Control the Focus

Wednesday, 9 Nov 2005 | Photography

I made it a point to focus manually during my photo shooting session two days ago. I used to own a Nikon F3-HP with all manual focus lenses. I like to use wide apertures for shallow depth of field sometimes. There's just something about the look of isolated focus that's appealing to me.

My Nikon 180mm f/2.8 D lens has a nice rubberized focusing ring that has a feel much akin to a manual focus lens. I find that a lot of newer autofocus lenses have wimpy little focusing rings that aren't as smooth and silky as I like.

I like how I can precisely focus on a subject without recomposing when I use manual focus. I usually place the center focus indicator on the subject to autofocus and then recompose the shot. There's a feeling of satisfaction I get when I control the focus. That's not to say I don't value autofocus. I do very much. For fast moving subjects, it allows me to track objects with speed and precision. But when I have the luxury of time to photograph a still subject, I rather enjoy manually focusing.

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