Anyone tried a Katz Eye or similar focusing screen?

[WVDisGeek]

I have been digging into some of my old film "Pentax" and 3rd party lenses. However, all require manual focus and my old eyes are having a hard time getting the focus nailed. I have been looking into replacing the focus screen with something like the Katz Eye to make it easier to focus. Does anyone have any experience/advice with anything like this?

I have a Pentax K200D. Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

[ukcatfan]

I have not tried one, but I have heard good things about the Katz Eye. Be aware that it will likely mess up the exposure meter a little though. If I remember correctly it throws it off about a half stop. I believe once you got used to it, it would not be that big of a hassle.

 

[Groucho]

I've been wanting one for a while but haven't pulled the trigger yet. I love doing manual focusing and have found the viewfinder in the K20D much more conducive to this than the one in our K100D, but still not as good as what I have in my manual-focus film SLRs.

Using "catch-in focus" sometimes helps - leave the camera in autofocus mode, hold down the shutter button, and focus - it'll automatically take the shot when it determines that you've hit focus. This can sometimes be more accurate than eyeballing it, though sometimes it's a bit off (especially if you're trying to focus on something not in the center!)

Supposedly it can affect metering, especially spot metering, but it sounds like most people haven't had too much of problem in the real world. Most owners seem to rave, though I have seen one or two unhappy customers - but they are definitely in the minority.

 

[WVDisGeek]

Thanks guys! I knew the Pentaxians would have an opinion!
My issue is primarily with old film lenses (non-AF) so manual is only option.
My K200D's viewfinder is not as bright as I would like (I have heard the K20D is better in this regard) and the fact that the eyes are starting to get a little older and I wear glasses (from years of staring at little columns of numbers everyday!) have me leaning towards buying.

Most other research I have seen bears out Groucho's points. Most are very happy with it. The spot metering only seems to come up sporadically as an issue. Doesn't seem to bother the weighted as much. Most of the posters concur with ukcatfan on the less than 1 stop effect on metering.

I have signed up for a class at the local community college starting Thursday and I am hoping to run into some other Pentax shooters. Also going to a meeting of the local camera club in a couple weeks. The two guys I do most of my local shooting with both shoot Nikon 200Ds. (More disposable income as they are my corporate director and CFO!)

Have either of you heard of any other brands other than Katz-Eye? The only other thing I have come across is an ebay store in Asia.

Thanks again guys!

 

[jann1033]

i see they have one with lines to show you what would be in a 8x10 crop...too bad they are kind of expensive or i'm to cheap, which ever

 

[Groucho]

Thanks guys! I knew the Pentaxians would have an opinion!
My issue is primarily with old film lenses (non-AF) so manual is only option.
My K200D's viewfinder is not as bright as I would like (I have heard the K20D is better in this regard) and the fact that the eyes are starting to get a little older and I wear glasses (from years of staring at little columns of numbers everyday!) have me leaning towards buying.

Most other research I have seen bears out Groucho's points. Most are very happy with it. The spot metering only seems to come up sporadically as an issue. Doesn't seem to bother the weighted as much. Most of the posters concur with ukcatfan on the less than 1 stop effect on metering.

I have signed up for a class at the local community college starting Thursday and I am hoping to run into some other Pentax shooters. Also going to a meeting of the local camera club in a couple weeks. The two guys I do most of my local shooting with both shoot Nikon 200Ds. (More disposable income as they are my corporate director and CFO!)

Have either of you heard of any other brands other than Katz-Eye? The only other thing I have come across is an ebay store in Asia.

Thanks again guys!

Well, like Jann says, they are expensive, which is why I haven't ponied up for one yet. The alternate ones, off eBay and the like, are all (I believe) just screens from old film SLRs, cut down to the correct size to fit in a DSLR. They work and give you the split-prism and/or microgrid viewfinder, but are not really "designed" for DSLRs.

WVDisGeek, yes, the K20D is a bit better, and the K10D should be, too (I believe the viewfinder is the same between the two.) I don't know if a Kx00D with KatzEye would be better than a Kx0D without?

