[Kristian Wolfe]

Hi all,

I'm stuck with the worst Pentax 67II Focusing Screen. Right now I'm stuck with the Pentax BG-60 (grid screen without split-image or microprism) with the Pentax 67II that I recently bought, and I feel like I can't focus properly.

Anyone know where I can get either Pentax BJ-61 or Pentax BB-61, both split image screens?

Many, many thanks!

[yurihuta]

one for sale over at - Pentax BB-61 split focusing screen for Pentax 67ii | Photrio.com Photography Forums

[Kristian Wolfe]

Ha, believe it or not, I wrote to this person just yesterday about it. (You can see my comment below his.)

Anyway, much appreciated! Do you think Photrio is a good resource to purchase Pentax 67 focusing screens, or are there better options?

[gofour3]

or are there better options?

eBay, that's where I found my BB-61. Prices have gone way up recently for these 67II screens and they are rare.

Phil.

[yurihuta]

Ha, believe it or not, I wrote to this person just yesterday about it. (You can see my comment below his.)

Anyway, much appreciated! Do you think Photrio is a good resource to purchase Pentax 67 focusing screens, or are there better options?

I've bought a bit there and sold a bit there too. It seems there are more enthusiasts there, people who are really into photography and all my experiences have been excellent.

JaeHoppa has been selling his 67 gear in a couple of places, so it may be worthwhile to send him a PM. If his system is set up like mine, it will alert me when someone PMs me. I think you can also set it to alert you if someone responds to your posting, but that is not the default....

Just checked FredMiranda.com and it looks like he marked that listing as sold - see here Sold: Pentax 67II with 45mm, 55mm, 75mm AL, 105mm, 165mm and more - FM Forums

[Kristian Wolfe]

So this is what happened to me today. This is my no good, absolutely terrible, hapless story when it comes to these damn 67II focusing screens:

I’ve been checking eBay literally every few hours (save for when I was asleep, of course), for nearly two months, for these f*cking P67II unicorn focusing screens, specifically the BJ-61 (Grid Split Image Matte) and BB-61 (Split Image Matte) screens. Alas, today, March 20th, in the year if our lord 2021, the skies cleared and I FINALLY found a flawless, mint condition, Pentax 67II BJ-61 focusing screen that popped up on eBay today. This was, mind you, the focusing screen I’ve been waiting for and wanted most of all because of the grid and split image. I threw everything down and IMMEDIATELY jumped on it. I paid exactly $467.99 for it - a bona fide FORTUNE to me, a student. I flew through the payment system so fast that I forgot that the default address was my apartment in Los Angeles. I’m currently at my parents place in the middle of nowhere, Connecticut, and won’t be back in Los Angeles for at least another month! I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t possibly wait an entire month for my beloved focusing screen that I desperately waited so long for, so I thought about what to do.

First, I thought that I’ll just have my roommate send it to me. But then I thought, why go through that and potentially lose it and not just contact the seller? So I sent him a message regarding the situation and to send it to my parents’ address in Connecticut. Then one hour passes, then another, and then another. I couldn’t wait any longer, so I just decided to contact eBay, the big guns, thinking that they surely can solve this. Should be a cakewalk for them. I contacted eBay and had them call me. Once I got on the line, I explained to the eBay representative what had happened, how I needed this precious focusing screen to be delivered to CT instead of LA, and how I contacted the seller about it. And what was the eBay representative’s suggestion? Since I had already messaged the seller, the representative explained that I should just, ahem, cancel the order. He said that that way I’ll be quickly refunded and that I can essentially repurchase it and send it to the proper address. My fear of not seeing the focusing screen for over a month got to the best of me, and I took this representative’s advice. So I went ahead and painfully cancelled the order. It was bittersweet. At that point, I felt I had to. I mean, what if the seller missed my message and actually went ahead and sent it to LA? It turned out that the seller had to approve of the cancellation first, something that the representative didn’t tell me, which I only found out after formally cancelling the order.

After a few hours of waiting, I had a bunch of errands that piled up, so I figured I’d do them, carefully monitoring my phone for any messages from the seller. Late at night, I had to run to Walmart to return something and get a few things. And so it happened: while driving down the highway, I get a ding on my phone. I took a quick glance. The seller had approved of the cancellation. I was partially relieved, but only because I thought that now, finally, I can order it and send it to the right address. I was still on the highway and I wouldn’t get to Walmart until about 7 minutes later. I thought about stopping somewhere on the highway shoulder just to reorder the focusing screen, but I thought, well, what’s only 6 or 7 minutes?

Turns out it’s plenty. I pulled into Walmart, parked, and immediately got to work on my phone. So I click to refresh the eBay page of the focusing screen that was already loaded on my iPhone screen... but the page is taking forever to load and basically timed out. Hmm. I go to my eBay purchase history and click the link of the focusing screen... still no luck. So I type in at the top “Pentax 67 focusing screen” and hit enter and wait. I scroll and can’t find it. Now I’m starting to get nervous. Where the hell is this thing?! I repeat the exact same process, going through my purchase history and then searching for it at large I reluctantly decided to click “Completed Listings”... and, of course, there it was.

It turned out that someone ELSE had ended up purchasing it - the BJ-61 focusing screen I have been desperately searching for for months and basically owned, in theory, for a few hours - in that little 7-minute window of time from when I was notified that the cancellation had been approved by the seller to the time I finally went into eBay to repurchase it!

