which cameras offer manual focus

[biomed]

I'm interested in buying a digital camera and would like one with

manual focus. Besides the DSLR cameras are there any non-DSLR

cameras that offer manual focus? I'm looking for a camera that isn't

too big as I plan on taking it on hikes.

 

Thanks.

MM

[steve coburn]

Most of the 'SLR style' cameras offer manual focus. However they're not that small.

[phule]

It depends on what you mean by "manual focus"

 

My A80 has a manual focus mode that allows some pretty fine adjustments. This is done through a menu/option on the LCD. This feature is common on many digital cameras.

 

But if you're talking about actually focusing by turning something on the lens you'll have to look at the Leica Digilux 2 or possibly one or two of the newer 8MP prosumers.

[pascal_scheffers]

The A60 and A70 have it too. I've played with it and used it with some success. If you have lots of light, use a small aperture and know how far away your subject is, you can use it to take pictures faster, as it no longer needs to auto-focus. I was shooting with a huge DOF, though. I did not have much luck with zoom+small DOF.

 

In the end, I found it next to useless as there is no way to judge sharpness on the LCD.

[peter_burns1]

I guess what Rob and the others are trying to say is get the Sony F828, it has all you would need for hiking and great zoom.

 

Happy hiking.

[Troll]

The Minolta A2 is tiny, has a 28-200mm lens, and has the best manual focusing system I've ever seen, except possibly a Leica M3.

[m_.]

Another recommendation goes to Minolta A2, A1 ro 7i for its useful manual focus. I sold my Olympus C5050 for that exact reason - its manual focus is useless, though it does have the feature.

[jespdj]

The manual focus on my Powershot G3 was useless. It had even a special mode, where it would zoom in on the center portion of the image on the LCD to aid manual focus, but it was still very hard to see on the LCD if the image was sharp.

<p>If you have an idea of which camera you want, go to a shop and try it out - ask the salesperson to show how manual focus works and have a look if it is good enough for you. Personally, I'd want to be able to use the optical viewfinder for manual focus, but probably you'll only find that in a real SLR camera. By the way, the Canon EOS 300D (Digital Rebel) isn't that big and heavy.

[ian_donaldson]

I don't know if I would call my A2 tiny, maybe if you have large hands, but the huge advantage the A2 has over all other EVF-equipped cameras is its "1 megapixel" viewfinder, which is at least 3 times more than any of its competitors. This finder makes manual focus at least possible. Otherwise, focussing on an EVF equipped camera is very difficult. Some offer various magnification schemes when focussing manually, as does the A2, but more pixels really makes the difference.