Why manual lenses?

I think MOST people who prefer MF were probably from the days when that's all they had.

Wrong Brian. I'm only 32 years old for example. All what is said above is right, excepted that MF lenses aren't always cheaper, especially Nikon ones (fast lenses).

You could be right !

 

Still..I have yet to hear of a MF lens with a plastic mount.

All of the above and a couple more. I have a D80 and the automation just does not work very well. The focus is occasionally wrong or more often, just wont stop hunting. Exposures are often off in either direction by more than two stops from what I want. With a G lens that has no aperture ring, I have to fiddle around a whole lot with the exposure compensation button. It is a lot easier to use an aperture ring. Don't know why they did away with the ring on G lenses. It's useful.

It's like asking why some people still prefer to drive manual transmission when there is auto option available? For some, there is joy in doing things in manual.

 

I think you can (almost) associate shooting for example an 85mm 1.4 AIS in full manual to driving a performance car in manual transmission.

To Charles Sallee- I don't mean to put a digression into this thread, but do you need an adapter to use your C/Y lenses on the Pasansonic DMC?

 

Can you give me more information on this?

To Allen Gross - Yes, I bought an adapter from Fotodiox for $25. It works well. It mounts on the camera body. I can change lenses quickly with no hassle. Both aperture priority and manual exposure modes are functional with an adapter. The viewfinder image is like having a DOF preview button continuously depressed. Lots of adapters are made for all kinds of lenses.

 

Only problem has been that my in-camera metering is not accurate when using the widest apertures. I have no idea why this is so. If I want to shoot at f2, I can meter at f4 and then quadruple the suggested shutter speed (two stops). No big deal.

 

I also apologize for wandering off topic. If responding this way is verboten, someone tell me and I'll not do it again.

Brian Duffy wrote "I think MOST people who prefer MF were probably from the days when that's all they had."

 

Um, Brian, we old farts know, as it were, how to walk. People who grew up with auto everything cameras were, as it were, issued crutches at birth and don't know how to walk. I wonder whether the original poster has legs.

I consider AI-S lenses as great bargains since they are in such great quality (image and build wise) but still affordable. If you don't enjoy shooting in full manual with AI-S lenses, I don't know what to say, really because all the manual focusing and all that is half the fun and the other half is knowing you just took a nice picture out of it.

 

Even my non-hobbyist partner thinks that manual focusing with AI-S lens feels more like "taking picture" compared to just auto AF snap snap snap. And this is coming from a person who knows very little about photography and not even really interested in it.

 

And no, I'm not old fart. But gotta admit, old farts' equipments actually rock. :)

To each his own. I know someone who does everything manually with two F100 cameras and a fleet of automatic lenses. For me I think it's a bit silly to pay for the new technologies that are designed to make a task easier and not use them. Neither of us is a better or worse photographer than the other. To me the final result (the image) is the most important goal. The process to get there does not matter that much: manual, automatic, metal, plastic, prime, zoom...what does it matter if the resutls are the same -- good, or awful?

 

Mary

I love Albert's anolgy. Today many (perhaps most) people have never driven a "stick shift" and associate them with vehicles such as buses and dump trucks and wonder why anyone would actually choose such a transmission for their car. There are reasons for the popularity of automatic transmissions. For most people most of the time they are the better choice. There is a learning curve for manual transmissions. It takes a while to learn to use them well. They aren't everyone's cup of tea.

 

Still, there are some areas where they work as well or even better than an automatic. Most importantly, they can simply be a lot of fun to drive, especially when paired with a great classic car. Every one of those things holds true for manual versus autofocus lenses.

 

Unfortunately, many of todays cameras don't have a viewfinder that's good enough to support manual focusing. If you are lucky enough to have one that is however, there are just tons of small, light, fast manual focus primes of reasonably good optical quality that are dirt cheap. I bought my Carl Zeiss 50/1.7 from KEH for $90. These lenses open up a whole new world of available light photography. There's not much of a downside to giving one a try. The intent is not to replace the autofocus zoom that comes on most cameras today, but to complement it.

That's why I emphasized the word MOST. I was just having a little fun with the subject.

