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Making low-light illuminator for Program Plus viewfinder

Discussion in 'Camera Building, Repairs & Modification' started by BetterSense, Sep 23, 2008.

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  1. Sep 23, 2008 #1
    BetterSense

    BetterSense Member

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    I have a Pentax Program Plus with the digital display of exposure information in the viewfinder (I hope this isn't too digital for APUG:wink:).

    Anyway it's a simple LCD display with no backlighting, only a plastic window on top of the pentaprism that is supposed to let light in to shine through the LCD so you can see it. This works great in the daytime. But in low light you can't see the display at all. If you shine a flashlight at the plastic window it lights right up. So what I need is some way to rig up a small, light, hopefully not too tacky looking LED there by that window.

    I would get one of those little led squeeze keychains, and like, tape it on, and run some fiber-optics over to the window, but that's going to look pretty bad.
     
  2. Sep 23, 2008 #2
    John Koehrer

    John Koehrer Subscriber

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    Nikon at one time made an light for the FTn's that was a small light that mounted on top of the meter. Same idea but was used to illuminate the meter needle. It was small relative to the Nikon, about 1X1", large relative to the Pentax.
    What about an led light with a flexible neck mounted to the acc. shoe?