I posted it over on the Nikon Forum to see if any of our friends over there could help out.

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/310995

I can't wait to try this out! Manual focusing is really a chore with the 20D

Looks like this is the the mystery part.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=37328&is=REG&addedTroughType=search

Someone on the Nikon Forum tried the DK-7 listed above and it doesn't fit.

Has anyone tried this with a 1DmkII, a 20D, and a D60? Does it work with all 3? This is a great Idea and I would love to buy or own one.

So as it turns out I'm really not very good with the old Dremmel....I should have listened to whoever it was who suggested buying multiple adapter pieces.

Anyone with some Dremmel smarts that can tell me the best attachment to use? I will give it another shot.

Still though, I did manage get it together but would like to make a 'clean' version ...and I have to say I like it, I've always had trouble manual focusing my DRebel, but now it's much easier.

Thanks for the original post here....news you can use...

Dave

Bob Bell wrote:
Has anyone tried this with a 1DmkII, a 20D, and a D60? Does it work with all 3? This is a great Idea and I would love to buy or own one.

I tried it on my buddies 20d, and it works just like it does on my xt

gammon wrote:
Anyone with some Dremmel smarts that can tell me the best attachment to use? I will give it another shot.


I tried a few things. The coarse sand paper heads just seemed to rip stuff up bad - effecitve but ugly. The sort of ceramic/abrasive heads seemed to gum up in an instant. I had some small roughened metal heads. These were slow, but worked well. I tried moving the dremmel in arcs along the inside of the adapter. I found if I tried to apply too much pressure in the direction opposite the dremel wanted to "walk" it could stick and dig in quickly in one spot making it uneven. If I got a spot too high I found it was easier to smooth it out with a hand file instead of the dremel - the dremel seemed to want to slide off the peak.

For an epoxyless interference fit I got it to the size where then magnifier would just barely start to fit - basically you could almost start cutting threads with the magnifier itself. Then I used the dremmel to flare the opening so it was a little bigger on the camera side by holding the dremmel at an angle. The with some wiggling and pressure (and many iterations of trial and error) it eventually got to the point where the threads snapped past the slightly too small opening. I'm sure just making it bigger and using epoxy would be less fussy but I figured I'd give this a try and use epoxy as a back up it I got the opening too big. Also, beware of the bottom edge of the adapter - the plastic there gets quite thin as you open up the hole.

Ken

I used cutting discs on my dremel to enlarge the hole

Thanks Kwalsh and Dan,

I'm off to get another adapter and I'll give it another shot...as always it's better to be patient and do it carefully than hurry and screw it up (wish I could get remember that! )

Thanks again for your input.

Dave

Here's a guy who sells a custom made thread adapter to mate the larger DK17m threads into the smaller threads of the 2370 eyepiece adapter. However, it seems to make the DK17m sit further away from the camera eyepiece than with the custom Dremmel made opening, so it might not give full frame viewing for FF DSLRs. The 2370 Eyepiece Adapter does slide onto my 1Ds just fine.

http://www.ircube.jp/main/product/mea/eng.html

BTW, the rubber ring around the outer rim of the DK17m comes off, and you can fit the DK2 Rubber Eyecup directly onto the rim of the DK17m.

I just ordered my parts from Adorama, so I should have them the end of next week or the week after. I really wonder how much of a difference it's going to make on my viewfinder.

...applicable to 1D bodies as well ??

Looking through the eyepieces section on the site form B&H, I saw this:
DK-21M Magnifying Eyepiece for Nikon D200 Digital Camera
It has the same shape as the 20D, not round like on a D2x. Maybe this will fit on the 20D without an adapter. It is not available yet, so we have to wait a while

i got all the parts and must say i like the setup. nice and big viewfinder but a little dark in the corners. not sure if i'd use it all the time but for closeups it seems essential.

Hi,

Maybe some of you know... This was brought up on another forum... Several places it says that with the D200 comes the DK-21M Rubber Eyecup. Can the ordinary rubber eyecup and a magnifying eyepiece have the same model numbers? Because the camera doesn't come with the magnifying eyepiece originally, does it? That wouldn't really make too much sense, I guess, sounds highly unlikely...


AM

Has anyone here tried mating the DK-17M to the original Canon Eb 20D eyepiece? This would have the advantage of having the clips from the Canon eyepiece to keep your home brewed DK-17M in place a bit more securely.

This page shows at least one way to do it: http://www.knock.ne.jp/~moly/Photo/equip/DK-17M/2nd/
(Its in Japanese but BabelFish will translate pretty well)

I wonder if you could just enlarge the square hole in the Canon Eb big enough to fit the round threads of the DK-17M and fill in the gaps on the sides with black epoxy?

Thanks for any feedback.

Could one of the pioneers care to post some pics of the image thru the "improved" magnifying eyepiece? Dan? Vernon? Thanks in advance.

Contemplating this project but is getting a lil confused with the different ways each person approach this...

I'm finally receiving my parts tomorrow. I'm really curious how much of a difference this will make on my 20D.

sanggarra wrote:
Could one of the pioneers care to post some pics of the image thru the "improved" magnifying eyepiece? Dan? Vernon? Thanks in advance.

Contemplating this project but is getting a lil confused with the different ways each person approach this...


I'll try to get one up tomorrow if someone hasnt already.

good thread just marking for notification

ForeverUnknown wrote: I'm really curious how much of a difference this will make on my 20D.


Sidney: Please keep us updated as I'm planning on ordering the DK-17M for my 20D when someone like B&H gets it back in stock.

Are you going to use the Nikon 2370 or the Canon Eb as shown here: http://www.knock.ne.jp/~moly/Photo/equip/DK-17M/2nd/ I'm wondering how well the eyepiece will stay on the body without benefit of the locking tabs that the original Canon eyepiece has.

eyepiece stays on just fine
i wouldn't bother trying to adapt the canon piece to fit
looks ugly

mine has never come off

Well I've finished my eyepiece. I think it came out pretty well. Looks exactly the same as Veron's (rathman).

First off I'm very proficient with a Dremel, but when I tried my girlfriend's with a sanding barrel, the lowest speed was already pretty high. Almost melted some of the plastic. This Dremel didn't have precise speed controls like my personal one. I then tried a small rounded hand file which worked wonders. I was able to have more control with what I was doing.

I filed down the plastic on the Nikon 2370 adapter until the DK-17M eyepiece could fit nice and snug by itself. Before putting the eyepiece on the adapter, I put the DK-2 hood on the eyepiece and used the metal ring that came with the hood to help hold it in place. I then stuck the eyepiece onto the adapter and used a paperclip tip to carefully put epoxy where the eyepiece and adapter meet. From first file to epoxy, it took me roughly 25min.

Here are two images of the original eyepiece and the new modded Nikon. I used a p&s and stuck it as close as I could to the eyepiece. I zoomed in to have more of the viewfinder in the frame. I kept the zoom the same for both shots so you can see how much bigger the viewfinder looks.

There is very, very slight vignetting for me with the new eyepiece, but goes away if you find the right spot to look at. It's nothing that really affects performance however. The 2370 adapter fits very nicely on my 20D too. Holds just as well as the Canon OEM piece.

1.2x magnification doesn't seem like much, but on a small viewfinder like the 20D, it does help a lot.

great thread guys and thanks to ForeverUnknown for taking the time to take the above shots...nice one