I long ago decided that AF stands for Almost Focused. My usual practice is to use AF-S, back-button focusing, center spot. I center my subject, let the camera do its AF thing, and then I swing the camera to my intended composition and use the Quick-Shift manual focus to make any adjustments. I love my 77/1.8 Limited, but when I put that lens on, and other more primitive lenses like it without Quick Shift, I go to purely manual focus. Side note, I was quite disappointed to see that the new release of a 77/1.8 apparently does not have the Quick Shift upgrade so I will stick with my old one.
Stan > On Feb 24, 2021, at 10:26 PM, Larry Colen <[email protected]> wrote: > > Just like Arthur Dent and Thursdays, I’ve never really gotten the hang of > autofocus. I think that I’ve pretty much bludgeoned autoexposure into > something resembling submission, but getting my camera to autofocus > correctly, on what I want it to is at best a stochastic exercise. > > On my K100, K20 and K-x I just gave up and installed Katzeye screens and > mostly did manual focus, and because of the way the katzeye worked, that > meant I also ended up doing manual exposure as well. > > Historically, overall, I seem to have had the least bad luck, with it in AF-S > mode, selecting a single point, and using the AF button to lock out the > autofocus once I thought I had it properly focused, Even so, I get a lot of > photos perfectly focused on the microphone in front of a singer, the wrong > portion of a bird, the wall behind dancers, or on absolutely nothing at all > in the frame. > > Lately, I’ve been experimenting with AF-C and AF-A (I’m not sure I understand > what AF-A is), and things don’t usually seem to be much worse. I’ll also > occasionally play with the sel-9 autofocus mode. > > I realize that different types of photography take different techniques. > With static scenes I can fiddle and frotz until I get something that seems to > work, but when photographing birds, either in trees or on the wing, I really > need some techniques and settings that at least improve my odds of getting a > shot in focus. > > What settings do you use in which situations? > > -- > Larry Colen > [email protected] > > > -- > %(real_name)s Pentax-Discuss Mail List > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- %(real_name)s Pentax-Discuss Mail List To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
