relearning manual focus

[Peter Blake]

I wondered if anyone has any tips on how to reacquire manual focus skills?

I bought my dream lens, a 400mm manual focus variety; it occurs to me that the learning curve is going to be quite steep if I continue to use AF with other lenses, assuming that they all focus in the same direction (that bit is quite important, I must check that they do..)

when I say reacquire, we all had to before AF appeared. I fitted a split image/microprism screen in one body and kept the standard matte screen in the other. the split screen is useful for fine focus but slightly obscures my vision of the whole screen especially when follow focusing.

the freedom from the dictatorship of the the focusing points though, is highly recommended

 

[Pete Askew]

I never stopped and rarely use AF (even on the D3). What body are you shooting with? The D3 has a good screen for manual focus and on my film cameras I always swapped the split screen for either a plain one or a grid. I found the split distracting and rarely used it as a focusing aid as often the main element was in another area of the frame. I'm not sure if I have any tips really though.

 

[Peter Blake]

I never stopped and rarely use AF (even on the D3). What body are you shooting with? The D3 has a good screen for manual focus and on my film cameras I always swapped the split screen for either a plain one or a grid. I found the split distracting and rarely used it as a focusing aid as often the main element was in another area of the frame. I'm not sure if I have any tips really though.

D300 with the std screen. D1 with a split/microprism which as you say, is not great for off centre subjects, but fine otherwise. apart from blacking out at F7

have been looking at D3s as well as D700 and D600. though I will probably end up with the 700, that was the original plan with the battery and card plus ergonomics all tied to the D300.

I think the biggest one is to try to stick to m/f. I always seem to have problems with shorter lenses ie anything under 100mm, really struggle with manual focusing