Originally posted by m42man Always found DOF Preview a waste of time in the film days.
Waste of time, well that is easy. Don't use it!
While it has never been an accurate presentation (always shows too deep), optical DOF preview was better than nothing. I use it now as I used it then and on a fairly frequent basis.
Originally posted by m42man Same with microprism areas on the focusing screen. Far too inaccurate. Much easier to use the matte area.
I assume you mean the "ground glass" donut of the traditional screen.
My experience is that the matte area is approximately equivalent depending on subject. The main problem matte area is that it is to a certain extent aperture sensitive.
Originally posted by m42man Even split-prism aids aren't quite accurate enough in these days of pixel-peeping.
Who pixel-peeps except the photographer? I have a well-dialed-in Katz Eye screen in my K-3 and rank my options for fine focus on that camera as follows by focus sensitivity (poor to excellent)*.
PDAF using center spot
CDAF (equivalent to live view manual focus using focus peaking)
Manual focus using split-image on the Katz Eye
Manual focus using magnified live view, no focus peaking
Sorry to pick your comment apart, but those features have been part of my work flow since the early 1980s. I looks like you might as well have said that you feel that any focus screen aside from full ground-glass or laser-cut matte is dumb.
Steve
* The ability to detect OOF.