Originally posted by: astroidea
Originally posted by: foghorn67
We are talking about a thousand dollar body. This is hardly ranked in the budget target market. Everyone seems that the important part of the investment should go to the glass not the body. Why dump a grand into a body and compromise on the lens?
Do you really want to recommend a MF lens to a newb? You seem to discount AF systems heavily. It doesn't just serve pros at the superbowl or wedding photogs making several grand for each wedding. It serves every photographer wanting to capture a moment. You might like creating the moment where MF can serve just as well. But capturing an image you can't recreate is priceless. Can I prefocus at an car race sure. Can I use a camera body with fast AF with a lens with a fast motor and accurate computers? Yes. Get the car you are composing for then notice a wreck in progress and quickly composing to capture it in several frames? AF would win. How about a dimly lit party? Or a church event? Or your pets and kids running around? Heck, even in a studio setting, kids are hard to take pictures of.
This weekend I was hired to take a Christmas portrait of a 18 month old kid. I brought the 9ft backdrop and my 5 ft backdrops. No room in their house for the 9ft. Getting that kid to stay with the backdrop filling that frame was hard enough. I would hate to think about MF. Or with a slow AF lens, or an inaccurate lens. And that was a 'controlled' enviroment.
Don't even get me started on trying to capture candids with a manual focus. Sure it's very possible, but the shots AF can give is breathtaking.
First of all, I never claimed the K10D is a budget body, I said prosumer. Secondly, canon/nikon bodies that cost $1000 won't be able to take advantage of the full frame field of view and the weather sealing in the pro lenses. That was the basis of my argument. That's why it's moot argue about the lack of pro lenses on pentax's side.
MF is hardly a challenge for any noob, and that's if there are any noobs that would drop a grand on a camera. Well come to think about it, it might be a challenge with the tunnel like viewfinders canon and nikon users have become accustomed with in their consumer/prosumer bodies. D80 was a good step away from this, but prior to that, they've all had tunnel like viewfinders.
But for the large and bright viewfinder found in the K10D, it's hardly a challenge. Heck, leica and zeiss users pay thousands for their equipment, all with no autofocus. I'm sure they're not missing out on too many photos.
But don't get me wrong, AF has their uses, but for most, it's hard to justify paying 4-6 times more for something that you can do easily without. However, to claim that you would be missing out on many photo opportunities with MF just seems ridiculous. AF is little more than being plain convenient.
As for candids, that's pretty much my favorite type of photography, and I do it almost solely with manual focus primes, and often even with extremely short DoF.
Here's one I took just two days ago
This image would have been much more difficult with AF, as I have little control with where I want it to focus with AF. With AF, it probably would have focused on the nose, and I wouldn't have gotten the shot I wanted.
I took this picture with a $50 lens. Being able to use manual focus lenses opens you up to dozens of top notch quality lenses that costs next to nothing. This is why it's such a great thing to have a camera like the K10D to have support for such lenses.