No, you don’t need autofocus to photograph moving objects
As a reaction to my post “5 reasons I love manual lenses” some responses on other sites was claiming you need, yes MUST have autofocus to shoot moving objects. This is, I guess, from people who haven’t tried and can not turn a ring.
Sure. I have not shot birds, swallows in flight, racing cars… oh, but I wait I am mistaken. I have photographed those things with manual focus. But the “newer is better myth” says it’s impossible. I wonder what more miracles I can perform? ;)
I don’t have time to find really good examples today, so just some I fetched from my flickr, but my point is that it takes some practise but it is possible. The swan is one of my first manual photos and not the greatest of images but it is in focus:
Racing a cloudy, foggy day
Flying Swan, one of my first manual photos
