Nikon F3hp focusing screens?

[RokkorZ]

Okay I picked up an old F3 recently, it's the first Nikon I've owned where I can replace the focusing screen. Got it from an older chap who'd taken it round the world and up the Himalayas in the 80s. It came with what looks like a grid screen installed. I thought it was really dim in the viewfinder so following some snooping online I thought it might be an older screen without the red dot. Popped the screen out to check and saw no Nikon markings, just a few white marks and a made in USA stamped on the frame. This has me totally baffled. Anyone seen 3rd party focusing screens before for the F3 before?

Hopefully I can find a Nikon replacement screen at some point soon, and get this old girl firing again

 

[Christiaan Phleger]

It could be an early Beattie Intens-screen a third party maker of screens. I am quite fond of the screen swapping of the Nikon F series; my favorites for the F3 is a J screen as standard and then the U and H3 for telephoto work. Red dots of course although the H and G screens I don't think those matter the Red Dot improvements was for the matte surface. Collect them all!

 

[RokkorZ]

Thanks @RidingWaves I think you're right. Do you have any experience with them compared to Nikon? Im interested in a brightness comparison. I think I'm going to source a Nikon screen. Any thoughts on the R screen? Thanks.

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

Any thoughts on the R screen?

I use an E - it's much like the R but with a fine matte spot in the middle; the R is specified for "lenses having maximum apertures from f 3.5 to f /5 6," as the central split-image prisms are flattened. I'm sure the R works with larger aperture lenses but the split image action isn't as optimum as it could be.

I like the 'P' for general 'snapshot' use. It's a set of crosshairs with a 45degree split-image prism.

With age I found my pictures started to come with sloping horizons. Not much of a problem with B&W but a real annoyance with slides and machine RA4 prints. I now have cross-hair or grid screens in all my cameras, with the exception of an N75 - but that has a grid of focus rectangles in the finder that work pretty well for squaring up the composition.

As for Beattie screens, I have one in a Hasselblad. A PITA in my opinion. Works well with the WL finder but goes dark with a chimney finder. The Nikon screens work with all the finders you can fit: prism, HP, WL, critical magnifier and action.

 

[KinoGrafx]

I've got a Beattie in an F2 and don't really like it- it vignettes like crazy depending on the focal length of the lens, like looking through a dark porthole, and I find it harder to focus