The post by superdoofus-stratodrive is here.

Nice post. Reminders are always handy…

I long for manual focus. Then again, I’m just a poor beginner. Although having grown up in a family of photographers, to the point where it took me a VERY long time to pick up a camera due to overkill and being forced to pose ad nauseam, one thing that stands out to me here is to take a LOT of photos of your subject. In the “olden days”, only professional photographers could afford to do this, due to the volume of film wasted…. but now there is no excuse. It’s the only way to get a decent shot most of the time.

— butterflyeffect

It is a good post, but this is wrong:

oh yeah, and throw away your anti-shake crap: that stuff is for snapshot cameras, not photographers.

It’s not necessary most of the time, but it can help you get a shot you might otherwise miss. Also, manual focus is nice in certain situations, but usually not necessary. Focus lock where you want then recompose. The point is to slow down and think about where you focus.