Re: [Leica] Pros and autofocus

[Harrison McClary <hmcclary@earthlink.net>]

John,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you , but I have been rather busy 
the past few days.

I do not shoot as much sports as I used to.  I now only cover about 4-5 
NFL football games a year and 2 to 4 NASCAR races.  I used to travel with 
the Atlanta Falcons, Braves, shot Hawks, Ga. Tech, and UGa home games so 
I did it a lot several years ago.  

I know from my experience that the AF is good, but it sometimes misses 
the focus, and sometimes it is on things that I could easily have done 
without AF.  Before I switched to Leica R I used Canon EOS.  I had the 
EOS1, 80-200 2.8L, 300 4L and 20-35 2.8L.  While the AF was great esp 
when "snapping" from totally out to in, it also kinda sucked if shooting 
in low light, like a football game at night and the team wears black.  
Covering one Carolina Panthers football game (and I must say the Panthers 
field is with out a doubt the best lit field I have shot on, and I  used 
to travel all over the country shooting pro sports) I had more missed 
focus shots using my 80-200 EOS lens than I did with my 400 2.8 manual 
focus lens (I am sure had I had the newest bodies and lenses I would have 
seen an increase in speed and accuracy from the EOS.)  Please keep in 
mind here that I use my 400 primarily for action shots and the 80-200 for 
sidelines stuff where things are not moving that fast.  Also I shot one 
or two basketball games for fun with the EOS and compared the AF with 
what I could do manually focusing and the AF was not better and was more 
of a pain in the but for me.  When I shoot sports I tend to always keep 
what I want sharp in focus at all times, with the AF this happens only if 
you keep the button depressed.  And yes I shoot tight, but when shooting 
with a 400, 600 or other long lens there is a lot of room for something 
to come between you and your subject.

I am not denying that the AF is good.  I am sure if you use it and learn 
how it works and trust it, it is great.  For me I would rather miss a 
shot and know that it was ME who missed the shot than to have the camera 
miss it.  I have never accepted from anyone working under me that the 
camera missed the exposure, because I have felt that you should have 
enough common sense to know when the camera meter is lying to you. If 
someone was covering a game for me and missed the shot of the game 
because the AF went squirrely, well I would NOT accept that as a valid 
excuse to miss a shot.  

An example of when AF would not have worked for me was when I was 
covering the 1992 Braves -vs- Pirates NLCS, it was game 7, the Braves 
were tied in the bottom of the 9th with 2 outs. Sid Bream lumbered home 
to score the winning run and I was shooting from the first base side 
outfield position and shot the play using a 400 2.8.  Within seconds of 
the time he crossed home there was a swarm of Braves players, ball boys 
ect around him.  The first post game photo moved by UPI that night was my 
shot of Sid crossing the plate with Dave Justice reaching out to embrace 
him.  Had I been using AF this would not have worked as the other players 
were only moments from engulfing him and were between me and the action, 
in the spot the af selector would have been.  And please don't try to 
tell me you would have had time to change focusing patterns, in baseball 
there is no action for 3 hours then the play lasts about 1 second and you 
had better damn well be ready for it.  This is just one example of many.  
Another from this NFL season; while covering the Carolina Panthers I had 
a shot of Kelly Collins getting his jaw broken in the first preseason 
game of the season.  There was a player in the extreme foreground between 
me and the play and had the camera been af I would have missed the shot.  
As it was I think I am the only photog to have gotten that shot from 
head-on showing the impact as I have never seen another of that play, and 
I am sure someone would have run it had they had the pix. This was the 
most important play of the game, possibly of the season since he played 
horrible the rest of the season and acted gun shy when ever anyone got 
close to him.

I would estimate from what I have seen at the Carolina games that at 
least 50% or more of the shooters are still manually focusing.  The guy, 
Scott Cunningham, who shoots for the Panthers and is/was the NBA photog 
in Atlanta shoots with Nikon FM2s and he is one of the best sports 
photogs I have ever seen.  Other regions may vary on the number of people 
using the AF as it is a personal choice and each person shoots what he is 
most comfortable with.

John McLeod wrote

>Thanks for the response of several days ago re how you use your R cameras
>for sports/action photography.  To what extent would you say the views you
>expressed are shared by other pros who must shoot fast-moving subjects, such
>as sports and kids?


Harrison McClary
http://people.delphi.com/hmphoto