Yes, absolutely. I like the photo. Nice candid portrait.

Totally don't get the caption.

I usually hate captions, and this is no exception

Why isn't it called 'Reading the paper'?

I very rarely use MF these days, so I have no particular yearning for a split screen any more. The only exception is that I take most of my classified photos using an F1.7 A-50, and I still don't really miss the split screen.

I definitely would not want the microprism. I never got on with it at all.

How on earth did we ever focus on anything with only the split screen?

Glad you're enjoying it!

If you like the catch-in-focus, and you appreciate the beautiful build quality of these old lenses, maybe I can interest you in a 400mm prime, coming soon to a classified ad near you

however...

Check out the squirrels...

Not only that, I'm far from convinced that selecting the focus point will often go much of a way towards fixing the problem that Tim so lucidly explains.

The focus points only go out so far anyway - only a little more than half way to the edge of the frame from the centre, and not even as far as half way to the top or bottom. Doubtless there are subjects with shapes that lend themselves to focus point selection, where frame to centre/focus/reframe really wouldn't be just as good, but they're fairly few and far between.

Most of the times that the frame/focus/reframe technique is really no good is when you're close, and with a wide angle lens - in which case the depth of field is often enormous.

I'd put money on it being camera shake that spoils most of those shots, not being focused on the wrong point.

It's usually just as easy to point the camera at something at about the right distance, rather than the actual subject, prior to reframing.

Perhaps you'd be even more stunned at people (like me!) that use only the central point, except when they let the camera decide and set it to auto.

Then try a bit of airshow photography and see how stunned you are

This is the key.

If it's big and moving, you can use the central point.

If it's small and moving, then unless you can track it very accurately (more accurately than I can, anyway, especially at long focal lengths where the angle of view is very small), chances are you'll lose it from the central AF point, and then when the focus hunts, you're basically doomed.

For airshows, I set it to auto-AF point, and it makes maintaining focus on the moving aircraft a lot easier.

Even so, he had it relatively easy, with bags of fuel, plenty of time to find a nice into-wind runway, long enough to accommodate the inevitably fast approach.

No taking anything away - it was a nice job.

Whereas every time I read about the Hudson River ditching a couple of years back, my blood runs slightly cold when I think about Chesney Sullenberger's getting that Airbus down the way he did. Absolutely first class.

The passengers were fortunate to have a guy with so much gliding and military flying in his background.

Sold!