Focus screen: yey or ney?

benlonghair

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Good monday morning all.

I was thinking about things I miss from when I learned to shoot with an old Minolta SRT201. First and formost is a fast prime (learned on a 35mm f/2.0) which will be my next lens purchase.

Second is a split prism focus aid. Apparently they're available for the D60 and not hard to get.

Are aftermarket ones worth getting? Are they something that a total noob wants to try to install or should I take it to a camera shop?

As a side note, I think I'm gonna go get some film (while it's still available) and a battery for the Minolta and have some fun with it.
 
I'm the same way, I have split focus screens in my 10D, my 300D before I destroyed it not so long ago and my Fuji S2.

I love them. I guess I fear change, its all I've ever used ha. Installing them though, I guess I would search for a tutorial or a repair manual or something and see how it is done.

I know squat about Nikons.
 
I haven't bought mine yet, but am planning to get a Katzeye screen some day soon. I really wished I had one during my recent Alaska trip. I just wish they did an angled screen.

Katz Eye™ Optics - Custom Focusing Screens

My local camera store will install it for about $25 and, although they're not supposed to be hard to put in, I think I'll let someone else muck around in there. They have good reviews.


Ian
 
That would be a very handy little unit to have, I will have to look into this at some point.

film....while its still available...what do you mean. I seriosly doubt there going to stop making it anytime soon.
 
so whats exactly the point of these?
my D90 seems to have one built in that i can turn on and off?
 
so whats exactly the point of these?
my D90 seems to have one built in that i can turn on and off?

For critical focusing where many of us prefer to use manual focus, precise focus is easier for many of us with a screen like this. This was the standard back in the film SLR day and has been eliminated on dSLR's where most people trust and use AF lenses.
 
Thanks for the replies. I think I'm going to order one. Playing around last night shooting at the moon I realized that while the AF is good, it's certainly not perfect and the viewfinder is too small to see detail quickly.

I suppose I could fix the viewfinder problem with this:

s2backwithmenue.jpg


But for $20k vs $150 I'll go with the focus screen.
 

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