I did not know about that Nikon split prism fitting the 5Dc! I have the Ee-S screen from Canon in my 5D now, as this was the first full frame digital I could afford back in 2005, and other than the convenience and immediacy of digital vs. film, I wanted to keep shooting like I learned how, on film - including manual focus. I hoped the Ee-S would help improve manual focussing, but I still missed the split prism from my old Minolta. Imma look into picking one up. Thank you for that tip!
Good day, nice to have you back. l’ve read somewhere that Nikkor lenses are great donors but the Nikon DSLR camera bodies poor recipients. As you correctly point out the flange distance is too long for lenses from most other systems. Although the Tamron Adaptall 2 lenses will happily mount on Nikon. Interesting that the split prism focusing screen could be donated from the older Nikon SLR for the Canon 5D. I’ve found mirrorless cameras like the Sony A7 and Olympus EM10 mk2 work well with older manual focus lens. Focus peaking is a great feature.
Yes, the great strengh of mirrorless is the ability to have that focus peaking as well as super short flange distances allowing to adapt pretty much everything from rangefinder to SLR lenses. Lens mount like the Nikon Z mount can even adapt other mirrorless mounts like Sony E or Fuji X (!)
Yes, the autofocus is still completely functional. The autofocus is using a different mirror that reflects light down into the AF sensot, changing the focus screen at the top of the mirror box has no impact on it. Similarly, the posts you move to calibrate the focusing are different depending on the mirror you want to adjust, so you can adjust your main mirror (that will calibrate your manual focus accuracy) or the secondary mirror (that will calibrate the autofocus accuracy) without having any impact on the other.
Hello, I too after years out of the hobby got an 5D. The AF is off and I'd love to have a split prism like on my old A-1, can you point out how to obtain the split prism screen for the 5D??
Thanks! When you added shims to the focusing screen and also turned the screws that the mirror rests on, how did you know when to do one vs the other? Put another way: If I only had 1 parameter to change (e.g. thickness of shims), I'd know how to optimise that. But in your case you have 2 parameters to change (thickness of shims + rotation of the screws). How did you search for the best values for those two parameters? Thanks a lot. I'm feeling daunted to do this but I'd really like to. I'm just not sure how to solve this optimisation problem without lots of random trials and guesswork.
pretty simple in fact : I don't have the ability to change the thickness of the spacers I put on the screen. I either have them or I don't. I had an autofocused lens on hand, so I focused on something, kept the camera locked in place on a tripod, didn't move the focus of the lens and tried to alight the prism of the screen with the wench. Without the spacers I could not get there quite right, with the spacers I could get to it precisely. The spacers were there only to bring the screen within reach of the screws.
This is really helpful, thanks a lot. I had given up on the idea on putting a high precision focus screen in my 5D Classic before seeing your video. I’m going to do it. Thanks
The EOS 1DS mark II is also good,I bought one last week and now have a good exercise device.That thing is a 16.7 Mp beast.................................................
if only it didn't use Ni-MH batteries... I'm sure you can find some Li-ion units for thses, but having gone through that process for my D1X, it's always a little frustrating and/or annoying.
@@pippetera I mean there can be difference in rendering and bokeh, stuff like that. But generally those are very subtle, and I mostly consider the framing and depth of field that a lens give me above the bokeh rendering (there's also optical performance of course)
At 2:15 you say the mirror was not correctly aligned, but you were able to fix it. Can you tell me how you fixed the mirror alignment? I had the same problem when the mirror fell out of my 5D, and my local camera shop repaired it and reglued it, but then I noticed the mirror was misaligned. I returned it to my local camera shop but they were unable to fix the misalignment, as they said the mirror was glued into a frame, so they could not explain how the misalignment occured. As I had also purchsed the camera from them they replaced it with another camera that had already had the mirror modification done, but it always intrigued me how the mirror misalignment occured, and how to fix it. Hope you can help solve the mystery. Thanks.
When you say it was mis-aligned, what is the issue specifically? Is the mirror simply not straight on the tray, or is the manual focusing out of whack compared to the actual sensor placement? My case was the latter. I needed a 1.3mm allen key to be able to turn the posts inside the mirror box on which the mirror rests on (that's how you calibrate the camera). Just turning those wasn't quite enough, so I added some spacers on the focus screen itself to bring it closer to the mirrorbox, then re-did the calibration with the allen key to get it as close to possible. It's not perfect but it's close enough. I don't know if that's your issue though? I know the 5D can have some mirror issues, I have no idea if that's what you're talking about.
@@uncertainrelease No, my issue was a misalignment with the mirror and the sensor. So what you saw through the viewfinder was not what was recorded on the sensor. The whole image was shifted up slightly when in landscape orientation. So a little was cropped from the bottom of the image and added to the top of the image, compared to what you saw through the viewfinder.
@@duncanthorn6338 Oh okay, this wasn't my issue, my guess would be that the mirror is too high compared to what it should be, but I have no further information or knowledge on how to fix that, besides disassbling the mirror tray and finding a thinner mirror... :(
The 5D has a known issue with early cameras and the glue holding the mirror. Later models have brackets either side to hold it in place instead of glue which resolved the problem.
I did not know about that Nikon split prism fitting the 5Dc! I have the Ee-S screen from Canon in my 5D now, as this was the first full frame digital I could afford back in 2005, and other than the convenience and immediacy of digital vs. film, I wanted to keep shooting like I learned how, on film - including manual focus. I hoped the Ee-S would help improve manual focussing, but I still missed the split prism from my old Minolta.
