Focusing screen for 5DIV?

Nada from search results.

I'll be purchasing a 5DIV within a few months, and my main use consists of manual lenses.
In fact, my only auto-lenses are an EF 28-135 and a Sigma 10-20.
I'm fine with keeping the 10-20 with the 50D, while the 28-135 can be used with both.

Keeping on the track of using manual lenses, I realize I will want a focusing screen
with a split-circle center. With KatzEye gone, the only steady source now seems to be
focusingscreen.com. Canon offers nothing with a split-circle, other than for the 1-series.

PLEASE don't attempt to persuade me to one of the Canon micro-matte or whatever screens;
I tried it with the previous 40D and current 50D and don't care for it.
I've had a split-circle in my cameras from the XTi/400D to the 40D to the 50D.
As a full-frame, the 5D begs of this just like a 35mm film camera with full-scale viewfinder.

Questions:
Are the 1-series screens compatible?
I doubt it, but maybe someone can prove me wrong.

If you use a screen from focusingscreen.com, do you recommend it?
Is the quality good, fair, poor, excellent?

Other sources? I'm open to suggestions here.

I'd love to buy a cheap & commom 35mm film SLR for less than the cost of a replacement screen
and just transfer it, but I know that's rather unlikely to be a solution without modification.

This is very important to me, as I use manual lenses almost exclusively.

I hate when people do this, but you need a mirrorless camera. The R series kick butt for manual focusing.

Left Handed Brisket wrote in post #18888801
I hate when people do this, but you need a mirrorless camera.

No, I do not.
Love on what you like as much as you want, but you're not helping out in my line of questioning in this thread.

I'm oldskool; you're not.

I get it.

SkedAddled wrote in post #18888798
Nada from search results.

I get it. I learned on a split prism film camera (the Pentax K1000). I miss the split prism and the K1000 in some ways. I love the 5DMkIV autofocus system, but I also like being able to manually focus without going into Live View.

Try asking the pros at B&H or Adorama in NYC. Ask online or call them. They're both good. Tell them what you want and why. If it is possible to do it, someone in the NY area has probably done it. While these might not be the only places to check, they're both practical and knowledgeable starting points.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

Useful advice, Graham. Thank you.

SkedAddled wrote in post #18888808
No, I do not.
Love on what you like as much as you want, but you're not helping out in my line of questioning in this thread.

I'm oldskool; you're not.

I get it.

LOL

Okay.

My information may be a little dated but if it helps back when I had my 40D I used screens from focusingscreen.com. The products were of the same quality you can expect from Canon. Manual focusing was quite easy and accurate. I was adapting M42 glass. You may have one important thing to consider before modifying the 5D4 however. The 40D was designed to feature end-user replaceable focusing screens and several were available from Canon. Each screen affected metering differently and there was a menu option to choose which screen you were using so the camera could correct the metering. The 5D4 does not feature end-user replaceable screens nor does a menu option exist for this function. It would be important to asses if a non-OEM screen will affect metering before you go ahead and do the mod. If you are considering buying from focusingscreen.com I would contact them to see if this is an issue with their 5D4 compatible screens. I hope that helps you out.

Left Handed Brisket wrote in post #18888801
I hate when people do this, but you need a mirrorless camera. The R series kick butt for manual focusing.

I agree, my M50 fixed all those issues of low light, fast lens/narrow DOF manual focusing, the evf exposes low light subjects well, and with three separate manual focusing tools, that eliminates the need for a prism screen, etc. It is actually great for my old eyes.

Since Canon didn't make the 5d4 screen to be replaceable, one has to look at aftermarket solutions for a screen unfortunately. Be careful with screws that have to be removed as the 5d4 screen and chassis aren't designed like the 50d.

If there was a good source for the screens and/or people were successfully replacing them, it would show up in the first page or two of Google results, therefore there aren't, and they aren't.

Well, if you don't want to go mirrorless, then buy a 1DX instead. If a new 1DX Mark II is too costly, then a used 1DX is about the same as a new 5D Mark IV.

Like many cameras now, the era of the replaceable focusing screen is gone in the 5D Mark IV. It has what is termed a 'transmissive' display which is fixed with information Transparent LCD overlay. Transmissive displays were NEVER compatible with user changeable focus screens!

