Gary,
You've certainly described a difficult auto-focus situation. I noticed that
my friend's Tamron 200-400 zoom was significantly more difficult to focus
than her Nikon 20mm. A good part of that is the depth of focus. With the 20,
you could zone focus and be reasonably assured of a sharp photo while
stopped down a bit. With a tele, focus is more noticably critical. And, to
slow things down, there is more mechanical travel involved in the big zoom.
I would use the autofocus on the wide angle, but on the tele, it takes some
creative techniques sometimes. Focus on a larger/flatter field object of
equal distance and reframe before firing the shutter. Kind of defeats the
purpose of the autofocus. You lose speed and accuracy. We could discuss
endlessly about the merits of manual/auto systems. But one thing is clear
(!), autofocus will miss shots as well as manual. It's a matter of
opportunity and timing no matter what system you hold in front of your face.
Olympus content:
I like the auto focus on my wife's IS-20. There are times when it is
fantastic, and times when it is useless. But adding in the 'creative' use of
the hold-focus feature helps. It is considerably quicker to focus and fire
than all of the P&S rangefinder types we've had. My wife had no interest in
an SLR, but wanted a decent viewfinder. It has served well so far.
-Mickey
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary Edwards" <garyetx@xxxxxxxx>
To: <olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, September 09, 2001 12:14 PM
Subject: Re: [OM] Oh no, will the Zuikoholic defect?
> After seeing the difficulty that a companion had trying to get his n*k*n
> F100 to focus on a bird in a tree, I'm still glad I decided to stay with
OM
> and manual focus several years ago. I think a lot of sports pros still
zone
> focus their wonderbricks and wait for the action to happen there.
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