R.L. Potts wrote:

 

I have a D80 and the automation just does not work very well...With a G lens that has no aperture ring, I have to fiddle around a whole lot with the exposure compensation button. It is a lot easier to use an aperture ring. Don't know why they did away with the ring on G lenses. It's useful.

 

My reply:

 

Disable exposure compensation at #11 in your menu. Then EC can only be performed when you simultaneously press the EC button and turn the dial.

 

The G lens aperture ring is required for a gasket between the lens and the camera.

 

Dan wrote:

 

People who grew up with auto everything cameras were, as it were, issued crutches at birth and don't know how to walk.

 

My reply:

 

You may be able to walk (if by "walk" you mean manually focus lenses, I do it all the time), but you can't fly without wings:<div></div>

Hi,

 

You simply cannot drive a car properly, as it was meant to be driven if it is an automatic. That is why racing cars are not auto's. Auto's do not change gear at the correct point and in many ways are actually dangerous, especially in inclement weather.

 

If you want to just 'tool around' than an auto is fine. If you actually want to DRIVE your car, then an auto is a pointless waste of time.

 

cheers Steve (UK)

Steve, we are talking about AF versus MF here, not "auto" settings on the camera. A more appropriate analogy to a car might be power brakes and steering; but all such analogies ultimately cause more confusion than clarification. In the image I included in my previous reply here, MF would have missed the shot, pure and simple; as I said in my first reply to this thread, it all depends on the application you are using the lens for.

First of all, I don't agree that people who use manual focus lenses do so because they grew up with manual everything, or do so because of nostalgic reasons. I've been interested in photography since I was 10 years old, have now just turned 42. When I was old enough to afford my own camera, about when I started university, autofocus was starting to be a viable option, after the initial attempts with the F3AF. So I bought an F801 with AF lenses, because I felt I absolutely had to have the latest technology. As I learned more about photography, I gradually became interested in manual lenses and manual cameras. My latest purchase has been an F3HP with two fast manual AIS lenses. It's like going backwards in time.

 

My reasons for using manual lenses are these:

 

1. Manual suits my favourite subjects best: landscapes, macro, architecture, travel, street photography ... I really don't see what AF would add to the picture, so to speak.

 

2. I rarely do sports photography, so I don't care about the latest, fastest, multipoint autofocus. I have recently shot kite surfers with a Bronica 6x6 with two prime lenses, didn't even have a metered prism and almost all my pictures turned out perfectly exposed and in focus. I missed 2 shots out of 3 films (36 exposures). I agree that AF can help in these situations, but it is not absolutely necessary if you know how to prefocus and if you work in non-changing light conditions.

 

3. Construction of AI and AIS lenses is superb, this can only be found on top of the line AF lenses. The two AF lenses I still own, 24mm f/2.8 and 50mm f/1.8 compare poorly to their AIS counterparts.

 

4. With wide angle lenses, and under the condition that you are working in broad daylight, all you need is to set your lens on the hyperfocal distance. My 24mm lens set to a working aperture of f/11 gets everything in focus from 1 meter to infinity. I just compose and shoot and don't have to worry about focusing. As long as your AF lens has hyperfocal distance marks on the barrel, you can of course use the same method, but it seems manufacturers are gradually doing away with these marks. Also, the longer focus throw of manual focus lenses makes it much easier to use hyperfocal distance.

 

5. I much prefer the way a manual focus lens focuses. They are better damped and have a much smoother and precise handling. Some AF lenses used in manual focus are terrible in this respect.

 

6. In low light conditions and/or with low contrast subjects, AF systems can start to hunt back and forth, in search of a point to focus on. Manual focus seems better suited in these situations. I know there are AF-S lenses with manual override, but manual still seems quicker to me.

 

7. There are situations where AF will be useless: macro is one area some people have already mentionned. Another case is when you want to shoot through a window. Try autofocus on a window that is not perfectly clean and your camera will not know where to focus on.

 

8. With off-center subjects, manual focus seems quicker to me than to place the subject on an AF sensor and recompose. By the time you recompose, your subject may have moved or his or her facial expression changed.

 

You may of course have different reasons to prefer AF over manual, but if you have the chance, try out some manual lenses. Coupled with a good viewfinder, I'm sure you will enjoy using them.

 

regards

 

Jan