Notorious T.O.D. Loc: Harrisburg, North Carolina

I will challenge the OP to stand beside me and shoot subjects coming at me and going away at 50 to 100 mph using manual focus. Let’s see who gets more in focus shots. I can drive a screw with a hammer but a screwdriver works better, especially in a drill...

Bullfrog Bill Loc: CT

Panning is used extensively with modern dslrs.

kymarto Loc: Portland OR and Milan Italy

The reason that sports guys use AF instead of MF "follow focus" is the same reason that engineers use calculators instead of slide rules--speed and accuracy. Sports photogs these days routinely capture images that would have been impossible or one-in-a-million a few years ago. For professional sports photogs, the one and only rule is to get the shot. AF is the way to make sure that you get back to the editor with something he can use, and so that you will be hired again, or if you are on staff, will keep your job.

Amateurs can play with old techniques for fun, but this is a bit like learning good horsemanship when everybody else is driving cars.

ggab Loc: ?

They are no longer necessary.
I doubt there are many people that hunt that know how to effectively hunt with a flintlock rifle.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

We can't be lost. The GPS told us to go this way.

Najataagihe

This is EXACTLY what I am trying to do.

There is far too much useful information in your post for me to respond to every point.

Thank you for taking me seriously.


I am a "Rip Van Winkle" of photography.

A lot has changed in 24 years.

Thank you for helping me get up to speed.

Najataagihe

Wouldn't using Aperture-preferred or Shutter speed-preferred automation solve that?

Or does auto-exposure only mean full Auto or Program, these days?

It seems my terminology needs updating as well as my technique.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

For the most part, DSLRs are biased toward the widest aperture and slowest shutter speed before raising the ISO. As a result of this bias in the two 'priority' settings, you may end up at too slow a shutter or too wide an aperture as compared to your own human-decided settings. In manual, these settings are under the human control, for better or for worse.

Even today, the DSLR technology is changing. The newest high-end cameras are adding the best of both worlds via AUTO-ISO with Exposure Compensation in Manual Exposure. Now, the photographer can specify an aperture, a shutterspeed, and an offset to the meter's 0-mark to accomplish exposing to the right. With the cameras the computer can dynamically manage only the ISO, but still to a setting the human specified.

Najataagihe

Shoot, *I* am out of date and behind the times!

That's why this post exists, in the first place.



Heads up, Bubba.

I can "grumpy old man" with the best of them.

(Nothing but love.)



"Troll under the bridge" trolling?

Hardly.

"Trolling for information that is sorely needed"?

Bingo.



I call "grumpy old man"!

You may never respond to me, again, but I will continue to glean useful information from your responses to others.

Keep those cards and letters coming!


Do you have cats?

(Previous sentence hereby clearly labeled as a tongue-in-cheek troll-under-the-bridge troll.)

joer Loc: Colorado/Illinois

The skills are nearly the same. Its sort of like a button fly and sipper fly...bother serve the same purpose, one is just more reliable. And if the call of nature was urgent, I'd rather have the sipper.

Najataagihe

Cuss it all, THAT'S what I was missing!

Thank you.

I keep forgetting we can change ISO as we please, instead of being locked into one value.

That changes the whole ball game as far as Aperture- and Shutter-priority.



Are you describing an ISO-preferred auto mode?


::muttering:: As if I didn't already have enough to study.

bleirer

The 'learn' section on this website gives a lot of basic info without dumbing it down, so could be beneficial to read some of them. https://photographylife.com/

If you want a book, this one is a winner for $20, assuming you want to go way deep into the why of things. https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/books/understanding-photography-v2/

There is still shutter priority, aperture priority, program mode, manual mode, as there was in the day, in addition ISO can be manual or auto, or auto with upper and lower limits, or auto with a minimum shutter speed. You can shoot manual with auto ISO and still get exposure compensation, oddly.

There are many other modes than can be safely ignored. For example my camera has A+ which takes full control and tries to guess by pattern matching whether you are shooting a portrait, sports, landscape, etc.

For metering the usual spot or center or evaluative/matrix is still there, but the evaluative/matrix is much better now and works mostly universally, even with backlighting, , and you can look at the result and it's histogram right away, or even before you press the shutter.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

So, the way to workaround giving the camera 'too much' control in the Priority settings is to set a lower and / or upper limit to the shutterspeed, and I think even with some cameras, the aperture. Or, if you go with AUTO-ISO, setting limits on the ISO to force the camera to pick more appropriate shutterspeeds and apertures. This takes knowledge and practice and you have to remember to remove these limits when done shooting in a particular situation.

olemikey Loc: 6 mile creek, Spacecoast Florida

I have old gear and new gear, manual to full auto.....can and do use them all, different times, different ways. Being blessed with fairly quick reflexes and great eyesight w/o correction, and a steady hand, I can follow focus with manual, and predictive focus and pan moving scenes, even fast moving action quite well....but it is still hard to beat the speed/accuracy/and steadyness that modern gear brings to the game, probably near impossible for some. You cannot beat great technique and knowledge, and modern gear does shine, but you can enhance the experience blending it all.

Many features like cameras with in body stabilization/focus peaking can and do make some old manual lenses very usefull and fun again, old AF lenses can shine with these same features. The old gear mingles pretty well with the new, and the old techniques still have their usefulness, mingle well with modern gear. I am glad I learned with film and full manual equipment, still enjoy them, buy also greatly appreciate the modern photographic conveniences. Like with many things in life, all these things "blend well" in the right situations, and we should use all the technique we have learned on our journey, and choose the conveniences that best fit either the circumstances, or our desires. A always, YMMV.

Najataagihe

Bookmarked.

Thank you!