Newbie questions

Just a couple of questions I'll not bore you all, I just bought a new lense 55-250IS ,what I am wondering is why does it have a switch to turn the IS on and off? why would you need it it off don't people like crisp images all the time?
And also I have been looking at images from this forum which are amazing by the way but what I'm wanting to know is do you all use manual focus on your pictures or do you use auto focus? The problem I'm havin is that I can never seem to get a clean crisp image all the time when I'm in manual but when set to auto the picture always turns out better.

Thanks for any advice in advance

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IS has a switch for a number of reasons. First being if you are using a tripod, if you have the camera rigidly mounted there is no need for IS and it will actually add vibrations. Another reason is when you are using high shutter speeds, there is no benefit to using IS, and having it on just drains your batteries quicker. Or sometimes people want some blur in their image to achieve the desired look they are going for.

Most cases I use autofocus and it works fine, but if I'm photographing a still object and want to make sure the focus is exactly where I want it I will use manual. The trick to manual focus is to use Live View at 10x so you can see better when the image is perfectly in focus.

Think you will find AF is commonly used when lens is capable. Personally, MF is used mostly in landscape and architecture when I want to have focus on some particular object or when doing macro work as I frequently disagree with AF decisions.

Very few just use manual focus if their subject moves. A bigger, brighter viewfinder in the upper end of the Canon series helps, as well as, a special manual focus screen to nail shots with thin depth of field. The special composite material that makes up corks apparently contains an anti-focus element which impedes sharp shots. If your trying to get a shot with autofocus and the red square lights up, anything inside and slightly outside that box might be where the camera actually locked focus on. When folks start going with a thin depth of field, they would rather manually rack the focus to where they want. All that said, if your not getting decent shots (sharp), it might be the lens. If the IS goes bad, it's possible to get random shots that are sharp while most are soft. The focusing system is dragging a dead leg with it. Do all your lens act soft or just one? If they all do it, that means it might be the body (yours or the camera) having issues. It might be worth sending it in and having the camera and lens calibrated anyway.

Thanks for the replies, the camera and my other lenses can take very good sharp images, its just me trying to be over productive and do manual focus for everything.
I did see a lot of improvement from the IS to the none IS, so AF it will be then

Thanks once again

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