'Bright screens' for F4

Hi,

 

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Does anyone have any experience with the various "bright" screens for the F4. Ive' heard that Beattie, Maxwell, 20/20 and others make these screens but I was wondering how much brighter and useful they are relative to the Nikon E (grid screen). On backpacking trips, I'm using some of the slower lens (24-120/3.5-5.6 and 75-300/4.5-5.6 and also adding the DR-3 right angle finder (which drops another stop or so of light) so my viewfinder is getting pretty dark and difficult to focus in low light situations. I've heard that these screens are brighter in low light but that in normal sunlight have some strange problems like grainy appearance. Any comments/suggestions?

I haven't had any experience with the "bright" screens for the F4. Popular Photography does discuss them in their Aug issue and does not recommend them for the AF cameras since they generally have very bright screens anyway. Your real problem might be with the DR-3 right angle finder. It's an old right angle finder and is very dim. I hated using it with my F4. Kirk Enterprises sells (or at least used to) an adapter that allows mounting a Minolta VN angle finder to a Nikon F4. This finder is much brighter and also has a lever that will give a 2X magnification to the central image area. I highly recommend it.

The Beattie screen gave me a additional 2/3 stop from the stock screen on my F2AS. I think my F4's screen may be even brighter than the Beattie, although I haven't compared them.

I want to ask another question, are their any one developed bright

screen for Nikon F-70 and Canon EOS-5? I have a Beattie bright

screen for Nikon FM-2, But I bought it about 4 years ago. I don't

know the market now. But my friends need it.

Thanks.