p.14 #3 · Microprism-only Brightscreen on Canon 5D
Sorry, you were right of course; I was thinking 01. I have set it to Es-S now and will see if that improves things. Although it might be initially better, I doubt it will help as the microprisms go black though. I might also try the third screen type.
p.14 #4 · Microprism-only Brightscreen on Canon 5D
I hope that since Ee-S os known to get dark as aperture closes down, perhaps it might be more in line with the initially-bright Proscreen? I'm eagerly waiting for your results.
p.14 #5 · Microprism-only Brightscreen on Canon 5D
Well, grapevine about these metering issues brought me to NOT buy a brightscreen, and an EE-S instead. I'm happy to report that metering manual lenses with the EE-S is actually better than with the standard screen. With the standard screen (5D), stopping down led systematically to quite severe overexposure. With the EE-S screen, metering is consistent throughout all stops.
p.14 #6 · Microprism-only Brightscreen on Canon 5D
Well, the question is whether one can use Ee-S with very slow lenses with fixed aperture F8 and F10. Fast lenses are no problem, but I need to use those slow ones.
p.14 #7 · Microprism-only Brightscreen on Canon 5D
The Ee-S is a plain old ground glass (actually textured plastic) screen, more or less linear viewfinder brightness with aperture. The stock Ee-A is a newfangled laser-cut matte, optimized to catch every stray photon especially at slow apertures. At f8, the Ee-A is 2 stops brighter, at f11 it's 3.3 stops brighter (by my measurements). To my eyes the snap of the Ee-S is only an advantage to f3.5 or so, I can't see a difference in focus acumen at f4 but can at f2.8. At f8 and 10 I don't see any reason to use the Ee-S whatsoever, the Ee-A (or Ec-A) really is the best tool for the job at really small apertures due to the brightness.
Unfortunately it's just hard to focus a lens that dark no matter what you do. I guess you could do what the pros do (optical astronomers) and use an image intensifier tube...
p.14 #8 · Microprism-only Brightscreen on Canon 5D
You're bringing sad news to me. Maybe Brightscreen would be better than Ee-S to focus those slow beasts of lens. If not - my last hope is viewfinder magnifier.
Still waiting for Carsten to share his experience with Brightscreen metering trials. Did setting CF.00 to something other than 0 help at all?
p.14 #9 · Microprism-only Brightscreen on Canon 5D
To be quite honest, I had completely forgotten about it. I don't recall having any trouble with exposure in the last week or so, so this is probably a good sign, I would say. Normally I am quite aware of the limitations. I will try to be more aware in the next few days.
p.14 #10 · Microprism-only Brightscreen on Canon 5D
Yes please! So you have Brightscreen with microprism (no split image), and your CF.00 setting is - what? And with that setting you observe no metering errors, using metering modes - which? I'd love to hear how Matrix, Spot and Centerweighted turn out. And if there were errors - in what mode, with what CF.00 setting, and by how much (how many stops)?
And thanks for reporting your results here - I'm sure many will find them very helpful in both their purchasing decision and daily usage.
p.14 #11 · Microprism-only Brightscreen on Canon 5D
Okay, it seems that with the 5D and the Proscreen, the metering is a bit better with CF00 setting 2, ie. Ee-S. Note that since I do not have any way of measuring absolute accuracy, I only mean that wide-open and stopped down slightly, it seems to keep the proper relationship between exposures. Once I start stopping down more than one or two stops, it gets out of whack, just like the standard screen. Again, I suspect the blackening of the microraster. I now focus and meter wide-open, and then stop down and change the exposure before shooting. When I am shooting in the streets, I shoot wide-open anyway, so there is no problem.
I did notice that for one picture I made, the matte part got me more accurately focused than the microraster, so I am wondering if I should switch to a matte screen, which would presumably also help keeping exposures consistent all through the f-stop range.
p.14 #12 · Microprism-only Brightscreen on Canon 5D
OK, great. So we know what to start with (CF.00=2). On my end, I've tried Canon Ee-S, and found that for F3.5 and F4 lenses it makes no difference (manual focusing is no easier than with the standrd Ee-A). For the slow F8 lens manual focusing with Ee-S is plain impossible.
So I'm waiting for the Proscreen to see how it will behave.
p.14 #14 · Microprism-only Brightscreen on Canon 5D
Yeah, I like the Proscreen quite a lot, but the exposure metering really goes south once you stop down a bit. As I said, I think it may just be the nature of microrasters, where they start going black around f/5.6. If you can live with metering and focusing wide open, and then stopping down and re-centering, it is great.
