C330 focusing screens

dfoo

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Mar 28, 2008

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• Jan 4, 2011

• #1

I have a C330 with the matte focusing screen. Does anyone have any experience with the split image screens?

 

benjiboy

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• Jan 4, 2011

• #2

I've had one for about twenty years I find it best to use it for general photography with the 80mm, 65mm and 55mm wide angle lenses,with the telephoto lenses I prefer to use the standard matte screen.

 

fenderslash

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Oct 9, 2008

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Townsville,

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• Jan 4, 2011

• #3

I really like the split screen on my C330f. It is a little difficult to use with the longer lenses though - you really have to look perfectly square-on to the split image otherwise one half will go black. But its benefits outweigh that to me. It makes it easier to see when a scene is in focus, especially in dimmer ambient light.

 

23mjm

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Jun 25, 2005

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Rocklin, Cal

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• Jan 4, 2011

• #4

More or less the above posts reflect my findings. I had a matt screen, replaced it with a 45 degree split and haven't looked back. It gets a little funky on with the 135 & 180 but it's livable.

 

xya

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• Jan 7, 2011

• #5

I've used the matte screen for about 30 years. always worked perfect for me, most of the time I did use it with the help of the built-in foldable magnifier though. just tried the split screen once but it didn't convince me at all. not only it didn't work with the longer lenses, I had difficulties with low light as well.

reinhard

 

benjiboy

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• Jan 8, 2011

• #6

I would say that if I could have only one screen to use with all the lenses standard , wide, and telephoto I would choose the matte screen.

 

grahamp

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• Jan 8, 2011

• #7

There are two split image screens. The 4 degree prism is the most general purpose (No. 2 for the C330/f, B for the C330s), while the 6 degree one is optimized for shorter lenses (No. 3 for the C330/f, or B2 for the C330s).

Most 35mm cameras with interchangeable screens did the same thing. The prism is sensitive to the divergence of the image light, and they usually fail around f5.6 as well. Microprisms are less sensitive to angular effect but also fail when the aperture drops.