Brightscreen or Canon EG-S focusing screen

[ilya_e]

<p>I currently have an option to get Eg-S for my 5DII for about $40 or get new Brighscreen Proscreen 5 for $100 (which is about $75 off retail price). What would you recommend?</p>

[joseph_wisniewski]

<p>That depends entirely on what you're shooting. The two screens you mention are entirely opposites of each other, so the decision really depends on what you shoot.</p>

<p>Modern OEM (camera manufacturer provided) screens are "low scatter" bright screen types. They scatter light over about a 10 degree angle. That means that light from anywhere on a 10 degree "cone" from the exit pupil (read view of the aperture) to your eye's pupil contributes to what you see in the viewfinder. That corresponds to a portion of the lens's image when stopped down to about f5.6. So, what you see in the viewfinder has about the same DOF and brightness whether you use an f1.4 lens, and f2.8 lens, or an f4 lens. An f5.6 lens looks a little dimmer, but nowhere near a stop dimmer. Since you're always seeing about f5.6 DOF, this makes it hard to manually focus an f1.4 lens to see the exact plane of focus.</p>

<p>The EG-S is an old fashioned "high scatter" screen. It scatters light over about a 20 degree angle, a cone closer to f2.8. So, you see a lot shallower DOF in the viewfinder than you're used to. You see objects really "snap" into focus, and you get more of an idea what the actual DOF will be when you use the DOF preview button. But you need fast lenses to get a bright viewfinder image with a high scatter screen. An f5.6 super zoom will look considerably dimmer with an EG-S than it looks with the camera's stock screen. It's great for manually focusing shallow DOF portraits, and good for macro , if your lens has an "effective f stop" of f4 or higher at your desired magnification.</p>

<p>The brightscreen is an old-fashioned very low scatter screen, maybe 5 degrees of scatter. You see almost no DOF in the screen, but you see a bright "aerial" image. They're great for MF cameras or 35mm, when you're shooting fashion or portrait on studio strobes and are going to be working primarily at f16-f32. They're also pretty good for wildlife shooters who like to pile a 2x TC on a 500mm f4 and end up at effective f8.</p>

[ilya_e]

<p>Thanks for your response. I actually need it to focus my Zeiss ZE MF lenses. The proscreen I was referring to has 6mm diagonal split image and microprism collar. So what split image does, is that the same as you can find in rangefinders?</p>

[wegner]

<p>Almost, in works not the same way but it result is effectively the same. The split screen is used on the most manual SLR, say, Kiev-60 or Kiev-88. When an image is in focus split vertical lines of it will be unsplit. Microprism could also be found in manual focus SLR, focus just snaps deadly sharp otherwise the image in the collar is fuzzy.</p>

[symple]

<p>I use the Brightscreen pro-screen in my 1 series bodies, and a Katz eye split in the 40D, and used to use a precision S in my 1D IIn. Assuming the precision matte is similar between the IIn and 5D II I recommend the Brighscreen if you are using lenses with a maximum aperture of 3.5 or larger, period. I would install the precision S on the 1D IIn for imaging birds and sports action because you can see the whole imaging field evenly well, and focus can be visually confirmed in the corners easier the with the standard focusing screen. That said, although the Brightscreen (I use the 10mm fresnel version) also works well for visual focus confirmation in the corners, it is unbeatable in the central portion of the image for focusing. I don't know if 5D II and 1Ds II viewfinders are similar since I have never looked through the former, but the ratio of fresnel to matte in the 1Ds II is ideal for me with the Brightscreen, and of course autofocus is not affected at all by the screen in use. When using the TS-E 24 II the centre completely blacks out with the brightscreen past 6 degrees of tilt though, but the TS-E 45 and TS-E 90 don't have that problem, that would be my only caution.</p>

[ilya_e]

<p>Ok thanks. If I am going to install a focusing screen i am not going to remove it every time I change lenses so i want one that won't complicate my life with other lenses :) I have Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 and I am going to get 21mm Distagon in the next couple of weeks. Plus I have 24-70mm f/2.8, 70-200mm f/4 IS and 85mm f/1.2 II. I've read some reports that Brightscreen can be too bright during daylight. Is that so? The price of $100 sounds not bad. New its about $175 with shipping.</p>

[Brad_]

I use the S screen on my 5DII with Zeiss 35/2. Works great, no complaints. $40 and takes about 20 seconds to install.

Easy...

[symple]

<p>It is not too Bright for any situation. I have used it with f/1.2 up to f/4.0 lenses in full sun and it is not too bright at all. You may have to adjust your exposure compensation for metering with it, but on my 1Ds II it is fine, but on my 1D and 1D IIn I had to use +0.33 compensation on pattern metering - no big deal.</p>

[ilya_e]

<p>Ok, thank you all for the input.</p>

[rishij]

<p>Joseph -- some very interesting info there. Do you have a link or reference where I can read up on the actual physics of what you describe? And how to do those sorts of calculations?</p>

<p>Thanks,<br>

Rishi</p>