I manually focused! Gasp, gurgle! Grief with the Panny 100-300

Hen3ry wrote:

Very useful to my thinking and, I hope, to others too. (We wouldn't lke to think we were the only two people on the forum with these thoughts!)

Cheers, geoff

Geoff

The chat about the 300/6.3 Tokina mirror moved me to get mine out yesterday for a bit more introspection.

Its positives are that is very small for its reach and whilst it is manual focus it has been chipped for M4/3 and will auto magnify after a short delay to give some assistance with finding focus.  Focus peaking works sometimes and I think its reluctance is more to its natural low contrast than any lack of focus peaking effort by the camera.

Thats about it.

On the negative side I had a bigger think about its "hair trigger" focus that I had previously stated as being hair trigger towards infinity.   Well it might be better expressed as "hair trigger" everywhere and just about impossible close to infinity.  It is either in focus for a micro-turn or (mostly) out of focus.  And because that tiny fraction of movement passing over its best point still looks a little soft the optimist in the back of your brain thinks that you can keep fiddling and make it sharper and you simply keep trying.  In effect any user needs some time with this lens to know exactly the point where the focus is simply good enough.  More conventional MF lenses pass through perfect focus over a wider band and make it easier to judge the best point of focus.  In Tokina-mirror terms that best point is in a very narrow band indeed. Perhaps this is exteme lack of dof despite fixed f6.3 and the 4/3 sensor..  Flat plane objects are easier than mixed dof  multiple objects like blossom on a tree. Add that the focus ring is quite smooth but offers perhaps a little more resistance than it should resulting in a firm grip on camera body and perhaps more attention to the mechanical action of focusing than composition of the image.

All the while the lens tends to be dancing around a bit at the reach it is capable of and the fact that it is fixed aperture at f6.3 means you need shutter speed as well.  Higher ISO be my friend.  Of course you could use a tripod, but this seems quite contrary to the use-purpose of such a very small light lens.

In other words, with a slightly lowered EV to combat the inherent lack of contrast, some serious practice at recognising best point of focus  and slightly higher ISO to keep up the shutter speed the lens is capable of reasonably good images.  But it is no clicketty clack AF instant gratification lens  and even with some work by the user there will be disappointments.  I see it as a small lens for the kit bag to be used when no other lens handy will do the job.   This of course flies in the face of how we might master it - a lot of practice and frustration.

The dreaded doughnuts are not as bad as some might make out.  If you shoot a highly reflective surface (like still water) you are bound to be "not-amazed" but where there are no harsh reflections they are either not present or simply some soft swirly not unpleasant artifacts in the out of focus background.

Not a lens for the easy-shooter and perfectionists will not like it either.  This leaves the target market to the very small number of crazies who are willing to put effort into mastering the tool and willing to accept good enough images of something that their other kit would cost a considerable amount to do better at.

You had a lucky escape.  I suggest that your Tokina might have been consigned to the briney very quickly.  I managed to get some passable shots yesterday of the usual things close by.  I left the cat alone but some garden shrubbery was tortured  in the process.   They are still on-camera, if they look passable on closer look then I might post some examples.

Not a lens for mainstream but on balance I am more glad that I have it in my toolkit than not having it.  It is not a lot of money to hazard for what it can do.  As already noted - not a lens for ease of use or lens-perfectionists.