Re: [Leica] Re:Leica Basketball

[Harrison McClary <hmcclary@earthlink.net>]

Fantoni, Ernesto wrote

>congratulation for your pictures.They are really nice:moment, light,
>colors:very impressive!
>
Thanks.

>But I'm now a bit confused and you can probably help me. The question
>that comes up to my mind is:what about AF in sport if you can take
>pictures like that with an MF camera? Are these pictures the juice of an
>heavy selection among many unsharp pics?
>I've always heard (even on this list) you can't survive shooting sport
>without a fast AF. If I remember well, Ted was almost the only one
>saying he never had problems working in sport without AF.
>I know you switched from Canon EOS to Leica (I myself sold my AF
>equipment to buy the first M6), but, frankly, I thought was for other
>kind of pictures (Editorial, Travel, etc like the ones on yr website).
>And now you come up with such photos; and, moreover, at F2.8.

Well, I came up shooting sports using only manual focus and never got the 
hang of using the AF. I have covered things from Friday night high school 
basketball & football to things like the Super Bowl, Masters golf 
tourney, and World Series baseball games, NCAA Final Four tournaments - 
all shot on manual focus cameras, and have had sports pix in every major 
news paper in the USA and in Sports Illustrated.  I have never thought 
auto focus is a MUST for sports, as an experienced person can do quite 
well with manual focus.  IMO using a manual focus camera is much like 
those who prefer the pump action shotguns to the semi-automatic guns.  A 
person who uses a pump and is good with it can do every bit as good as 
someone with a semi-automatic shotgun.

I did have quite a few unsharp photos on this take, but that was more 
from motion than missed focus (250 sec with a 180 is borderline with fast 
action sports like basketball), which surprised me since I had not shot 
basketball in so long, and this was the first time I had used this 
equipment to shoot action sports with.

I did used to use Canon EOS, but when shooting sports I was more apt to 
set the camera to manual as you literally have to change the way you 
shoot when using af.  You have to be sure you keep the little focusing 
sensor on what/who you want in focus.  The way I shoot is to keep the 
subject in focus using the ground glass, sometimes keeping focus while 
other players come between me and the action, sometimes keeping the 
subject off center in the frame, something you can't do with AF.  I know 
Canon makes a multi sensor AF now, but then you have to remember which 
sensor you have selected to keep the proper subject sharp.  Also if you 
use the setting where the camera picks focus for you...well all I can say 
when you get your film back and the ball boy is sharp because he was 
closer to you than the winning play at the plate was, you are the one 
going to take the blame, not the camera.  If I am going to miss something 
*I* am going to miss it, not the camera.

If you look at my site and follow the Sports link you will see a lot of 
sports all shot using manual focus at wide apertures, since I HATE noisy 
back grounds in sports shots.  Many of the photos were shot with either a 
400 2.8 or a 600 4.0.

By the way I was using an R6 for the basketball shots not the M6.  I 
would not even attempt any sport using an M camera.

And you CAN survive using manual focus for sports, one of my best friends 
is an ALLSPORT photographer and even though he uses Canon EOS he sets it 
to manual, for the same reasons I listed above.  I know of many shooters 
who do this with the new AF gear.
>
>Pls enlight me:is it true what I heard that:"The more you are a Pro, the
>more you go simple and manual?"

For me this has always been true.  I have used Nikon (F2, F3, F4, FM2, 
8008s, N90), Canon (F1N, EOS 1, A2), and now Leica (M6, R8, R6) and I 
have almost never set the camera on anything but full manual.  I seldom 
read the instruction books, as long as I can figure out how to set it to 
manual, load the camera, how the meter selection works, things like that, 
I am happy.

The reason I do not set auto metering methods is that I shoot almost 
exclusively chrome and I have yet to see a meter that is as smart as I  
am.  A reflected meter such as in any camera is easily mislead, esp when 
you shoot back lit subjects as much as I do.

I personally think that everyone should get a fully manual camera as 
their first camera so that they can learn proper exposure and how to 
control the light.  This is what I did and never saw an advantage to the 
auto methods.  Also IMO an incident meter is a MUST.


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