The advantage of MF?

[hly168]

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After the FW2.0, look like everybody is very excited about the MF improvement. But usually in what situation to use MF? Why? And the advantage? Anyone use it more than AF? Thanks.

 

I am new in photography. Maybe the question sounds silly.

[Portobello]

It depends on the situation. For me...

 

Multiple subject distances: AF

Subject is in a static position or distance: MF

Low light or complex scenes with no contrasting edges on the subject: MF

Landscape shots where focal distances are beyond 10 feet or 5 meters: MF

 

I'd say 99% of the time I am using AF, even when it was slow in 1.0 I got along just fine with it.

 

EDIT: Oh and "macro" shots, I use MF. This thing can be really bad at focusing subjects that are too close to the lens. I'll have to test the AF and the macro with the new 2.0 FW.

[ChiILX1]

...usually in what situation to use MF? Why? And the advantage? Anyone use it more than AF? Thanks.

 

I am new in photography. Maybe the question sounds silly.

 

Hey no shame.

 

I usually use AF with the viewfinder.

 

MF is great when AF just misses for whatever reason - such as through smoke or in really low light.

 

MF is great for shooting through windows for example, where the AF wants to focus on the glass and you want to focus beyond it.

 

MF is great for scuba diving / snorkeling (UWA marine has cases that will work with the X1).

 

MF is great when AF isn't accurate enough (an extremely small thing)

 

MF is great when you will be shooting landscapes at infinity all the time and don't want to wait for focus.

 

MF is great for street shooting at the hip where you just want to keep it at 10 ft or whatever

 

 

Others will give more great uses.

[village idiot!]

i'm the oppostie of Portobello, i use manual focus about 99% of the time. i do a lot of street photography and use scale focus to take advantage of the increased amount of depth of field from the wide lens and smaller sensor (as opposed to the full frame M9). i usually set the focus to around 6' and use apertures at f/8 or smaller. i've had great success with this, as long as the light is bright enough to give me at least a shutter speed of 1/250 (to avoid motion blur).

 

with firmware 2.0 you get a depth of field scale along with the manual focus. check out how much DOF you get when you focus at 6' using f/16. looks to about from 3' or 4' to ∞ (that's a pretty great hyperfocal distance).

[sterbapetr]

What aperture and ft is the best on the street?

[sterbapetr]

ft ? street?

[trylab]

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Digiscoping! MF for shooting through a telescope.

Great improvement with FW 2,0!

[robert blu]

F 8 or 11; 400 or 100 iso depending on amount of light ; 6-8' distance

robert

[peekpt]

it's good for action shots with a small aperture you got a good depth of field range.

 

I got more excited when I mentally and manually guess the shot I want.

 

Imagine to take actions shots with a rangefinder like m9, that requirs a lot of skill.

[brucek]

One other benefit to MF is the reduction in shutter lag to almost nothing (compared, at least, to AF).

[Portobello]

i'm the oppostie of Portobello, i use manual focus about 99% of the time. i do a lot of street photography and use scale focus to take advantage of the increased amount of depth of field from the wide lens and smaller sensor (as opposed to the full frame M9). i usually set the focus to around 6' and use apertures at f/8 or smaller. i've had great success with this, as long as the light is bright enough to give me at least a shutter speed of 1/250 (to avoid motion blur).

 

with firmware 2.0 you get a depth of field scale along with the manual focus. check out how much DOF you get when you focus at 6' using f/16. looks to about from 3' or 4' to ∞ (that's a pretty great hyperfocal distance).

 

Your post has inspired me to try playing with the MF more

[village idiot!]

you'll love the MF, it definitely makes the camera a bit faster for "decisive moments", mainly for the reasons brucek points out above (no delay from auto focus). for my settings when i'm doing street shooting i'm usually hoping for a sunny day, that way i can use f/16, but no matter what f/stops i use i keep the focus set around 6', that to me is a comfortable distance from the subjects i take photos of; although sometimes i get closer but usually i'm assured at f/8 to get about 2' in front and 3-4' behind 6' still in focus, not too shabby to have 4'-10' of DOF to work with (maybe even a bit more). once you move to a smaller f/stop you'll see the logarithmic leap in DOF at f/11 and f/16. As I mentioned in the post above I like to keep my shutter speeds for street work at 1/250 or higher to avoid motion blur. Sometimes on hazy or cloudy days I’ll have to bump up the ISO to 800 to maintain that faster shutter speed, so far I’ve have no complaint about the output at that ISO, 1600 is pushing it a bit but not awful either. 400 ISO is where I usually stay, it’s instilled in me from my days using Tri-X.

[diogenis]

What aperture and ft is the best on the street?

 

There is no straight answer to that.

When one says wants to do street photo, it means that when he is out there shooting, he wants to capture events at the fastest possible speed as they happen that is. It can be in the streets or in a party. What you need is basically elimination of lag (lag being the time it takes when you press the button and when the camera records)

So, you have to have set your camera to fully manual, meaning you need to chose manually f/stop, time, ISO, and distance.

f/stop controls also depth of field (or zone). Zone is now indicated as a green strip in your distance scale and it means whatever you shoot in that zone will be -almost- sharp focused.

The higher the f/stops the bigger the zone, but there is a catch to also a bit worse lens performance. So f/5.6-8 is a good setting.

I forget now for the X1, but maybe you can restrict it to chose autoISO is 2-3 steps so to allow the camera to have some sort of exposure control but not very much. You still have to set it according to light.

[hly168]

Thank all of you for above inspiring input. Now I am more clear about when to use MF.

[Guest badbob]

Many times when shooting something like an animal in a cage, or trying to focus on someone standing between two trees and further away from the trees, even spot focus does not always get past the cage bars or the trees. But with manual focus you can be more certain you have the proper focus so you're not disappointed later.