 

[WVDisGeek]

Oddly enough, I went digging through my old film lenses from my K1000 and A3000 days and found two old Super Albinar prime lenses. One is a 28mm and the other a 135mm. Both are F2.8! They have been much easier to manually focus than my 50mm f2.0 for some reason. Also from some of the pictures I have taken, they actually seem to be fairly sharp. I nice little bonus find! The Katz-Eye is still on my list but I think I will hold off awhile. I still need to pick up a flash and a 50/F1.4. I am taking a photography class and I am going to be practicing much more on the manual settings.

 

[Groucho]

BTW, if anyone is interested in a Katz Eye, I noticed that they have a 10% off sale going at the moment... I have no idea how long it's been active or how long it will last.

I might need to go ahead and pull the trigger soon though...!

 

[Groucho]

Well, I ended up having to make a couple longish road trips for my job this week so will be getting some extra $$$ in mileage reimbursements...

So I ordered myself a Katz Eye today. I got a plane-Jane one... the Optibrite treatment supposedly mainly helps with slow lenses and seems to have a slight decrease in overall contrast. Most of my lenses are fairly fast, so I skipped it. I considered the crosshair etched on but just couldn't justify the extra bucks.

I also figured that if I really love the screen and want those features in the future, I can probably resell this one for nearly what I paid; second-hand ones seem to sell quickly on the buy/sell forums.

I'll let y'all know how I like it when it arrives! (Hopefully my F1.2 lens will finally arrive by then, too! That will be a good test for it...)

 

[WVDisGeek]

Good for you Groucho! Glad you are helping to stimulate the economy!

I will be VERY interested to hear how this works out for you. I am taking a photography class through the county where I live and the instructor is really big into full manual operation (one of the main reasons I took the class). I am using several older manual focus only lenses and trying to focus them in low light is a challenge for my eyes. If this truly works, I will be ordering one myself. I was playing around with my old A3000 and was really wishing for that focus screen in my K200.

I assume you are going to do the install yourself? I watched their installation video and it really didn't look too scary.

Please keep us posted!

 

[Groucho]

I'm expecting good things! I'm going to try and take a few photos through the viewfinder (with the other DSLR) before and after to see the difference and the brightness loss or gain. No guarantees that those shot'll be successful but I've seen it done and surely one of the lenses piled up can get the shot.

I will definitely be doing the install myself, it looks like a piece of cake. Certainly easier than a wet sensor cleaning, which I've also done myself.

In fact, a week or two ago, I complete disassembled my Zeiss 135mm to fix sticky aperture blades... I completely cleaned it up and now the blades work perfect and the whole thing works smoother thanks to the old grease being removed and fresh greases added. I took pics of the operation, maybe I'll post 'em sometime... it's kind of interesting to see the inside of a lens.

 

[jann1033]

wondering if you got the katz eye yet andhow it's working out if you did. really more interested on why it's easier to focus, ie would it help someone with poor vision or not. just realized my 50mm has an auto focus problem in pretty much the whole range of 1.8-3.5( this whole time i though i just got a lousy copy of the lens) so it's sharp if i manual focus but can't see well enough to really
count on that...course the katz eye would cost more than another 50mm 1.8 lens

 

[Groucho]

Got it, took a few "test" photos, been using it a little. I've been planning on a proper write-up but haven't dumped any photos yet.

At this point, I'm still trying to decide a couple things... like if it's showing focus at exactly the right place (sometimes you need to play with shims or such to get it absolutely perfect; they will do this for you if you send them your camera and pay extra), and so far I'm mainly only used it for very challenging things: like taking photos of Jack from fairly close with an F1.2 lens! Between the constant movement, the lack of contrast (with his face taking up much of the frame), and the extra tiny DoF of this lens, it's tough to nail focus consistently, and the lack of contrast doesn't really show the usefulness of the split-image/microprism.

