Well I fitted the focus screen..

[Dave6223]

Ant then removed it!

I bought a split screen focussing screen from ebay, thinking it would help with focussing manual lenses. It was easy enough to fit.

And then I removed it and refitted the original. Why?

I lost spot metering, which to me is one of the major benefits of the 510. Don't get me wrong, it worked, focussing was much easier, but it wasn't worth losing spot metering for.

Dave

[Photo-John]

I don't use spot metering anymore, but if it's important to you, I can see why you'd go back. And it's good to know that you lose spot metering with the split screen focusing screen. When I am focusing manually, I do sometimes miss the classic split screen focusing screen.

I have two questions / suggestions.

1) Are you using the histogram on your camera to check your exposure? After I started using digital cameras and learned to use the histogram, I no longer found the need for a spot meter. The histogram tells me everything I need to know and is a lot easier to use than a spot meter.

2) Do you use Live View for manual focusing? I love Live View and zooming on the LCD for manual focus. It's another tool, like the histogram, that's made digital SLRs way better for me. My eyes aren't so great and being able to zoom in to focus with Live View has made my critical manual focusing so much more accurate. You can even stop down while you're zoomed in!

[Dave6223]

Hi John,
No I'm not using the histogram. To be honest that part of digital is still smoke and mirrors to me.
I don't use live view for focussing.

Should I?

Dave