Instant Manual Focus Override. Overrated?

I don't think it's overrated at all.   I find it extremely useful.

For whatever reason, probably due to shooting in low light most of the time, I have situations where my lens misses focus and racks down to one extreme or the other and gets stuck there.   Especially when I'm shooting fleeting moments (kids, pets, wildlife, sports), I REALLY appreciate being able to quickly twist that focus setting and get the lens back on track.    (I'm looking at you, my beloved 105vr.)

On the other hand, I have two lenses that are downright painful to get back on track.  My 80-200F2.8 (which doesn't too often have an issue) is one.  I have to push a button and turn a ring to engage manual focus. Then change hand position and touch focus.   Then I have to disengage manual focus to put it back to autofocus.

Similar, but worse because it happens more (especially when I used a D200), is my 80-400vr.   Again, you have to twist a ring, change hand position, get focus close, twist a ring again, and then autofocus.   By this time, that wonderful bird shot is lost.

I have a few AF or AF-D lenses that require me to flip the CSM switch on my camera, but these are all fast short primes, and then tend not to have too much problem getting stuck at one end of the focus range.   I can recover from a focus failure there by pointing to some higher contrast object and getting the lens back into a suitable range.

I'm telling you, when this happens, it just frustrates the heck out of you how slow it can be to recover.   My AF-S lenses (300F4, 105vr) are far quicker to deal with.   My 300F4 has issues sometimes when mounted on my Nikon V1.

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Craig
www.cjcphoto.net