Also, I'm not such a fan of the split-image in general. My K1000 that I've used for years has only a microprism grid and that's what I'm used to. I recently picked up an older K1000 that has only the split-image and I find it much trickier to use. I'd probably like the Katz-Eye the best if it was microprism-only. Maybe I'll have to try one of those cheap $30 eBay screens.

Don't get me wrong, though, I think that I really, really like it though; I just want to make sure that it's set up to give me exactly the right feedback, otherwise it's really no help. The couple times I've tried focusing on static objects, it seems pretty good; it's certainly much easier to tell when you're nailing focus as long as the object has at least some contrast.

 

[WVDisGeek]

Can't wait to get the complete rundown, with pictures.

Really hoping you loved it enough to make me want to get one for my K200.

Got our bonus checks at work Friday and even though we were told to expect very small checks this year, mine was large enough that one of these might just make it into the camera!

 

[Groucho]

Just a quick update... I've officially decided that the screen is slightly out of alignment. This is apparently not uncommon (and K20Ds seems to be affected more than some others), so I sent a note to Katz Eye this morning at around 9am. By 10:30 (on a Sunday!), I had a reply from Rachel Katz who had some good information. My options are to buy some alternative shims from Pentax (which are very cheap but a pain to replace) and experiment until I get it perfect, or send it to them and they'll do it, which I was considering doing anyway. I replied with some thoughts, including a side mention of mine being in for service recently for some tweaking including AF, and fairly quickly got another reply. She did say:

I’m honestly not surprised that Pentax didn’t correct the screen calibration while they were working on the camera. All of the manufacturers seem to take a lax approach when it comes to MF calibration, since they really just don’t expect anyone to use it much anymore.

Having to play with shims a little seems to be a not-uncommon issue. It sounds like the screens for some cameras come with shims, some don't... I'm not really sure. Regardless, I will probably send it the camera after next weekend (need the camera for my son's 4th birthday party!) and I'll let them do all the tweaking and such to get it perfect.

I hope and expect this will get me a bit happier; it was kind of a bummer to get perfect focus in the viewfinder only to find that the actual digital image was front-focused.

More updates as the situation warrants!

 

[WVDisGeek]

Sorry to hear about your difficulties. Hopefully, everything can get worked out once they get their hands on it. Did they give you any indication as to how long it would take to fix everything?

Really curious as this is on my short list before our trip to the beach in May.

Good Luck!!

 

[Groucho]

They didn't give me a time but I suspect it would be fairly quick. By all indications, their customer service is top-notch and I was extremely pleased with the responses I got from my inquiries. (Including some pretty details info on changing the shims if I wanted to do that myself.)

My only other concern is that I think I'm pretty much a "microprism" guy (probably from the many years of using just a microprism in my K1000!) and haven't gotten used to having a split-image in the middle of the microprism. I mentioned that it might be nice if they offered an all-microprism screen; she said that it has been suggested before and they will let me know if they decide to offer it. It is one of those love-hate things, I think; everyone has their own preference!

 

[Groucho]

Well, it sure didn't take them long to get it calibrated!

I waited until Monday to ship the camera (my boy had a 4th-birthday party on Sunday!)... they got it this morning at 11:30 and by 2:30pm, I had a tracking number for it heading back to me. Now that's fast! I should have it Friday and I think I have a somewhat free weekend, so I hope to give it a workout with the F1.2 and some macro stuff to really put it to the test. So hopefully I'll have some more thoughts to post in a few days.

 

[WVDisGeek]

Now THAT is some quick turnaround....

We'll be waiting to hear how the repair went and how you like the fully adjusted screen.

 

[Groucho]

I love it when UPS arrives ten minutes after I get home with an item that requires a signature.

The camera is back, very nicely packaged (much better than the safe-but-ugly packaging I sent it in), and initial impressions are that it is definitely set up better now, and is probably just about perfect, based on a few indoor test shots with the F1.2 lens. We ended up going out for a while tonight and it was pouring rain all day so I haven't had a chance to take it out to do some real testing... but so far so good! It certainly helps when what you think you're focusing on is what the camera is focusing on!