civilized ku # 329-30 ~ it ain't what you eat, it's the way how you chew it
Monday, January 4, 2010 at 09:57AM 
it ain't what you eat, it's the way how you chew it • click to embiggenOr, in other words, it ain't what camera you use, it's the way how you use it.
On yesterday's entry, re: the EP-1 and its "lethargic" AF, Ulrik Fredrik Thyve left a comment wherein he erroneously stated:
... Having blazing AF is actually a huge advantage when you shoot irregular movements. You can in some way predict movements, but if you want subject isolation and the af-accurancy needed for such, you have to have good AF ...
Now, to be fair, Ulrik is just a student and, in addition to that handicap, he has only "been into photography for a few years", so one might give him the benefit of the doubt and chalk up his statement to a lack of picturing making experience. Either that or one must assume that he has fallen under the thrall / spell of the purveyors of the next best thing. In all probability, the genesis of his statement is attributable to both notions .... because ....
1 ... the only people who want, in fact, need us to believe that blazing fast AF is a prerequisite to making good/great pictures are those who are the purveyors of blazing fast AF. It is squarely in their interest and economic well-being to be the loudest and best hucksters of such picturing making "wisdom".
2 ... and, the only people who believe that claptrap are those without enough picturing experience to know and truly appreciate that any accomplished picture maker worth his/her salt don't need no stinking AF (slow or fast) to make good/great pictures under virtually any picture making circumstance and can do so with virtually any camera he/she might have handy.
To be certain and without a doubt, if one has to make a living picturing something like black cats chasing black rats in a coal bin at midnight, there is most likely a camera out there that will get the job done in a more expeditious fashion than some other cameras. And, a picture maker who spends a lot of time making pictures of black things in coal bins might be judged to be a bit of a risk taker or a fool to ignore the "huge advantage" such a camera might offer him/her in pursuit of making a buck.
But, that said, a picture maker who knows his/her equipment - its limitations, strengths, quirks, and foibles - and has a good working knowledge of picturing techniques that don't rely solely upon the machine's ability to "think" & "act" and has a working knowledge of the object of his/her camera's gaze, can and will come back with the picture goods every time.
Simply stated, to be ignorant of or to deny that possibility / reality is to be ignorant of the entire history of the medium prior to the advent of the "huge advantage" of modern technology.
That is why, in the wide-wide wacky world of picture making for hire, those doing the hiring don't really give a damn about a picture maker's equipment per se. What they do care about is hiring a picture maker who knows his stuff - re: the subject and how to picture it in a manner that meets the clients needs.
FYI, I humbly offer the following pictures as evidence of "having a working knowledge of the subject" and of "a picture maker who knows his/her equipment - its limitations, strengths, quirks, and foibles".
it ain't what you eat, it's the way how you chew it # 2 • click to embiggen
Case in point, that would be me making pictures of very fast moving subjects without the "huge advantage" of blazing AF.
My knowledge of the subject comes from having spent a considerable amount of time sliding on this track on a luge sled (with 2 amateur competition silver medals to my credit). That and observing Olympic / World Cup sliders - bobsled, skeleton, and luge - doing the same.
The camera employed in the making of these pictures was a decidedly non-blazing-anything Canon G5 P&S - a camera with considerable limitations and limited capabilities. Nevertheless, a camera that could deliver the goods because of my vast experience with picturing action without the "huge advantage" of blazing AF or, to be completely accurate, without the "huge advantage" of AF of any kind.
FYI, the skeleton slider in the middle picture - Olympic Gold Medalist, Jimmy Shea - is approaching my lowly G5, at this point on the track, at approximately 50-60 mph. Blink, and he's long gone. My chances of picturing success at this point on the track were greatly enhanced because my subject knowledge told me that he would be moving along closer to 70-80 mph at points farther down the track.
PS - it also worth noting that no "continuous shooting" capabilities were employed in the making of these pictures. Timing is everything - I don't need no stinking motor drive.
gravitas et nugalis
Featured Comment: Ulrik Fredrik Thyre wrote: "I'm glad i got someones attention enough to make me the target of some friendly ridicule, I'm sure it is all good natured :) ... Ironically, I think I shoot 99% MF, my mostly used lenses are fully manual lenses, and I do both sports, portraits, concerts and lots of other stuff with manual focus. I just don't think that ignoring the need in some situations for a good, fast pace AF is very constructive OR intelligent.
my response: Hey, Ulrik, thanks for commenting and hanging around the place. Your comments are always welcome and, yes, my response was meant to be friendly (although not to ridicule) and good natured. Happy to hear that you understood it to be so, even though you are "just a student" :)
And, of course, fast AF does serve a very useful function just as does a camera that can efficiently picture black cats chasing black rats in a coal bin at midnight.
Reader Comments (9)
I do like fast AF, but I can get by just fine with prefocusing and manual focus if needed. Indeed, for a lot of sports and particularly fast sports, its easier to not be using AF, which always seems to be following just where the things you wanted to take pictures of were, not where they are.
It is nice however to have a button that when pressed, takes the picture, rather than causes the camera to think about things for a while, then maybe make a picture a few 10ths of a second later. Even nasty shutter lag can be adapted to, but life is better with a more immediate shutter.
You miss the point. First you make ad hominem attacks on the person and illustrated great maturity, astute debating skills, AND that you've been using a camera for a real long time!. Then you proceed to confuse the real issue. The issue is the quality of the AF on the camera. Compared to other cameras, it's supposedly of poor quality (I can't say, as I've never used it).
Surely there are times when the quality of AF matters. Yes, you may not NEED "blazing fast AF" on your camera to make great pictures; but if you follow your logic to its conclusion, that means you don't need AF at all. So why bother, right? Let's all move backward in time a few decades and stop technological progress in its tracks. You don't NEED digital photography -- you can make great photos with film. You don't NEED lenses faster than, say, f/2.8 -- you can make great photos without them. So if we don't NEED all these things, why bother making qualitative judgements at all? Why not pick up any random camera and use it? Why bother purchasing that EP-1 in the first place -- you don't NEED it to make great pictures.
As an aside directed at your attempt to redirect the conversation, see Michael Reichman's treatment of the subject of whether the camera matters.
Looks like you struck someone's sensitive point. While, interestingly enough, he (she?) seems to have totally missed yours.
Can't we just go back to talking about something other than autofocus and camera equipment so everyone stops being so angry?
Did anyone else hope that the pan was washed and put away when I got home?
@ the wife: Why ruin a perfect good still life simply to have a clean sink?
@ Jimmi: mice
I'm glad i got someones attention enough to make me the target of some friendly ridicule, I'm sure it is all good natured :)
When that is said, I could picture (and have done similar things) an entire event of sledding without even focusing more than one time. It is pretty much 100% predictable where the cart will be, so prefocusing is perfectly fine, just as it is on a lot of dog-shows, beacause the dog must go trough that hoop.. The difference between my example, martial arts with a lot of rapid, unpredicatble movement, and the beforementioned examples, is the predictability of motion. I can prefocus when i cover martial arts too, but then I'll lose out on many great moments.
Ironically, I think I shoot 99% MF, my mostly used lenses are fully manual lenses, and I do both sports, portraits, concerts and lots of other stuff with manual focus. I just don't think that ignoring the need in some situations for a good, fast pace AF is very constructive OR intelligent.
I think professional sport shooting, and specifically martial arts like UFC, Strikeforce, K1 (sports that are huge in Japan), make more of a market than those liking to photograph black cats in coalbins, but why keep beating the dead horse, we most likely disagree in degree, not in case.