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Originally Posted by Mik3ymomo
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Also the autofocus systems are good but they rely on contrast and sometimes you won't get really good contrast. Lastly some lenses have such razor thin depth of field like say a 50mm F1.2 or an 85 F1.4 that you will want to focus it yourself for the best results.
For instance; shooting people. It's difficult to get the camera to focus directly on the eye. It wants to pick up the cheek or nose or forehead/hair etc. with a very thin DOF you run the risk of getting the eyes soft in the shot. My opinion is that the eyes should be the sharpest part of a portrait or animal.
The more you shoot with your equipment the more you will realize it's shortfalls and do your best to work around them for the best images you can produce.
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The thinner your DOF the more you need AF! I routinely shoot super-telephotos at 500mm to 1,000mm (1600mm equivalents) and, even at f/8, DOF is razor then. You can get a bird's eye in focus and the end of its beak will be out of focus. I tried MF and it just doesn't work fast enough.
Steering the AF point or sector is the key to getting the part that you want in focus. Either steer, or focus on the eye and recompose. Those are techniques that any portrait photographer must learn. (Even more true for us wildlife photographers).
Dave