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03-01-2020, 11:17 PM   #16
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My experience is that prism blackout is extremely rare - an f5.6 lens with a 2x teleconverter will cause it sometimes. That's with the now discontinued KatzEye. It is annoying to make your own shims and time consuming to shim, but it only has to be done once. I'm sure spot metering is unusable. Matrix seems OK. Center-weighted isn't great but I don't know if I can blame the screen. It just now occurred to me that I have some cameras with stock screens and similar meters, so I could test without tedious screen swapping.

03-02-2020, 01:00 AM   #17
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QuoteOriginally posted by richard0170 Quote
I have changed screens on other cameras - Nikon FM2 and Pentax MX. It is not job which requires a technician, just a little bit of care.
So you already have a little experience there. I have no confidence at all in tackling the job, so will not risk it esp if there was any need to experiment with any shimming.

I am a little disappointed that no-one has responded (neither positively nor negatively) to my suggestion re the microprism vs the split screen issue. I would be strongly tempted to go down that read if I got some positive feed back from anyone who has done it on a recent model Pentax. I would love to get back to using some of my old (1970s) manual focus legacy lenses if I could be sure of managing the focus, But my (76 yr old) eyes won't play ball on that with the default focusing screen, unless I get better at using the "Catch in Focus" feature. I know in previous discussions (cannot find and reference them at the moment) that one or two posters empathised with my nostalgia re the K2 microprism focusing screen.
03-02-2020, 11:35 AM - 1 Like   #18
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QuoteOriginally posted by K2 to K50 Quote
I am a little disappointed that no-one has responded (neither positively nor negatively) to my suggestion re the microprism vs the split screen issue.
Issue? I seem to have missed that part of your post. As you are probably aware, microprism focus aids are more useful in the absence of hard borders, but are less sensitive to the OOF condition when doing fine work. As for the suggestion of the Ec-A, Canon warns that both split-image and microprism aids will interfere with spot-metering on their cameras. I personally, am not fond of microprism by itself, preferring split-image at center with microprism and fine-matte fields around that.

Canon Knowledge Base - QuickGuide to EOS Focusing Screens


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03-02-2020, 06:32 PM   #19
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QuoteOriginally posted by stevebrot Quote
Issue? I seem to have missed that part of your post. As you are probably aware, microprism focus aids are more useful in the absence of hard borders, but are less sensitive to the OOF condition when doing fine work. As for the suggestion of the Ec-A, Canon warns that both split-image and microprism aids will interfere with spot-metering on their cameras. I personally, am not fond of microprism by itself, preferring split-image at center with microprism and fine-matte fields around that.

Canon Knowledge Base - QuickGuide to EOS Focusing Screens


Steve
Hmmmm. When I went directly from microprism on the Pentax K2 to split on the Pentax ME, I was never happy. Have no experience of split with outer microprism. Must admit, I mostly use spot metering, so if centre focus features (split or microprism) cause problems there, that would not be useful.

Got off my butt and used the forum search searching on "EC-A" which returned a large number of threads and posts.


As far as which is the more useful purely from a manual focus point of view, in this post:

Focussing screens for the K1 DIY split image - PentaxForums.com

the poster did say "Second update I changed the splitscreen for a microprisma screen that serve my needs better. (Canon Ec-A)
This set up is now used for a couple of shoots and I am 100% happy with it."

This comment is also interesting: "That being said, the matte area on the EC-A is the best way to focus my f/1.2. I can reliably get spot-on focus from the impression using the matte area (I find microprisms more useful for quickly focusing, matte area for precision focusing). With the K3, there was simply no way to get reliable focus confirmation at 1.2"

Read more at: The Great Focusing Screen Revelation - PentaxForums.com



It appears to be a somewhat vexed issue - not so much from the focusing point of view, but from the exposure metering issue


03-08-2020, 04:20 AM   #20
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Many thanks for everyone's input into my thread. I have decided based on the advice given to plump for the EC-a screen rather than a split image one. Now I am torturing myself which camera to put it in! I will probably put it in the K3 and see how I get on with it and if it works OK and does not effect AF I will then put one in the KP too.
03-08-2020, 08:47 PM   #21
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QuoteOriginally posted by richard0170 Quote
Many thanks for everyone's input into my thread. I have decided based on the advice given to plump for the EC-a screen rather than a split image one. Now I am torturing myself which camera to put it in! I will probably put it in the K3 and see how I get on with it and if it works OK and does not effect AF I will then put one in the KP too.
Well, Richard, if and when you do go ahead (from my point of view especially with the EC-A), please, Please, PLEASE come back here and give us your feedback after you have had time to test the results.
03-09-2020, 12:06 AM   #22
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QuoteOriginally posted by K2 to K50 Quote
Well, Richard, if and when you do go ahead (from my point of view especially with the EC-A), please, Please, PLEASE come back here and give us your feedback after you have had time to test the results.
Will do

03-09-2020, 03:32 AM   #23
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QuoteOriginally posted by richard0170 Quote
Will do
Thank you. Will look forward to this.
03-24-2020, 03:45 AM   #24
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So the EC-a screen arrived whilst I was at work yesterday, just in time as the UK shuts down today. I spent a few minutes inserting it and testing the focus. It is pretty accurate but using it in combination with the green hexagon focus assist ultra accuracy is easy. For general walk around use it is much quicker and more accurate than the original K3 focus screen. Wasted a lot of time trying to get the various shims provided to fit. They do not. So just using the screen as is. It works excellently with faster lenses , and fairly well with my slower F4 ones, but with the slow lenses you need to position your eye just so otherwise the micro-prism is less clear. It does not effect AF or exposure, being just as accurate as the K3 screen. I am giving the screen 2 out of 3 cheers. If I only had the one camera and a mix of AF and MF lenses I would not swap the K3 screen out for this, but as I have 2 Pentax DSLRs this suits my needs well.
03-24-2020, 05:15 PM   #25
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Thanks for coming back with this update, Richard.

This sounds pretty promising - it may allow me to resurrect my 5 legacy Pentax lenses. Perhaps you could give us another feedback in a couple of months, after you have had plenty of time to truly test it out, or are you sure enough of your current assessment already?
03-25-2020, 05:27 PM   #26
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I am sure of my assessment, but I may experiment with a hone made shim in the future to see if I can get the focus perfect with the screen on its own. For now though I am reasonably satisfied. If I try the home made shim and it works I will keep you updated.
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