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

Bokeh - If your starting out with photography and manual lenses, you will probably come a cross that word. The word comes from ”boke”, the Japanese word for blur. It is used to describe the part of a picture that are out of focus, and that the lens shows as blurred. Bokeh of lenses may have very different aesthetic qualities. This is most apperent in larger apertures, when part of the picture is a lot out of focus. Soft edges on the blurry reflexes are often considered preferable!

Bokeh of Helios 44-3

Some great reading about bokeh:

Great Bokeh-test from Rick Denney
Ken Rockwell on bokeh
Understanding bokeh by Merklinger