Great shots as always Roby.
I often find auto-focus to be a necessity, especially with action.
I was reading a while ago that some pros are always trying to judge distance, so they can focus quickly in manual. Like, if they know their subject is x distance away they can snap the focus ring to that distance.
I think it was one of the Nintendo founders, an avid photographer, who always carried a ruler around to guess at distance, then measure to see if hes right.
Anyways, with the new af tech manual focus is becoming mostly obsolete.
I do use that technique (without a ruler :) ) at times, specifically when there is action (e.g. jumps) and I am using a lens which is slow at focussing (e.g. my mainstay, the Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L mkII)... my camera is pretty good at finding the right focus very quickly, but it does little good if then the lens is slow at moving the focus where the camera tells it to
Yeah, manuals best if you know where the action will always be. But if you're shooting an event with lots of action (protest, wedding, etc) I always have more luck with a nice fast lens and autofocus.
That 85 f/1,2 must be a damn dream.
It is a great lens and my most used one by far. But it is also slow to AF. I still love it though :)
Yes of course if you cannot anticipate the action, AF is the way to go. Also, it depends on distance and aperture: if you are shooting f/7.1 or similar and you're not too close to your subject, the dof may be enough to forgive AF errors...