split prism/microprism

does anyone on the forum have any knowledge/experience with this type of screen. i assume this makes manual focus ,easier to use, but my concerns are this screen is poor ,at f8 and above .
also does the screen affect autofocus in any way?

my main concern is low light shooting.this screen is on a k7

Regards

Nadeem

No it won't affect autofocus as the AF is either split down to the AF snesor in the bottom of the camera or straight to Sensor for live view AF.

I had a split prism AF screen on my old pentax film SLR and loved it.

You might et some metering escripenciues by modifying a DSLR with one as metering is done the other side of the screen.


I think any screen is going to be dim with lens of max aperture f8

There is a good 3rd party screen from www.focusingscreen.com a Taiwanese company that we in Singapore buy to use with our K5/K5II/K5IIs/K30s etc and it is called the EE S type screen. Very bright for manual lenses.

I used it on my K5 but decided not to use it on the K30.

http://www.focusingscreen.com/product_info.php?cPath=25_113&products_id=1098

I have a Katzeye screen - they are excellent but not a cheap option. There are a number of options that you can include (focussing marks, grid, etc) and their "Optibrite" coating is very good at keeping the viewfinder very nice and bright.

As noted above, no impact on autofocus performance, although you may need to adjust exposures a little (I've not had issues with mine so far).

No need to worry about use stopping down. The lens will remain wide open unless you use the depth of field preview or press the green button (which only stops down for an instant) in order to get the camera to set the right exposure.

Best wishes,

Jon

I bought a Katzeye screen about a month ago. It was OK, but the actual prism ring is somewhat annoying. So I took it out again and put my existing screen (K5) back again.
If I could get a screen without the prism ring, but with only the split part, I would buy this. As it was, it seemed a bit of a waste of money.

Regards, Horst

Ironically, I never used the split image with my film cameras, preferring the general ground glass area of the screen. The advantage has been that current plain screens suit me very well.

I had a KatzEye screen (split prism and ring) for my K20 and it functioned very well apart from affecting metering on one of the modes (I forget which). With the K5 I trust the autofocus more, so have kept the original screen; on the rare occasions when I focus manually it seems easier than with the K20's original screen.

Regards,
Stan