[officiousbystander]

I suspect because every shot has to be more carefully considered you end up with better images. It's hard to do spray and pray with manual focussing.

[Unregistered User 8]

Am I nuts for wanting manual focus primes?

Definitely not..... Enjoy every one that you can get your hands on.

[SimonC]

It depends on the subject for me but I find it much more satisfying manual focusing.

[termy]

if that is being nuts or half nuts.

Then perhaps three quarters or more of members here are nutcases

[FotoPete]

I think manual focus primes is part of the appeal of shooting with Pentax. You got it with rokinon, one of the main affordable options to shoot current optical designs in a lens housing that work with legacy film cameras.

[Michail_P]

You are fine. MF is a zen thing for me. I love the color of my mf lenses and of course the wallet remains happy.

[Cerebum]

Let's go and ask my box of M42 lenses


They said nope

[heinamj]

. Plus I enjoy the MF workflow when shooting in the field.

Exactly! Unless of course my wife is waiting a hundred yards further down the path... so AF shoot and scoot for those walks!

[ZombieArmy]

Considering how popular Samyang is across all camera brands no I don't think it's crazy. Shooting manual focus outside of extreme telephotos isn't really much of a hindrance once you get some skill.

This summer I got the Samyang 135mm F2 ED UMC with manual focus and I LOVE it! Now I want the 35mm F1.4 AS UMC... (Lens Buying Addiction never quits)

I figure, why not? Pentax AF may never equal C and I almost always shoot center spot anyway.

Feels like Back to the Future for me...

Yes you are nuts! (as you know Pentaxforum members are always FRIENDLY!). If you use a Samyang lens (or any other third party one) you just miss out on a lot of features build into the fabulous DSLR's Ricoh makes under the brand Pentax. If you turn off AF you can use any Pentax branded modern lens as a manual focus lens. If you buy an affordable well build camera you might as well support the maker of that camera by buying its lenses. After all, if you do not, chances are that Pentax branded camera's will disappear from the face of this earth. It is actually going back to the old days instead of looking forward to the future.

[Roadboat24]

I can't speak to the validity of your sanity, but I, like others, have and use quite a few manual focus primes.

[heinamj]

I know it's a popular position on this forum to advocate for Pentax-only lenses, and I get it. But Rokinon/Samyang provide so much that Pentax just doesn't do by itself yet. In fact, them making these in K-mount is pretty much what kept me in the system.

I love old and new Pentax glass ... when I can afford it - which usually means used.

And I think there is something to be said in keeping Third Party interest in the K mount, which as you said, keeps user interest for some in the PK system.

[othar]

I like MF lenses, too. Especially 50mm and longer. With my Samyang 35mm I find it sometimes hard to nail focus manually though, that said it still is a great lens.

[normhead]

Not using manual focus wide angle is nuts. You almost always have to set your focal point manually anyway, But for most of my shooting, not wide angle, AF is indispensable. So whether or not you are nuts depends on what you shoot.

For images like this


AF is simply indispensable. I had maybe 2 seconds to get this image. Messing with MF would have cost me the image.

Pixel shift images of stationary objects are almost all MF (taken with Live View), I had to go back over 200 images to find one.


But the thing is, this image was taken in MF mode with a lens capable of AF. You don't have to have an MF lens to shoot MF. So 33 out of 300 images are MF, but taken with an AF lens. 4 of my 21 lenses are MF only lenses and they are rarely used. I would probably have to go back thousands of images to get to one taken with a strictly MF lens.

Just based on my usage, I'd say, MF lenses get used for the most part when you can't afford the AF version.
That being said, buying cheaper glass to get better results isn't crazy. I bought my Rokinon 14 2.8 just for that reason. I wanted great results for a lens I'd use two or three times a year. So I definitely wasn't going to pay top dollar for that amount of use.

[heinamj]

Choosing manual focus lenses is also an effective way of obtaining glass that is otherwise unavailable or prohibitively expensive; in my case, 300/2.8 + 400/4 + 500/4.5, in total less than the cost of a used DFA 150-450.

That's an impressive collection, all Pentax?