My approach / Your approach?

I have noticed a trend in my photography of late and it got me wondering how you approach making images.

For my sunrise/sunset images I almost always manually focus using hyperfocal distance now. While I haven't done a definite comparison, I have long suspected that my autofocus while good, was leaving a little sharpness on the table. So I now compose the frame with my zooms, note my focal length and set the corresponding hyperfocus before tripping the shutter. I have been very happy with the results so far.

Interestingly enough, the avain shots I took this weekend with my 100-400L were all manually focused. I don't know if it's just a fad for me or whether it has added a new dimension that I find compelling. It felt kind of good to have my hand on the lens barrel when I tripped the shutter.

Have any of you gone through the same process? Do you find yourself using hyperfocal distance in the soft light at the edge of the day or manually focusing a shot when the auto focus would do a great job itself? Just wondering!

I've been manually focussing for more than 30 years and will continue to do so as long as my eyes work well. However, with wildlife (and wild children), I opt to use autofocus much of the time with big lenses - these days they are much faster than I am and will often get shots I would never get in focus in time. It is amazing how you can lock onto a moving bird or animal and the focus will remain right on - no way you can do that manually. I do still try to focus with the other hand though - it does feel much better that way...

Wayne, that is a good question. I have never been to happy with the images shot with auto focus on and have always preferred to manually focus the lens. When doing something like photographing birds I generally pre focus the lens on where birds are landing, and then wait. Doesn't alway work, birds tend to land somewhere else.

I'm always on manual focus unless it's moving (and then sometimes I have to be manual if I'm using something like the TS 90 or TS 45).

Wayne for me I rely on the auto focus unless it is off (not sharp where I want it). I just trust that the shot will be sharp on auto with correct f-stop, but I always pay attention to the autofocus point. If the focus point is not the area I want I just focus - lock then reframe. Their is not a good hyperfocus scale on my new lenses anymore. If it is a landscape where I need alot of depth of field I may adjust manually with hyperfocus depth of field in mind. Macro is prettty much manual. I have set my lense to manual before and changed lenses then when I put it back on days later I shot with out noticing the lense was on manual. Luckily I have never missed a real important image. So I try to keep my lenses on autofocus.
This is what works for me and what I pretty much have always done. That's my 2 cents in a world where pennys are worthless.

I don't think I've ever bought a lens for its AF ability, because I never use it. My sharpest macro lens, a 200, just happens to be AF, but it's always been the sharpness and snap from a lens that is most important to me. Like Tim E mentioned, the only situation where I might need AF is in wildlife photography, and until I can get my hands on a D3, I expect there will be very little of that in my line of work. And then I'll need at least a 400mm AF with a 1.4x...all of this will come after I win the lottery.

I leave AF and IS off almost always. I know what you mean about the feel of the camera. I like shooting my old EOS 1N HS. It screams power.

I use the AF a lot, especially with landscapes and children. I've tried hyperfocal but still haven't totally got it figured out yet. With wildlife, I will use AF, but I also find myself in manual a lot, and almost have more faith in doing it manually.

I use AF only with long lenses and moving subjects. It is unfortunate that lenses typically don't have depth of field scales, but your depth of field changes as you zoom, so it would be tough to do it effectively on zoom lenses. I have memorized some of the focal lengths and hyperfocusing distances, especially for favorite lenses. I also use a tool called DOF Master, a free download, that can be quite helpful.
www.dofmaster.com

I generally tend to use AF then touch up with MF if I need to in most if not all circumstances. This is why I've been a stickler for only buying lenses that offer full-time manual focus override (which nowadays is almost all lenses anyway).

I'm surprised that no one mentioned DOF (depth of field) previews.

While shooting landscape I ALWAYS manual focus. More times than not, after focusing I do a DOF preview to double check things in difficult compositions. It is pretty dark at first, but within few seconds your eye adjusts and you can usually tell where the DOF falls off.

Of course with wildlife it is always AF with AI servo when the subjects are moving around. If the subjects are static I will auto-focus then adjust as necessary with MF override.

I am a bit surprised that so many of you manually focus your landscape shots. But I think that gives credence to my suspicions that I was leaving some sharpness and dof on the table using autofocus. Based on your responses I think I'll do some more reading/research on hyperfocal distance and hyperfocus. I'm not sure I have a total grasp of the concepts yet.

Thanks for taking the time to chime in! You're a great group of photographers and I'm learning a lot from you! Now if I can just learn how to sell a print for $2500!!