I was thinking back to the film days where we used to use a split prism to assist in manual focusing, usually in the center portion of the frame. Is there a way to enable this on any modern camera? This would be neat on a retro focused camera like the ZF, imo.
Fuji does it and it's pointlessly bad. Nothing beats looking at ground glass. In the absence of ground glass, nothing beats a chipped lens and focus confirmation.
It could implemented in a better way than Fuji did it. But something like Canon‘s manual focus guide interface is better because it also tells you how far you’re out and if you’re moving in the right direction focus-wise.
Nikon‘s focus confirmation is good, but a bit binary.
That said I hate split prisms on film SLRs 😂 My Pentax K2 has just the micropism in the center and I like that so much more, that I’m considering changing the screen on my Nikon F2 to either that or just a ground glass..
fjablo wrote:
It could implemented in a better way than Fuji did it. But something like Canon‘s manual focus guide interface is better because it also tells you how far you’re out and if you’re moving in the right direction focus-wise.
Nikon‘s focus confirmation is good, but a bit binary.
That said I hate split prisms on film SLRs 😂 My Pentax K2 has just the micropism in the center and I like that so much more, that I’m considering changing the screen on my Nikon F2 to either that or just a ground glass..
Yes, the Fuji version isn’t very good. In my Pentax days, I also relied mostly on the microprism and not the split screen.
I also agree the Canon interface is top notch, but unfortunately its use is pretty limited while Nikon’s is capable of being used with way more lenses. Wonder if Canon’s shortcomings could be fixed with an adapter. I have no clue.
You have hundreds of focusing points in a mirrorless camera for a reason. Move focus point to where you want to be sharp, and use manual focus with a confirmation light. If it’s a static subject, you can improve focus further with magnification. No need to recompose, no need to rotate the camera to see split lines better. It’s just a better, more reliable way of focusing and experience.
loudtiger wrote:
I was thinking back to the film days where we used to use a split prism to assist in manual focusing, usually in the center portion of the frame. Is there a way to enable this on any modern camera? This would be neat on a retro focused camera like the ZF, imo.
Some focusing screens had a split image in the center and a prism "donut" surrounding that, a larger area prism "disc", or simply a full matte screen, but I do not recall any split prism designs. The split image was only good for fast lenses and I never liked it, preferring full matte area that worked with all lenses and especially macros. Of course I was young and had better than 20/15 unaided vision in the 20th century.
I'm sure it could be done, but more like a gimmick than a useful feature compared to EVF aids like colors, zebras etc.
