manual or auto focus, does it matter?

[Petie]

My husband bought me a new lens for Christmas an AF Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6G for my Nikon D40. I love that he is thinking of things I would like lol but it doesn't auto focus on my camera. I've only been able to take a few pics with it and am not sure about the manual focus. So far it is hit and miss for focusing on what I want to.
So what do you prefer, manual or AF? I haven't decided if I should keep it or send it back.

 

[dendronepthya]

I've grown pretty used to AF. I don't think I would make it long with MF only even though I tend to MF a lot when I take macro pics.

 

[Petie]

thats what I'm thinking, macro is fine for manual and something i'm used to but manual seems too cumbersome for something your trying to quickly take a pic of. guess i'll play around with it. Kind of ticks me off that the D40 is the only D series Nikon it doesn't AF for.

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

It always confuses me when people buy D40's for this very reason. Auto focus varies greatly from camera to camera and lens to lens, so what camera/lens combo you are using determines how well your auto focus works. Judging by the amount of these posts, auto focus doesn't seem work at all with many lenses paired with the D40, so I suggest you learn the manual way. I have excellent lenses and my Canon 40D does a bang up job with all of them, so auto focus is just fine with me. The camera always seems to lock on just where I tell it to, unless it is extremely dark out which is understandable. Every lens I own goes to at least f/2.8, and on my camera I get an auto focus bonus for using f/2.8 or better lenses. So as you can see, aside from personal preference, the camera and lens used makes a big difference. This is one area Nikon wandered off the path IMO.

 

[nickb]

The D40 (and the D60) do not have an auto-focus motor in the camera body. Hence, they will not auto-focus with older lens which do not have an auto-focus motor in the lens: you need an AF-S style lens. Nikon (and third party vendors of Nikon mount lens) are moving towards up-dating lens with AF-S. The AF-S offers advantages over the body motor approach in terms of speed, quietness, etc.

The design route taken by Nikon and Canon is interesting (see here). AF lens first appeared in 1987/8. Nikon opted for backwards compatibility with its older lens by retaining their lens mount system and putting the lens motor in the body. Canon on the other hand, changed their mounting system and put the motor in the lens from when they first produced AF lens (1987). This caused major problems for Canon cameras at the time since there was no backwards compatibility with older lens. Nikon's first AF-S lens was made in 2000 .

It's always delicate if a spouse buys a gift which isn't ideal However, in addition to the auto-focus issue, the 70-300mm G lens does not get great reviews for its optical properties and performance (see here and here). The AF-S version at this focal length (the Nikon 70-300 VR) has much better reviews, will AF on the D40 but does cost more The 55-200mm VR doesn't get quite the same reach but also AF's on the D40 and gets generally good comments.

 

[Petie]

Thanks for the links Nickb interesting read. Your right about he spouse buying gifts being delicate But he said I could send it back when it arrived and pick out something else. I'm leaning twards sending it back. I've become a bit spoiled with the AF and am not sure I will really use a 300mm range all that much as I guess he didn't realize I have a 55-200mm lens and to me it seems a bit redundant to have that much overlap in lenses.

 

[tyoberg]

I like manual focus, but I hate manually focussing AF lenses. They're undampened, twitchy and usually have a tiny focus ring.

Another thing to consider is that your focus screen is probably not very accurately calibrated (being as how MF on a DSLR is not something that is often closely scrutinized). The mirror rest screw can be used to fine tune it so that an in-focus viewfinder = in focus photo.

I got an aftermarked split prism focus screen for my D40x that makes life a lot easier with MF lenses. I think it cost me about $25 on ebay and took about a half hour to install and calibrate.

I like the D40 series because it's compact (thanks to it's lack of AF motor) and will mount anything ever made for a Nikon SLR with rare exception. That means you can get some quality manual glass for very very cheap. It takes a fair amount of practice to be able to use them affectively, but it's also very rewarding. I love having an aperture ring too.

Most people buy the D40 to use the kit lens and maybe one tele-zoom lens and don't get much mileage out of anything besides the shutter, mode wheel and playback button.

 

[IslandCrow]

This is more for macro lenses, but I heard a cool little trick from a professional photographer that I've used from time to time, especially since my old camera's autofocus was sometimes unreliable. Basically, you use manual focus and focus on a general area where you want to shoot. Then, instead of messing with the focus ring, you move forward and backward to adjust the focus. Again, this is mostly useful for macro photography, since relatively small changes in distance can affect your focus fairly significantly. I used to use AF quite a bit, but I've missed quite a few shots where the camera decided to focus on something just a little bit off and I didn't catch it, so I've started using MF more and more these days.

 

[maxalmon]

Something that people tend to overlook is the quality of their eye exam or glass/contact perscription, this has more of an impact on your manual photography than most realize. Couple of months ago I had an eye exam, everything was fine for a while, then for the life of me I couldn't get a decent macro shot while in manual, so I figured out that my rx had changed, went back to my doc for a recheck and my right eye had changed a slight amount. some cameras have a diopter adjustment on the eyepiece or you can buy one to fit over.

If your vision is off, you'll over compensate while in manual focus, photo will look clear to you thru view finder, but when viewed on PC it will be off.