FWIW, the aftermarket focus screens for the dSLR often ended up badly biasing the metering of the camera, particularly when you used Spot metering pattern. Canon would provide correcting settings in the menu for Canon screens, but aftermarket ones were never corrected.

You say all your lenses are manual...I would not buy a 5D4 or 1D series. The suggestions for going mirrorless are most sound. If I was tied with manual focusing, I would go mirrorless because of focus peaking: seems even better than old school focus prisms IMO. Now I love my 5D4's focus systems with EF lenses...I pretty much only AF now (because it's customizable and works with all my situations). My first DSLR was a 5D, and even with EF lenses, found some limitations. With it, I did install a 3rd party split prism screen: and the 5Dc was much easier to account for as it did have replaceable screens and I could set a "precision screen" option that was close to approximation for metering with my 3rd party screen. Even if it would be possible to try to manually install a 3rd party focus screen on the 5D4, I wouldn't do it. The camera shines with AF, and if I did have to MF, I would do it with focus confirmation.

These replies offer some sound food for thought, so my thanks are put forth.

I suppose I may have been considering prematurely on this.
After all, I don't have a MKIV yet, and haven't before used any of the 5D series.

Seems more sensible to wait until I actually have and use one before
making any such decisions.

As for the transmissive display aspect, Focusingscreen.com's instructions
for the MKIV neither mention nor illustrate such, but with more than one
mention of it here, it obviously bears closer scrutiny to understand precisely
what that situation is.


@Left Handed Brisket: Please understand my frustration:
Rather than offering any reasons as to why you feel the R series might serve better
in my context, you merely expressed exasperation for my questions even being put forth,
then proceeded to simply say that I need to change my direction.
Had your reply been a more detailed and thoughtful one like others posted after,
my response would not have been a curt & terse one.

I understand. But it wasn't exasperation.

I'm one that regardless of the level of detail contained in a suggestion will need to do my own research. Also, going into detail can be lost on me because I tend to skim through replies on message boards. Not saying you should be like me but right or wrong I kinda expect that from others too.

Further, I believe that by doing our own digging we will always find information that the original source did not deem relevant, or just simply forgot to mention. To that point, yes the manual focus system on the R series is nice, but probably more important to MF is that the world of adapters available to mount other lens makes is (in my mind) just as important ... notice no one mentioned that. I bet when/if you dig into it you could easily come back and teach us something new.

Sidebar: Having young sons has not helped my affliction. I am constantly giving them starting points and sending them off to figure it out on their own. Just yesterday I showed them how to use an iPod as a disk and then later set them up with an old iMac that will no longer connect to the internet in any reliable way. I then posed a problem of putting ACSLogo on their "new" computer. Their heads almost exploded coming up with ways to get the software because each required a network of some sort. I suggested they slow down and give it some thought rather than just blurt out potential ways to resolve the problem. After about 30 seconds of silence they kinda looked at each other and screamed "the iPod!!!"

Newer bodies, with transmissive displays, offer a visual confirmation of AF being achieved:

• you can have the AF point(s) blink red (optionally),
  
• or the entire display grid (if you have this enabled) to blink (optionally)
  
• and the normal display has an 'AF' symbol light up in a corner of the screen...much more precise than the optical accuracy of microprism/split-image screens.
  

Left Handed Brisket wrote in post #18890220
...To that point, yes the manual focus system on the R series is nice, but probably more important to MF is that the world of adapters available to mount other lens makes is (in my mind) just as important ... notice no one mentioned that. I bet when/if you dig into it you could easily come back and teach us something new.

Perhaps I could.
I'll reserve my right to comment any further on the matter, however, until AFTER I've had a MKIV at my disposal,
largely due to the fact I own several vintage lenses with adapters always on them for use with the EOS mount.

Left Handed Brisket wrote in post #18890220
...I suggested they slow down and give it some thought rather than just blurt out potential ways to resolve the problem. After about 30 seconds of silence they kinda looked at each other and screamed "the iPod!!!"

Absolutely priceless.

Acceptance of my olive branch is much appreciated, and reciprocated in full.