AF+MF or How do you use Manual Focus

sparky_parrot wrote:

Hello everyone,

I'm a hobbyist taking mainly landscape and wildlife shots and doing a bit a video here and there. I'm always relying on AF for my shots, I never use MF.

When doing landscape with short focal I do AF on something a bit further than the hyperfocal and I'm done.

On wildlife with longer focal I usually use single point AF or small 3x3 zone and let the magic happen. I could try to adjust with MF sometimes I'm not just confident enough and also I'm not sure about the settings or how to use it.

(I selected the mode FOCUS PEAK HIGHLIGHT RED (HIGH) with all the red dots, but I really don't know what it means)

My question is related to photo/video and your experience of using Manual focus or AF+MF, how do you use it if ever so. What would be your advice ?

Note: I have X-T1 and X-T2 bodies, mainly kit 18-55 lens and 100-400

Usually best to do it with manual lenses as it is not focus-by-wire. MF is a joy to use with vintage lenses.

When using focus peaking, as the phrase suggests, the camera highlights where the focus peaks. So if it is red in areas, the camera thinks that the red dots are in focus. This is more evident when you have thinner depth of field (closer subject or faster lenses) you can see a thin focus plane moving back and forth as you turn the focus ring.
I usually switch my camera to MF all the way. You can still press the AF-L button to activate the autofocus even on manual mode. This way, when shooting a bird for example (I'm not an expert here), you can press the AF-L to focus on the bird then just keep shooting without activating the AF again.. So it's like, AF -> shutter, shutter, shutter... Instead of AF -> shutter, AF -> shutter, AF -> shutter if this makes sense?

When shooting with a vintage lens, I set the film simulation to Acros and image quality to RAW. The highlight is either red or blue (I prefer blue). This way, you can see the peaking clearly. Then, use the in camera raw converter to change it back to a colour if need be.

Hope this helps!

Hi,

I can explain briefly why and how I use AF+MF mode.

Why. There are a few cases when MF helps: 1) focus on an eye partly hidden behind thin hairs, or 2) the subject is not flat or not large and AF might settle for the background, 3) set quickly the focus on infinity (set focus ring mode to non-linear in the menus) etc. There are usually many ways to handle special cases with X cameras. MF is one among others.

Two manual focus modes.

1. The AF-M mode. It is useful for static situations. The iris opens around f/4 when using that mode. After half-pressing the shutter release the focus ring is disabled.
2. The AF+MF mode. AF+MF works only in AF-S mode AND with single point mode. AF+MF needs to be activated in the menus before it can be used. The way to use it is to turn the focus ring with the shutter release half pressed. Then the focus ring gains the control over the lens. The iris stops down to the shooting aperture. Focusing with the iris stopped down is sometimes useful if the lens has curvature of field. Otherwise AF+MF provides a quick way to switch between MF and AF. Another use case is shooting with the smallest shutter lag whether the EVF is zoomed or not while doing manual focusing.
   There is a small nuisance. One needs to get in AF-M mode to switch peaking between on and off.

Peaking or not peaking. Peaking if the background is far enough behind the subject. No peaking if the surrounding may peak as well and become confusing. And no peaking for some flat subjects with much visible texture; the texture all becoming sharp at once is sometimes better than peaking. So it depends. I feel sharp lenses need less peaking.

You might need to have stabilization on with the 100-400.

Back-button focusing works fine in combination with AF+MF.