Are manual focus lenses a dying art

NXism wrote:

Practice, practice, practice. I have no problems manual focusing with legacy glass, even without x2 magnification. In fact, I prefer without in many circumstances. I'd say its even easier than on some old film SLR focusing screens. I've tried Olympus PENs- get to x5 magnification and even with IS it can be tricky holding the camera still enough at telephoto focal lengths. On top of that, you can see what's going on in the rest of the frame.

Whilst waiting and waiting for Ricoh to release their M mount module I had plenty of time to accumulate lenses and practice and practice my 2x magnification manual focus on the NX10. A very enjoyable experience and the NX10 does handle larger lenses very well.

The NX10 remains very dear to me and works well on manual focus.

I AM interested in focus peaking though. I've never used it but one fear from seeing how it works on videos is that your image on the screen has nasty red junk on it which might be a bit distracting or obstructive. Any thoughts on this?

Come the revolution and focus peaking - hah! Like car air-conditioning in a hot country, once you have it you are unlikely to buy another without it. Great stuff.

I have the GXR which has two modes of focus peaking - the first is reputedly very much like the sole Sony implementation of this resource. As I am unfamiliar with the Sony version I will describe the Ricoh Modee 1 - others say that this is very similar in concept.

In the Ricoh version you get the regular screen with nobtrusive fine white highlighted areas around the contrast-detected areas in focus - these intensify as you approach exact focus. Becasue they are very fine you (often) need to magnify the screen to see the finest detail. For example you can actually see fine traces on eyelashes that are in focus (I kid you not). However because of the fine detail the precision focus requires precision attention. But it is all worth while but good screen magnification is needed for the very best result. The other advantage is that the true colour and composition is largely retained on the same screen.

Mode 2 focus peaking is an exclusive Ricoh version. In this the screen is rendered in grey-scale and the objects blank until they come towards focus when the outlines start to stand out as thicker traces. Once focus is achieved they pop out with very sharp thin outlines. This is at first a bit of a culture shock to those more interested in gazing longingly at the image they are about to capture before they capture it. Not for big bright ovf mavins, but if you are more interested in getting it right quickly and actually capturing the image for posterity then it is a very serious working tool. And a great tool it is.

Mode 2 works a whole lot quicker simply because the images in focus simply "pop" out of the screen whhen focus is right. You are more techniccally intested in the "sharp pattern" than the "pretty" composed image.

So I can already hear the objections ...

You can set up (the Ricoh at least) so that soft press gives you the true uncluttered actual image for compositional and "longing view". Fn 1 can be made to toggle the screen magnification on/off and Fn2 to toggle focus peaking on/off.

Even in mode 2 you can still see sharp contrast peaked eyelashes or writing on a page that simply jumps off your screen when absolutely right. Ricoh also allows a one-button change between magnification modes 2x 4x or 8x. I find that 4x is a good compromise.

With a little practice the technique works as such:

Start with focus peaking mode 2 on. Soft press, frame and get rough focus visually at 1x magnification (soft press quite correctly is always what you see is what you get no matter what other setting you are using for focus peaking). Then release the shutter - some outlining is happening as you are fairly close to precise focus already, a slight focus explore and the outlined image is popping out of the screen. Usually good enough but if you need more precision then hit Fn1 with your thumb and you are in mode 2 focus peaking at 4x magnification (or whateevr your magnification pleasure) and you get the eyeballs and eyelashes in focus. Soft-press the shutter - looking good? make the capture.

Gets very quick with practice.

Hardly surprising that is see this as one of the greatest digital camera innovations in recent times. It makes manual focus very competitive and if not quicker than unthinking auto it is certainly quicker if the user wants to take full control of the focusing experience.