, 2006 at 10:55:36PM +0100, Jens Bladt wrote: > The AF point was covering the subject in all shots. There's no such thing as "the AF point" - there are 11 of them. (Well, really, there are 20 sensors, located at 11 different sites).
> But if the AF system finds something more contrasty elsewhere, that's what > will be in focus. Only if you tell the camera it's free to pick and choose where to focus. > The system just isn't that reliable. Yes it is. It does what you tell it to. If that isn't what you want it to do, that's not the camera's fault. The AF system is about as good, or as bad, as the auto-exposure system. Each works well in "dumb user" mode for some class of photographs. If you exercise a little more selective control, and give the camera a little more information about how you want it to perform, it will do a better job. > I know that I could have done this as well or better using manual focus. > This is exactly my point: > The AF system works fine as long as there's a lot of light and the subject > doesn't move. > For action photography (where the photographer or/and the subjects are > moving), > when I really want AF, this system is close to useless. > > Luckily I'm not a sports photographer and I'm not a professional. If I were, > I'm certain I would not be using this camera system. As has been pointed out, I *am* a sports photographer, for a very fast-moving sport. I do use the *ist-D. I don't think it's "close to useless", but perhaps that's because I'm using the tool appropriately. It's quite a complicated system, with a lot of user-selectable options.