Imma look into picking one up. Thank you for that tip!
For Manual focusing is BEST to use Ground Glass focusing screen.
Good day, nice to have you back. l’ve read somewhere that Nikkor lenses are great donors but the Nikon DSLR camera bodies poor recipients. As you correctly point out the flange distance is too long for lenses from most other systems. Although the Tamron Adaptall 2 lenses will happily mount on Nikon. Interesting that the split prism focusing screen could be donated from the older Nikon SLR for the Canon 5D. I’ve found mirrorless cameras like the Sony A7 and Olympus EM10 mk2 work well with older manual focus lens. Focus peaking is a great feature.
Yes, the great strengh of mirrorless is the ability to have that focus peaking as well as super short flange distances allowing to adapt pretty much everything from rangefinder to SLR lenses.
Lens mount like the Nikon Z mount can even adapt other mirrorless mounts like Sony E or Fuji X (!)
Got one a few months ago, I love it.
Great video. Always learning something new about the 5Dc. Can you still use the auto focus with the Nikon FE focus screen? Cheers mate.
Yes, the autofocus is still completely functional. The autofocus is using a different mirror that reflects light down into the AF sensot, changing the focus screen at the top of the mirror box has no impact on it.
Similarly, the posts you move to calibrate the focusing are different depending on the mirror you want to adjust, so you can adjust your main mirror (that will calibrate your manual focus accuracy) or the secondary mirror (that will calibrate the autofocus accuracy) without having any impact on the other.
Good intel thank you@@uncertainrelease
Hello, I too after years out of the hobby got an 5D. The AF is off and I'd love to have a split prism like on my old A-1, can you point out how to obtain the split prism screen for the 5D??
Love this camera! I got two 🤭
Thanks!
When you added shims to the focusing screen and also turned the screws that the mirror rests on, how did you know when to do one vs the other?
Put another way: If I only had 1 parameter to change (e.g. thickness of shims), I'd know how to optimise that. But in your case you have 2 parameters to change (thickness of shims + rotation of the screws). How did you search for the best values for those two parameters?
Thanks a lot. I'm feeling daunted to do this but I'd really like to. I'm just not sure how to solve this optimisation problem without lots of random trials and guesswork.
pretty simple in fact : I don't have the ability to change the thickness of the spacers I put on the screen. I either have them or I don't.
I had an autofocused lens on hand, so I focused on something, kept the camera locked in place on a tripod, didn't move the focus of the lens and tried to alight the prism of the screen with the wench. Without the spacers I could not get there quite right, with the spacers I could get to it precisely. The spacers were there only to bring the screen within reach of the screws.
This is really helpful, thanks a lot. I had given up on the idea on putting a high precision focus screen in my 5D Classic before seeing your video. I’m going to do it. Thanks
The EOS 1DS mark II is also good,I bought one last week and now have a good exercise device.That thing is a 16.7 Mp beast.................................................
if only it didn't use Ni-MH batteries... I'm sure you can find some Li-ion units for thses, but having gone through that process for my D1X, it's always a little frustrating and/or annoying.
I would love to see photos that underline what youre saying. You love a particuar lense more than another for example - show us some examples please!
I'll share some in the full review for this camera :)
@@uncertainrelease nice! please also make a comparison with different lenses. i don’t understand whats separets them. cheers!
@@pippetera I didn't understand that one.
What's separating lenses apart is generally the focal length and / or aperture.
@@uncertainreleaseoh ok, so no differences in style?
@@pippetera I mean there can be difference in rendering and bokeh, stuff like that. But generally those are very subtle, and I mostly consider the framing and depth of field that a lens give me above the bokeh rendering (there's also optical performance of course)
At 2:15 you say the mirror was not correctly aligned, but you were able to fix it. Can you tell me how you fixed the mirror alignment? I had the same problem when the mirror fell out of my 5D, and my local camera shop repaired it and reglued it, but then I noticed the mirror was misaligned. I returned it to my local camera shop but they were unable to fix the misalignment, as they said the mirror was glued into a frame, so they could not explain how the misalignment occured. As I had also purchsed the camera from them they replaced it with another camera that had already had the mirror modification done, but it always intrigued me how the mirror misalignment occured, and how to fix it. Hope you can help solve the mystery. Thanks.
When you say it was mis-aligned, what is the issue specifically? Is the mirror simply not straight on the tray, or is the manual focusing out of whack compared to the actual sensor placement? My case was the latter.
I needed a 1.3mm allen key to be able to turn the posts inside the mirror box on which the mirror rests on (that's how you calibrate the camera). Just turning those wasn't quite enough, so I added some spacers on the focus screen itself to bring it closer to the mirrorbox, then re-did the calibration with the allen key to get it as close to possible. It's not perfect but it's close enough.
I don't know if that's your issue though? I know the 5D can have some mirror issues, I have no idea if that's what you're talking about.
@@uncertainrelease No, my issue was a misalignment with the mirror and the sensor. So what you saw through the viewfinder was not what was recorded on the sensor. The whole image was shifted up slightly when in landscape orientation. So a little was cropped from the bottom of the image and added to the top of the image, compared to what you saw through the viewfinder.
@@duncanthorn6338 Oh okay, this wasn't my issue, my guess would be that the mirror is too high compared to what it should be, but I have no further information or knowledge on how to fix that, besides disassbling the mirror tray and finding a thinner mirror... :(
The 5D has a known issue with early cameras and the glue holding the mirror. Later models have brackets either side to hold it in place instead of glue which resolved the problem.