After a long delay I finally got the brightscreen diagonal prism screen I ordered in February. It works well though I probably should have gotten either a horizontal or vertical split. It's very hard to see the split and then line it up. It is accurate however.
The screen was just a little too wide out of the box but with the permission of brightscreen to whittle it down a bit and still be able to return it I took about 1/2mm or so off the left side with a jewelers flat file. After doing so it fit fine.
The screen does not have the two little pegs that are on the bottom of the original sony screen but still registers the same and no diopter adjustment was necessary.
The screen consists of the split prism in the middle surrounded by two more circles then the rest of the screen. I've found that the outside circle is the best way to focus. I open the lens to full aperture, 3.4 for the contax 35-70 variogon and 4.0 for the leica 35-70 and focus using the outside circle by stopping where there is no shimmer or distortion on the short or the long side. As long as the light is reasonable this works well.
I'm finding that the contax has a very wide variation of being in focus using the focus confirm on the chip. I doubt the chip has anything to do with it but maybe it does. The chip I'm using is the one with the variable aperture that is set by the aperture knob on the camera. (Aperture does appear to affect metering btw and it shows up correctly in the exif info.) I think this variation was true of the leica as well but I don't recall for sure. At some point I will play around with the different chips I have to see if it is a problem with all only one or two.
The contax conversion is via a Leitax mount; I also did a 21mm distagon.
The two leicas are via ebay bought adapters.
Best,
Mike
The screen was just a little too wide out of the box but with the permission of brightscreen to whittle it down a bit and still be able to return it I took about 1/2mm or so off the left side with a jewelers flat file. After doing so it fit fine.
The screen does not have the two little pegs that are on the bottom of the original sony screen but still registers the same and no diopter adjustment was necessary.
The screen consists of the split prism in the middle surrounded by two more circles then the rest of the screen. I've found that the outside circle is the best way to focus. I open the lens to full aperture, 3.4 for the contax 35-70 variogon and 4.0 for the leica 35-70 and focus using the outside circle by stopping where there is no shimmer or distortion on the short or the long side. As long as the light is reasonable this works well.
I'm finding that the contax has a very wide variation of being in focus using the focus confirm on the chip. I doubt the chip has anything to do with it but maybe it does. The chip I'm using is the one with the variable aperture that is set by the aperture knob on the camera. (Aperture does appear to affect metering btw and it shows up correctly in the exif info.) I think this variation was true of the leica as well but I don't recall for sure. At some point I will play around with the different chips I have to see if it is a problem with all only one or two.
The contax conversion is via a Leitax mount; I also did a 21mm distagon.
The two leicas are via ebay bought adapters.
Best,
Mike