Autofocus Doesn’t Cut It

I staged an Easter egg hunt for my daughters today, and while they scampered around excitedly collecting the goodies, I did my best to capture the excitement with the Nikon 35mm f/1.4G, figuring that autofocus would give me better results than manual focus with the Nikon D3x.

Boy, was I wrong. Autofocus just does not keep up, and trying to focus lock and recompose is just too slow. And multi-point mode picks up the wrong *#$*#$*$ thing so many times it’s not even funny.

Bottom line: I should have shot manual focus with the Zeiss 35mm f/1.4 instead. I can focus anywhere in the frame with no need to place a focus sensor over the desired area, then recompose; with MF I just focus on what I want, and snap with no delay. I knew that from the past, but fooled myself into thinking the Nikon AF-S 35/1.4G would be better— it wasn’t. Next year.