As per my earlier link
Pentax 645 N split image screen
Have received and installed it today. Good and bad at the same time, overall I would not recommend it unless one is OK with the following:
1. Screen comes in a small box and is inside a small zip lock bag, no material protecting it otherwise. Pulling the screen from the box in that zip bag was not giving me high confidence. Also it does not come with tweezers for installation purposes, although that is not as much of an issue in a practical sense.
2. Screen installs fine, but it is substantially thinner than original screen (I'd guess it's about 70% original thickness), this however appears to not make a difference as it goes against a foam and so is held in place steady with focus plain still referencing to same as original.
3. Screen is critically darker than original, although this in some cases may be fine, but I did not like how dark it was (those looking for comparison to Pentax 645 (manual focus camera) original screen it is night and day difference)
4. Split image does work and is rather large in diameter. it appears to match focus confirmation, so in that sense it works just fine. Nothing shot with it so no other confirmation on focusing accuracy at this time.
5. The overall darkness of the screen can be described as one from early days where fresnel would only light up the center of a screen with significant fall off towards the edges/corners. One might say it "helps" focusing on the middle scene and sort of helps narrowing focus to where it matters - on the split image. However, even dead center this is a good full stop darker from original. If I'm correct believing light sensors are located above the screen, internal light meter will likely be troublesome and hand held meter may be the only way to go. Seller calls it "bright screen" in description, which he must be referring to the brightening of his bank account.
Overall, for $30, it is no go from my perspective given poor packaging, lack of tweezers, very dark image. On the other hand, especially for someone with vision issues and high difficulty of manual focusing on the original 645N screen, this may just be the much cheaper solution to the problem Pentax inexcusably created on its own. The Pentax AA/AB 82 screens are few and far between, so wait to get lucky, or sell your wife to get one, or get this since it does work albeit with clear caveats above.
