so I bought the split-prism screen out of an old dead Minolta for $5.
Do you remember which Minolta model was the donor? This may be useful for
those thousands following you :)
The guy who runs the shop is kinda surly and had already taken the
screen out. I think I may have seen the donor on the table, but I'm
unfamiliar with models. X and 7 stick out in my mind. I'll try to call
and confirm.
At the time I was busy trying to get one that didn't have scuffs
on it. The first one he had had a scratch down the side. I got one
without a scuff.
One thing to note... on these smaller sizes, the split prism is a
larger *fraction* of the viewfinder. Doesn't bother me, but it does take
up 1/4-1/3 of the vertical distance.
for this reason a screen like the one in P30t seems to be perfect - with
small, diagonal split image and narrow raster ring around it, something like
this:
http://www.star.ucl.ac.uk/~rwesson/esif/om-sif/findergroup/images/screen1-14.jpg
Anyone remember if/which other Pentaxes (or other brands) have this small
split/raster?
Go figure. That's probably why I'm going for that kind. My 35mm
film Pentax was a P30t. Don't know why anyone would want anything other
than diagonal.... it's *always* easy to find something to zero in on with
diagonal. I didn't think the screen was removable from the P30T... at
least without serious disassembly. I've got two good ones, but can't
justify tearing one down for its screen.
Also, I took a few test shots this morning. Original focus may
have been off a bit, but after removing and re-inserting it's dead-on.
It may tend to let a bit more light into the meter (1/2 stop or so), so it
tends to underexpose. Didn't seem to matter whether it was spot or
center-weighted. I tended to think the camera underexposed 1/2 stop in
general anyway. I subscribe to the "expose to the right" philosophy of
DSLR exposure and I almost always cranked up +0.5. Now it looks like +0.5
or +1.0 depending on how the histogram comes out.
Now... if only I could figure out a way to clean it. All I did
was rinse the plastic dust off with water and blow it dry. There's a bit
of scum/dirt on it, but I don't want to scratch it cleaning it. In case
anyone's curious, I did the "point-and-shoot-through-the-viewfinder":
http://www.ee.vt.edu/~mythtv/focused.jpg
http://www.ee.vt.edu/~mythtv/unfocused.jpg
Cheers,
-Cory
--
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* Cory Papenfuss *
* Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student *
* Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University *
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