

My experience shooting an NFL game in a blizzard without autofocus - sharkweek
http://petapixel.com/2013/12/11/lions-eagles-snow-fun-ive-ever-shooting-nfl-game/

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danso
I'm only an amateur photographer so I'm really surprised that the OP describes
the state of pro sports photography as being overly reliant on autofocus. Some
of it obviously has to be -- that is, for cameras set up at the finish line or
near the basketball hoop -- and triggered by remote...and in any normal sports
situation, autofocus on the professional camera bodies is going to be more
reliable than manual focus.

But can't most photographers at this level focus nearly by instinct? I'll
admit that I often forget which way to turn the focus ring...but it's not my
job to take good photos :). In any case, if you're shooting an event similar
to events you've shot hundreds of times before, you generally know what
distance things will be from you initially, and then can predict (with some
accuracy) to where they will be, enough that you can manually tune the focus
to adjust. For example, with a player running at you, just make sure to turn
the focus ring in the proper direction relative to his speed.

Yes, your human reflexes will not be perfect...but pro digital camera bodies
are _terrific_...you can shoot 10 - 12 frames a second so even if your first
few shots were off in focus, the next few may be good enough to use. And even
shooting at RAW, with a few 32GB cards, you will have thousands of photos to
work with.

The photos turned out great, just kind of surprised that catching them was a
big deal, technique-wise. It'd be like a site developer recounting how, when
their front-end admin interface was acting up, managed to fix some data
entries by writing and executing raw SQL on production. Non-optimal, and
hairy, but something most (professional) site developers should do when the
occasion arises.

