[TomB_tx]

I started shooting sports in college with my brand new Pentax H1a: all manual settings and focus, no meter. But then all cameras were like that. I covered football, hockey, basketball, skiing, etc. I even covered some of these with a Leica M2 rangefinder and got good results.
Later I moved to cameras with built-in light meters, but have always preferred manual exposure to automatic.
I've never gone to autofocus. I tried it a bit on my K-5 because the finder is so marginal for manual focus, but I still hate autofocus and find manual focus much simpler (just focus on what you want - what's hard about that?)
The key to being good at manual settings and focus is to use them all the time, so it becomes like a stick-shift in a car - you don't notice it because it becomes automatic.

[clackers]

but I still hate autofocus and find manual focus much simpler (just focus on what you want - what's hard about that?).

Tom, if so, can you show us examples you've taken with the ball and players in motion?

[stevebrot]

Tom, if so, can you show us examples you've taken with the ball and players in motion?

I posted a few examples above of manual focus of people in motion. The main issue is usually subject motion blurring rather than focus.

Truly, this is not a huge issue. AF does not work that great to start with* and people made a living for many, many years doing credible photography of moving things using manual focus.


Steve

* AF actually sort of sucks for action unless you are shooting high-end Nikon or a high frame-rate camera and AFC...spray and pray.

[gofour3]

This was shot with a "K" Series film body and the K85/1.8. My only real attempt at "stop" action sports.



Phil.

[Cuthbert]

I'm just curious but has anyone tried shooting wildlife (such as flying birds) or sports with a fully manual camera (like the Pentax K1000)? I was just thinking about this earlier when I was down on at the riverfront trying to get some pictures of the bald eagles flying around with another camera. I imagine it would be extremely difficult if not practically impossible.

All the professionals who took pictures in motorsport and especially in Formula 1 in the Golden Era (70s, 80s, early 90s) almost exclusively used Nikon F2s or Canon F-1 with motordrives, long slide tanks and tele lenses:



Manual focus wasn't and isn't an issue because the "targets" were relatively far away, this would have been the complete system for a "sport camera":

I posted a few examples above of manual focus of people in motion. The main issue is usually subject motion blurring rather than focus.

Truly, this is not a huge issue. AF does not work that great to start with* and people made a living for many, many years doing credible photography of moving things using manual focus.


Steve

* AF actually sort of sucks for action unless you are shooting high-end Nikon or a high frame-rate camera and AFC...spray and pray.

I would say that AF is completely useless if you're to a certain distance from your target especially if you are good at using the DOF of your lens, at f4 everything from 10 meters is infinitive so what's the point of having autofocus? It would be more important to have a fast film and aperture priority.

[ChrisPlatt]

The MX was the Pentax professional system camera then.
A 5 fps motor drive and 250-exposure back were available.

Chris