K200D viewfinder + Katzeye VS. K20D viewfinder

[dugrant153]

Hey folks,
With the K7 out now and the K20D dropping in price, and with me going 99% manual focus, I’m wondering if maybe it’s time to upgrade to a higher-up DSLR.

Ideally I’d like to go for a K7 but I don’t have the funds for it.

The K200D has been my work horse for the first part of this year and was great for a lot of applications. However, now I’m starting to do more manual focusing and I find viewfinder brightness and size is becoming more of a priority.

Has anyone had any experience between the K20D viewfinder and the K200D viewfinder? I’m using a Katz Eye (no opti-brite) in the K200D and am curious to know if K200D + Katzeye = K20D viewfinder?

Any suggestions?

[eyou]

i dont have either... but confused by your question. doesnt the katz-eye just add the split prism? How are you comparing the two? it is not enlarging the viewfinder of your k200d at all...

pentaprism is supposed to > pentamirror in terms of size, brightness and cost.

if youre looking for bigger finder maybe o-me53 or kps?

[GLXLR]

Originally Posted by dugrant153

Hey folks,
With the K7 out now and the K20D dropping in price, and with me going 99% manual focus, I’m wondering if maybe it’s time to upgrade to a higher-up DSLR.

Ideally I’d like to go for a K7 but I don’t have the funds for it.

The K200D has been my work horse for the first part of this year and was great for a lot of applications. However, now I’m starting to do more manual focusing and I find viewfinder brightness and size is becoming more of a priority.

Has anyone had any experience between the K20D viewfinder and the K200D viewfinder? I’m using a Katz Eye (no opti-brite) in the K200D and am curious to know if K200D + Katzeye = K20D viewfinder?

Any suggestions?

I'd wait for the funds for a K-7. The K-7 will eventually drop in price too you know!

Pentaprisms are made of solid glass while pentamirrors are plastic. Advantages of pentaprisms are they can be made bigger without sacrificing clarity (pentaxmirrors are not nearly as sharp and the problem is magnified when increase the magnification (duh) of the pentamirror so the size is often limited). The downside, of course, is that they are more expensive to produce and are heavier, often making a more expensive camera.

[dugrant153]

yeah, as far as I understand the katz-eye only adds the split prism... but not sure if it's enough to make the pentamirror in my K200D bright enough to compensate for the fact that the pentaprism better. I guess that's my question.
I have the O-ME53, but of course that causes some vignetting from the viewfinder end of things. What's kps?

I am pretty eager in waiting for the K7, but with used K20Ds dropping in price and lots of them selling off for cheap it's a hard bargain. If I get the K20D, I get a bigger buffer, CMOS sensor and bigger 95% (vs 85%) viewfinder. After switching to full MF, the main benefit of the K7 would be the bright 100% viewfinder and compensating for tungsten lighting (which I now do in Photoshop)... but to pay nearly $800 more for it? Hmm... not sure its in my budget at this time. :P That'd probably be an FA31 Ltd in my books. haha. If I can get a really nice viewfinder a decent cost, then I'd be pretty happy

Another benefit, of course, would be that the K20D I think is actually LIGHTER than the K200D fully loaded with Nimh AA's (my main setup).