fully manual film slr with a light meter?
Discussion
I'm just wondering, can you get an old film slr cheap that has no auto settings but does have some kind of light meter that wont require a battery? I'd like the focusing screen to be one of them circle ones with the diamonds in (if yoy know what I mean)
anyhoo if this made no sense ignore me, just finished nights about about to sleep
laam
anyhoo if this made no sense ignore me, just finished nights about about to sleep
laam
Don't know of one that works without a battery, but there are plenty out there that are fully manual with a light meter through the view finder. Most operate of a single button battery that lasts forever.
Pentax K1000 is one I had, as well as a Practika MTL 5B. Both exactly what you are after, bar the battery bit.
Pentax K1000 is one I had, as well as a Practika MTL 5B. Both exactly what you are after, bar the battery bit.
laam999 said:
I'd like the focusing screen to be one of them circle ones with the diamonds in (if yoy know what I mean)
Many SLRs had a Fresnel screen with central rangefinder split screen surrounded by a Microprism ring....
(that's a typical screen, Nikon's "K" screen, but I can recall Canon and Cosina at least were similar, not sure if this was also similar in Pentax S1, but see above posts!)You just looking for the Microprism part? I can't recall if there was any such thing as just that
Most require something to power the light sensing cell, except for the relatively cheap and not-so-accurate-in-all-situations selenium types. Why worry about the metering? You could use an external meter anyhow, and use whatever method is best for the circumstances then.
K12beano said:
any SLRs had a Fresnel screen with central rangefinder split screen surrounded by a Microprism ring....
(that's a typical screen, Nikon's "K" screen, but I can recall Canon and Cosina at least were similar, not sure if this was also similar in Pentax S1, but see above posts!)
You just looking for the Microprism part? I can't recall if there was any such thing as just that
Most require something to power the light sensing cell, except for the relatively cheap and not-so-accurate-in-all-situations selenium types. Why worry about the metering? You could use an external meter anyhow, and use whatever method is best for the circumstances then.
Why don't modern DSLRs use these view finders? I used to love them on my old manual SLRs. So much easier to check focus. (that's a typical screen, Nikon's "K" screen, but I can recall Canon and Cosina at least were similar, not sure if this was also similar in Pentax S1, but see above posts!)You just looking for the Microprism part? I can't recall if there was any such thing as just that
Most require something to power the light sensing cell, except for the relatively cheap and not-so-accurate-in-all-situations selenium types. Why worry about the metering? You could use an external meter anyhow, and use whatever method is best for the circumstances then.
MysteryLemon said:
Why don't modern DSLRs use these view finders? I used to love them on my old manual SLRs. So much easier to check focus.
Because the "entry level" ones are made too much to a budget, the viewfinders are too small (usually DX) and the assumptive design of them is that you will mostly use Autofocus. As a secondary line the AF system can usually give you an indication (green spot, again on Nikons) that you've hit focus on the active point.Get yourself up the ladder (Nikon D3, D4 or similar) and there are some fantastic "after-market" offerings where you can pimp your ride with just this sort of stuff! Also need a magnifying eyepiece to get a better view of it too
As an alternative, a slow but sure way is manually focussing (wouldn't use the AF system) when using rear viewfinder, when you can really get it right. That's one luxury I have found on my last upgrade from 2004 technology to 2012!
laam999 said:
I'm just wondering, can you get an old film slr cheap that has no auto settings but does have some kind of light meter that wont require a battery? I'd like the focusing screen to be one of them circle ones with the diamonds in (if yoy know what I mean)
anyhoo if this made no sense ignore me, just finished nights about about to sleep
laam
Doesn't quite answer your question as the meter does require a battery but I have an unhealthy amount of love for my OM1n at the moment. Small, robust and gloriously mechanical in a way that no modern offering is. Why are you concerned about requiring a battery? I just replaced the one in mine and for £5 I probably now have enough to last 20 years!anyhoo if this made no sense ignore me, just finished nights about about to sleep
laam
I'm still using my Zenith EM which sounds like what you're after. The focussing screen is a fresnel one with an all microprism centre spot, the light meter is batteryless, though it's external and not TTL so used as per a separate meter. Build quality from the AK47 school of thought, heavy, clunky and noisy. The lens mount is M42 so you should be able to choose from loads of lenses. The lens I've got is a 58mm Helios 44M, a copy of a prewar Carl Zeiss Biotar. I should think you could get a body and lens on ebay for around £5-10 plus postage. I like it. 
MysteryLemon said:
Why don't modern DSLRs use these view finders? I used to love them on my old manual SLRs. So much easier to check focus.
Because the camera does the focusing for you. Why do you need to check it? The higher end cameras do have replaceable focus screens, but those cameras are dealing with much smaller groups of photographers who pay for the extra versatility.On a budget body, such a feature would be lost.
JDRoest said:
On a budget body, such a feature would be lost.
On a budget body, it would save a few of us a lot of money spending on more expensive bodies! 
The other aspect is that the AF systems (even on the top models) are only accurate to about f/2.8 by design.
So, in fact when you use an f/2, f/1.8 or f/1.4 AF lens, in many cases you will need to be more critical with focus than the camera cares about! Whilst a little AF fine tuning will, of course, go a long way, when your depth of field is only a fag-paper's-thickness and your subject could "fool" the AF, you do need to take back control.
Of course most of the "budget" bodies are only mated to f/2.8 lenses - so that's fine.
K12beano said:
JDRoest said:
On a budget body, such a feature would be lost.
On a budget body, it would save a few of us a lot of money spending on more expensive bodies! The other aspect is that the AF systems (even on the top models) are only accurate to about f/2.8 by design.
So, in fact when you use an f/2, f/1.8 or f/1.4 AF lens, in many cases you will need to be more critical with focus than the camera cares about! Whilst a little AF fine tuning will, of course, go a long way, when your depth of field is only a fag-paper's-thickness and your subject could "fool" the AF, you do need to take back control.
Of course most of the "budget" bodies are only mated to f/2.8 lenses - so that's fine.
K12beano said:
The other aspect is that the AF systems (even on the top models) are only accurate to about f/2.8 by design.
So, in fact when you use an f/2, f/1.8 or f/1.4 AF lens, in many cases you will need to be more critical with focus than the camera cares about! Whilst a little AF fine tuning will, of course, go a long way, when your depth of field is only a fag-paper's-thickness and your subject could "fool" the AF, you do need to take back control.
Not following you - why would the AF system only like f2.8+ lenses?So, in fact when you use an f/2, f/1.8 or f/1.4 AF lens, in many cases you will need to be more critical with focus than the camera cares about! Whilst a little AF fine tuning will, of course, go a long way, when your depth of field is only a fag-paper's-thickness and your subject could "fool" the AF, you do need to take back control.
JDRoest said:
Not following you - why would the AF system only like f2.8+ lenses?
OK - maybe i wasn't explaining very well. Apologies! (And sorry for taking this thread a little further O/T )I have been following some technical discussions on another forum. It mostly revolved around perceived and actually problems with the Phase Detection Autofocus system on some focus points in a D800.
Amongst some of the answers was the revelation (to me!) that the system is designed to work, within tolerances only down to f/2.8.
it's not so much that the system doesn't "like" those lenses - my poor explanation, i am sure - it's just that the designers are not necessarily expecting the system to be 100% accurate in that region.
....is this a) making sense? and b) a surprise to others?
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