I’m seriously beginning to wonder if I’ll ever get this focusing screen, the focusing screen that I finally found after spending SO much time looking for it and actually bought. I had it. For a few glorious hours, I thought my search had finally come to an end. Turns out this was just a DAMN tease by luck itself.

If anyone here could send me anymore suggestions or tips regarding getting either of these P67II focusing screens - the BJ-61 (Grid Split Image Matte) or the BB-61 (Split Image Matte) - I’d be eternally grateful.

[barondla]

So this is what happened to me today. This is my no good, absolutely terrible, hapless story when it comes to these damn 67II focusing screens:

I’ve been checking eBay literally every few hours (save for when I was asleep, of course), for nearly two months, for these f*cking P67II unicorn focusing screens, specifically the BJ-61 (Grid Split Image Matte) and BB-61 (Split Image Matte) screens. Alas, today, March 20th, in the year if our lord 2021, the skies cleared and I FINALLY found a flawless, mint condition, Pentax 67II BJ-61 focusing screen that popped up on eBay today. This was, mind you, the focusing screen I’ve been waiting for and wanted most of all because of the grid and split image. I threw everything down and IMMEDIATELY jumped on it. I paid exactly $467.99 for it - a bona fide FORTUNE to me, a student. I flew through the payment system so fast that I forgot that the default address was my apartment in Los Angeles. I’m currently at my parents place in the middle of nowhere, Connecticut, and won’t be back in Los Angeles for at least another month! I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t possibly wait an entire month for my beloved focusing screen that I desperately waited so long for, so I thought about what to do.

First, I thought that I’ll just have my roommate send it to me. But then I thought, why go through that and potentially lose it and not just contact the seller? So I sent him a message regarding the situation and to send it to my parents’ address in Connecticut. Then one hour passes, then another, and then another. I couldn’t wait any longer, so I just decided to contact eBay, the big guns, thinking that they surely can solve this. Should be a cakewalk for them. I contacted eBay and had them call me. Once I got on the line, I explained to the eBay representative what had happened, how I needed this precious focusing screen to be delivered to CT instead of LA, and how I contacted the seller about it. And what was the eBay representative’s suggestion? Since I had already messaged the seller, the representative explained that I should just, ahem, cancel the order. He said that that way I’ll be quickly refunded and that I can essentially repurchase it and send it to the proper address. My fear of not seeing the focusing screen for over a month got to the best of me, and I took this representative’s advice. So I went ahead and painfully cancelled the order. It was bittersweet. At that point, I felt I had to. I mean, what if the seller missed my message and actually went ahead and sent it to LA? It turned out that the seller had to approve of the cancellation first, something that the representative didn’t tell me, which I only found out after formally cancelling the order.

After a few hours of waiting, I had a bunch of errands that piled up, so I figured I’d do them, carefully monitoring my phone for any messages from the seller. Late at night, I had to run to Walmart to return something and get a few things. And so it happened: while driving down the highway, I get a ding on my phone. I took a quick glance. The seller had approved of the cancellation. I was partially relieved, but only because I thought that now, finally, I can order it and send it to the right address. I was still on the highway and I wouldn’t get to Walmart until about 7 minutes later. I thought about stopping somewhere on the highway shoulder just to reorder the focusing screen, but I thought, well, what’s only 6 or 7 minutes?

Turns out it’s plenty. I pulled into Walmart, parked, and immediately got to work on my phone. So I click to refresh the eBay page of the focusing screen that was already loaded on my iPhone screen... but the page is taking forever to load and basically timed out. Hmm. I go to my eBay purchase history and click the link of the focusing screen... still no luck. So I type in at the top “Pentax 67 focusing screen” and hit enter and wait. I scroll and can’t find it. Now I’m starting to get nervous. Where the hell is this thing?! I repeat the exact same process, going through my purchase history and then searching for it at large I reluctantly decided to click “Completed Listings”... and, of course, there it was.

It turned out that someone ELSE had ended up purchasing it - the BJ-61 focusing screen I have been desperately searching for for months and basically owned, in theory, for a few hours - in that little 7-minute window of time from when I was notified that the cancellation had been approved by the seller to the time I finally went into eBay to repurchase it!

I’m seriously beginning to wonder if I’ll ever get this focusing screen, the focusing screen that I finally found after spending SO much time looking for it and actually bought. I had it. For a few glorious hours, I thought my search had finally come to an end. Turns out this was just a DAMN tease by luck itself.

If anyone here could send me anymore suggestions or tips regarding getting either of these P67II focusing screens - the BJ-61 (Grid Split Image Matte) or the BB-61 (Split Image Matte) - I’d be eternally grateful.

Ouch. Life isn't always fair. I'd be hard pressed to pay that much for a focusing screen.

At least Pentax made a split for the 67II. Had to track down a 645n split screen for the 645z. It doesn't fit. Had to modify the screen with a knife. The split is small vs the one on my Olympus OM4TI. The Z is still harder to focus and this screen is probably a stop darker. Hope you get the screen you want and it helps focusing.

Thanks,
barondla

[yurihuta]

Ouch. Life isn't always fair. I'd be hard pressed to pay that much for a focusing screen.

At least Pentax made a split for the 67II. Had to track down a 645n split screen for the 645z. It doesn't fit. Had to modify the screen with a knife. The split is small vs the one on my Olympus OM4TI. The Z is still harder to focus and this screen is probably a stop darker. Hope you get the screen you want and it helps focusing.

Thanks,
barondla

barondla,

Pentax did make a split image focusing screen for the 645N - it is the AB-82 - and it works quite well.

Yuri