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Horizons?
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Sorry Aiscath. I thought you had the D80 already! Enjoy!
My Canon S3IS also has these gridlines. Mind you, I still have wonky horizons, but perhaps not quite as wonky.
If you have autofocus points visible in your viewfinder you can use those to estimate your horizon’s straightness, if there are at least two side-by-side.
I second the hotshoe spirit level idea, although I don’t use one myself. Having said that, my horizons are always wonky by just about .8 of a degree when I visually estimate them, so maybe I should get one.
Peter
Another good reason for getting it as right as possible in camera is that if you end up having to straigten your horizon later, you’re going to have to crop your image. The more off your horizon is, the more you’re going to have to crop.
I heartily endorse the spirit level in the hotshoe, and if handholding, as petercox suggested, I use autofocus points, as my 300D doesn’t have any viewfinder grid lines (c’mon Canon, how complicated would that have been?). I align the horizon with the row along the center of the viewfinder, then recompose, trying as much as possible not to tilt the camera. Generally get fairly good results, and minimises the amount of rotating/cropping
JMcL wrote:
I use autofocus points, as my 300D doesn’t have any viewfinder grid lines (c’mon Canon, how complicated would that have been?).
I think they can be fitted afterwards with a new focusing screen.
Does anyone have expercience using something like the Katz Eye? Focusing Screen with grid lines or a similar product?
I am not only interested in the grid lines, but also in the split prism circle and microprism collar for manual focusing.
In my case it would be for a Canon 400D. But I think they make them for all models.How hard is it to fit?
How much will I miss my AF points in the viewfinder?mad dog: I bought the katz-eye split prism screen for my 20D about 3 years ago. I found it very useful, although it was finicky to fit. Finicky, but not difficult. You have to be careful about which way you put it in – if you do it with the wrong side facing out your focus will be off.
On the 20D the AF points were not on the focusing screen itself, they were behind it. So I didn’t lose them when I got the new screen. Not sure if I would have gone ahead with the replacement if I was going to lose the points as you apparently do with the 400D.
You should also be aware that you need a fast lens to use the split prism – maximum aperture of at least f/5.6 I believe. I got it mainly because with my 100-400 and a teleconverter the camera couldn’t autofocus (maximum aperture of f/8). As it happens, the prism was worthless with that combination – the lower part was always black.
That being said, if you’re not using slow glass I recommend it. Even with the large viewfinder in my 5D I find it very difficult to manually focus accurately, so you’ll definitely see the benefit with the 400D.
Hope that helps.
Cheers,
Peter
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