Haoda focusing screen

It's a known fact that a DSLR AF camera and manual lenses don't

sustain quick focusing because the lack of focusing aid such as

split-image and microprism. It has been circulating for quite a

while that Haoda, one of several focusing screen manufacturers, is

able to help photographers working with manual lenses on a DLSR with

a split-screen. So, combining these two factors is not difficult at

all.<P>

Since Haoda has received good comments from people around the net

who have bought his product, I ordered the screen, a diagonal split-

screen to be exact, for my 300D. The diagonal split-screen has an

advantage while photographing in portrait orientation that the split

is still usable as focusing aid. Haoda is very responsive to my

emails and questions and clearly does his best to please the

customers. Judging by the comments of others I'm not the one with

that opinion.<P>

The screen comes in a mini blue plastic box and is neatly wrapped in

another plastic pocket. No tweezers included since I've learned that

some customers have scratched the screen (or camera mirror?) with

the sharp tip of the tweezers. So, no tweezers this time but it's

not a disaster. Any tweezers out of a beauty case of your mum,

sister, wife etc. will do. <P>

Despite printing the installation instruction from Haoda's Yahoo

group earlier, it was still a horrifying moment for me to "mess

about" with some part of a camera. The mirror box is so small and

there is no much room for shaky not-so-handy fingers like mine (also

just recovering from flu ... no, no, fortunately not bird flu), but

after a while I managed to replace the original EOS screen with

Haoda's

split-screen. All in all it took me some 30 minutes or so. Obviously

much longer than average handy people would need, but the job was

done correctly once without complications or accidental scratches

etc. In short: I got my scary moments, but the result really makes

my day cheerful! Manual focusing becomes a piece of cake again, just

like with your Pentax MX, or Nikon F2, Canon F1, Olympus OMs,

Minolta SRTs back then, to mention some. The two segments of the

split-image coincide easily thus to bring the image in focus, but

one might use the microsprism collar as well, as this is very

brilliant and responsive to every single turn of the focusing ring

on the lens used. Also the screen doesn't affect AF when AF lens is

used. It works normally, but now with additional focusing check aid

to control if the AF does its work properly. Not a luxury after

reading the much heard complaint about back focus issues.<P>

But - as someone said - there's no free cake, just trade offs,

Haoda's screen works just fine with optics up to f/5.6. Above that

the split-image and the microprism collar go black (or rather get

dimmed) and won't be much of a help for further focusing. So, if

you decide to order one, do realise that this screen only works fine

with the - relatively - faster lenses (mainly primes or expensive

zooms). Since I'm quite enthusiastic about the screen - I don't have

any connection or whatsoever with this manufacturer/seller - I

really can recommend Haoda's split-screen to photographers who are

having hard times manual focusing their DSLR AF cameras. It's a

nice, good product which is useful to produce good photography in

return, without having to question again if the images just taken

were <I>in</I> or <I>out</I> of focus. You can find Haoda <A

HREF="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/screen4DSLR/"

TARGET="_blank">here</A>. Enjoy your photography.<P>

<LI><A HREF="http://www.photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=332699">Jim

Rais</A></LI><P>

I found installing it a bit trying too, but I got it in the end. A few microfibres in there, but nothing to worry about.

I'm not so concerned about the split prism being pretty useless at f/8+ because there's no light down there anyways on my XT. I use the 'focus then stop down method' usually anyways.

That said, it's actually fine to shoot and stay at up to f/4 now, which is great...in normal lighting conditions.

I'll be buying Haoda screens for any AF camera I buy in the future, probably (if available), if not OEM-equipped for manual shooting.

Shawn

I also found the installation a bit harder than I had hoped (I should have known better than

to muck about with my nearly-new 20D), but I figured that I've worked on cars and

computers, so it shouldn't be too difficult. Eh, not quite. I scratched the daylights out of

the first screen I tried installing. I also should mention that I should've waited until I had

more free time and energy to do it.

However, I'm still pretty happy with the results. I did buy another screen (at a significant

discount) under Haoda's "scratched during install" program, but I haven't installed it yet.

The scratches on the existing screen are bothering me a lot less than I expected, so I'm

waiting until I get plenty of free time and hopefully someone else to document the steps

as I go through them. The one major tip I'd have to anyone considering it is *read the

warnings in the Yahoo group message archives*. One person *strongly* suggested taping

the tips of the tweezers (with cloth tape) to avoid scratching, and I rather wish I'd seen that

before attempting the install.

Other than my clumsiness, though, I'm rather happy with the lens. It doesn't always go

completely black right at 5.6, either; the position of the eye relative to the viewfinder and

the lighting conditions of the scene have an impact as well. Even though I have only AF-

enabled lenses, I still like the ability to check the focus or use MF when AF doesn't want to

work (in low light would be one classic example).

Hmmm, I found it quite simple to replace on a 20D. You push the front of the bracket in & down, flip the camera forward & the screen falls out. Goes back in pretty much the same way. Slip it in, jiggle it around until it's seated on the bracket & push it back up there.

Well, maybe not quite that easy. :)

Sure is nice to have though. And on the 20D you don't loose the AF point indicators or lighting.