Manual focus over ride

[Deliberate1]

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Friends, I am slowly becoming acquainted with my new 006 and am enjoying it a great deal. I have a question about focusing technique. I find the auto focus to be a delight to use. My ratio of in/out of focus shots as compared to my M9 is considerably better. In part, because the auto focus function is quite accurate in the right circumstances. And where it is overwhelmed, I have been very successful with manual tweaking. I did get the split screen which helps enormously. And, of course, the OVF s brilliant. When I looked through it for the first time, I literally had the sense that I was in a movie theater looking up at the screen

My question is the proper technique for manual over ride of the auto focus. I have followed my intuition - pressing the shutter to engage the auto focus and then, with shutter remained depressed, adjust manually. While this works perfectly, I am concerned that the manual over ride is "competing" with the camera brain and motor. I have read that the the motors are a weak link in the design and do not want to put it to any undue stress. All that said, am I doing it properly? 

Any focusing tips would be much appreciated.

Obliged,

David

[jip]

You do it just as youre supposed to, however a lot of us put the camera in manual focus mode, and have AF not activate with the shutter release button, but by pressing the joystick on the back.

 

Give it a try!

[Deliberate1]

Interesting. Do I have to program the joystick to do that? I have not fully explored the programming functions in my leaning curve. Along those same lines, can the four nav buttons be permanently programmed? Seems that I directed the upper left to adjust ISO but it disappeared. Does that reset once the camera reboots?

All in alll what a lovely machine and shooting experience.

David

[mjrp]

Lots of ways of doing it, I have my cameras set to manual focus and rear joystick press for AF as jip mentions, I prefer activating af with my thumb anyway and by having the camera in MF all the time I know it will fire immediately on shutter press. The camera remembers what you chose so mine always restart in MF mode. 

 

Enjoy learning the camera.

 

Mat

[menos I M6]

David, you don't need to worry to use the manual focus override - the lenses are designed to be used like this, so use them like this.

 

You might want also to try another focussing method:

 

- set the camera to manual focus and program the little thumb button to initiate focus

 

This way you completely disconnect the focussing from the shutter release button and can focus with deliberately higher precision.

For example can you program the shutter release half press to lock exposure (same as with the Leica M7, M8, M9, …) and only initiate focus when you want to.

 

This is particularly useful when you want to zone focus or when you shoot panoramic stitches, …

I use this focussing technique on all my DSLRs.

 

To make switching between focussing modes easier, I have programmed the top right quick access button on the back to bring up the focussing method, so I can quickly switch from manual focus (use the thumb button to focus) to auto focus (use the shutter release button to focus).

[Deliberate1]

Dirk,

Obliged for yours. I programmed the toggle and it works great. Very nice to have the focus function separate from the shutter release. I find the auto focus to be very accurate. Frankly, better and faster than my manual work with the M9. White balance is dead on as is the exposure meter. Again, I have been getting a significantly greater number of properly exposed images than I do with the M9. It feels better in my hand than the M. And the OVF is a dream. Not dissing the M9. But the S is a whole different kettle of fish.

D

[menos I M6]

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David, it sounds like you found YOUR camera ;-) I am sure you are enjoying it.