Brain rot is something that way too many people are suffering from. Photographers are spending so much time scrolling social media and rotting away their brains. Additionally, folks are using AI so much more that they’re losing the ability to do cognitive thinking. On top of that, many are suffering from things like aphantasia. The solution is to not only spend less time looking at screens and working with them. But there’s also something to be said for making a hobby stimulate your brain.. And to really stimulate your brain, we recommend manual focusing over autofocusing your camera.
So how is this preventing brain rot? My theory is that the more we’re using our brains instead of outsourcing tasks to products and devices, the more we’re going to develop them. It’s based on the idea that stimulating your brain makes it work much differently. And in my years of manual focusing and testings lenses, I can really attest to this.
You might be thinking that manually focusing a lens is just using more motor memory and processing to get something in focus. But if that’s the case, then I’d say that you’re using a manual focus lens completely wrong. What you’re supposed to do instead is use it like a compositional tool and an awareness tool.
If you’re doing street photography, there’s the idea of zone focusing. We don’t have to go into that one way too much.
But if you’re shooting landscapes, portraits, product images, etc. then you have to think only only about the area of the frame that’s in focus, but also how it’s being composed. On top of that, how much you should stop the lens down to get more or less of the frame in focus at a time. Here are some questions that you should answer in your head when you’re using a manual focus lens:
- What do I want in focus?
- Where do I place that subject in the frame to get them in focus?
- How far away are they?
- How much are they moving around?
- Should I stop the lens down?
- Does this composition tell the story that I’m looking for?
Typically, a photographer would use autofocus and focus on a subject using scene detection or people detection. Then they’d shoot a bunch of frames. Instead, I’m preparing your mind to shoot a single, really good, and well thought out frame.
Combine this with manually selecting the white balance for the scene that you’re photographing and also selecting your shutter and ISO with intention. Get your brain to do the work instead of making the camera replace you.
I’m going to leave you with images from lenses that I’ve shot with over the years where I’ve done manual focus and loved what I got.
