Bresson Split Focusing Screen

Bresson Split Focusing Screen – Nikon D5100 | SKVORA LIMITED

After much research and decision, I went with an ebay purchase from China. The brand is Bresson and they seem to make a ton of these resin focusing screens for most of the DSLRs out today. Here is their product page for these nifty little buggers.

As you can see, it works just fine albeit not matching up the stock AF points exactly in the middle. No big deal in my opinion, considering it only costs $20 unlike Katzeye and other brands ($80-150).
Is it accurate? From what I can tell, it is. Tested focusing with both AF-S 35mm f/1.8G as well as D5100′s on-board meter (green dot indicator) and both confirmed the split-cirle.
Based on promises from Katzeye screens, they treat the surfaces with compounds that help brighten the image and offer another treatment that reduces the split circle blackening when shooting at lower f/ stops. All modern Nikons always keep the aperture wide open until you take a shot, so realistically this issue will never surface unless you use a lens with a high maximum f/ number like 5.6. This one indeed becomes a few shades darker when using my 70-300 since the lens’ maximum range is 4.5-5.6, but even with such effect it is still easy to focus and use.

How does it work in AF mode with a AF lens?

SkvLTD said:

Bresson Split Focusing Screen – Nikon D5100 | SKVORA LIMITED

After much research and decision, I went with an ebay purchase from China. The brand is Bresson and they seem to make a ton of these resin focusing screens for most of the DSLRs out today. Here is their product page for these nifty little buggers.

Click to expand...

I'm now seriously tempted to get this for my D3200. I have some old lenses that I used to use with my F2, that I now use with my D3200, and the stock screen really isn't that good for focusing old manual-focus lenses like these. I get that this was sacrificed for the sake of a brighter viewfinder, and it was probably assumed that the typical owner of this camera would rarely—if ever—want to use it with old lenses like mine.

SkvLTD said:

Based on promises from Katzeye screens, they treat the surfaces with compounds that help brighten the image and offer another treatment that reduces the split circle blackening when shooting at lower f/ stops. All modern Nikons always keep the aperture wide open until you take a shot, so realistically this issue will never surface unless you use a lens with a high maximum f/ number like 5.6. This one indeed becomes a few shades darker when using my 70-300 since the lens’ maximum range is 4.5-5.6, but even with such effect it is still easy to focus and use.

Click to expand...

Any reason to think this would be any worse, this way, than the stock (“Type A”) focusing screen in my F2? If it's at least as bright as my F2, then I can certainly live with that, and consider it a worthwhile tradeoff for the ability to more easily focus my older lenses. Oddly, the slowest lens I currently own is the stock 18-55mm lens that came with my D3200, which becomes slower as I zoom it to longer focal lengths. I just mounted it on my F2 to see what the experience would be like of using it with the F2's Type A focusing screen. Indoors, in a poorly-lit room, I have to admit that I miss the brightness when this lens is zoomed in, and manual focusing via this screen gets a bit tricky at that end of its range, but since this is also the only autofocus lens I own, I don't expect that I'd find that to be a significant disadvantage.

teagueAMX said:

How does it work in AF mode with a AF lens?

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Now that's a good question.

I know that there is a different sensor than the main image sensor for autofocusing. I don't know where this sensor is located, nor what the light path is to it. It does seem very likely to me that the focusing screen is along this light path, and could very plausibly have an adverse effect on autofocusing. That's definitely something I'd want to know about before I considered installing the Bresson.

Well, it's as bright as the stock screen from what I can see. I'd imagine those Katzeye ones would be brighter, but no practical idea by how much.

At 5.6, the prisms become maybe 1/4 darker than regular, but that's about it. That may be a tad bit harder to work with in super low light, but fine otherwise. The diamond texture ring around the center certainly works much better in these conditions.

And works JUST fine w/ AF. Tested w/ my 35 1.8G- lens does what it always does, just now you can visually see how/quickly it actually locks on.

SkvLTD said:

Well, it's as bright as the stock screen from what I can see. I'd imagine those Katzeye ones would be brighter, but no practical idea by how much.

At 5.6, the prisms become maybe 1/4 darker than regular, but that's about it. That may be a tad bit harder to work with in super low light, but fine otherwise. The diamond texture ring around the center certainly works much better in these conditions.

And works JUST fine w/ AF. Tested w/ my 35 1.8G- lens does what it always does, just now you can visually see how/quickly it actually locks on.

Click to expand...

As far as you can tell, other than being a bit darker, is there any disadvantage that you can see to this screen compared to the stock screen?

Only darker when your max aperture is 5.6 or lower. Anything above 5.6 is same, and the darkness only starts to happen on the prisms, not the whole screen.

Honestly, I see absolutely no disadvantages and would like to again highlight that it feels REALLY good to see what AF system does in plain sight instead of just blurs and refocusing.

SkvLTD said:

Bresson Split Focusing Screen – Nikon D5100 | SKVORA LIMITED

After much research and decision, I went with an ebay purchase from China. The brand is Bresson and they seem to make a ton of these resin focusing screens for most of the DSLRs out today. Here is their product page for these nifty little buggers.

As you can see, it works just fine albeit not matching up the stock AF points exactly in the middle. No big deal in my opinion, considering it only costs $20 unlike Katzeye and other brands ($80-150).
Is it accurate? From what I can tell, it is. Tested focusing with both AF-S 35mm f/1.8G as well as D5100′s on-board meter (green dot indicator) and both confirmed the split-cirle.
Based on promises from Katzeye screens, they treat the surfaces with compounds that help brighten the image and offer another treatment that reduces the split circle blackening when shooting at lower f/ stops. All modern Nikons always keep the aperture wide open until you take a shot, so realistically this issue will never surface unless you use a lens with a high maximum f/ number like 5.6. This one indeed becomes a few shades darker when using my 70-300 since the lens’ maximum range is 4.5-5.6, but even with such effect it is still easy to focus and use.

Click to expand...

I still don't understand on how the overlay works. The focus points, is an overlay right? And it doesn't affected by the new focusing screen?