Canon Ee-s Screen evaluation (and good value static design)

[Thomas Richter]

The Canon Ee-s may just be the bees' knees, the best design, the universal screen we have all been looking for. At this point I would especially like to thank Toenis for pointing me at this screen.

I am talking about the Canon Ees replacement screen for digital SLR cameras. As far as I know it is laser cut with a very, very fine microlens structure. This does the job of a normal sandblast with one major advantage: The lens structure can be artfully designed down to the nanometer to make sure ony out of focus areas are diffused and the other rays pass through virtually unaffected (and hence nice and sharp).

As a result of the laser cutting, the grain is tiny and very uniform. Great for a static design. On the other side of the screen, a tiny fresnel structure is cut to eliminate hotspot (which worked well with the 40 mm lens I tested it with today).

Light loss is not a problem if you stay with lens with wide apertures. I have found a diagram of the light loss compared to the very bright ee-a here:
http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-...?msg_id=00GrRY

The bokeh is good, I have looked at a light bulb completely out of focus and it showed as a nice and evenly lit disc with very littly diffusion around the edges.

So to summarise the attributes of this screen:
- very fine grain structure
- grain shows only in out of focus areas (microlens design)
- build in and invisible fresnel
- light loss very manageable
- and it is at $35 quite affordable (but you will need two, as you will destroy the first one while building your adapter, they are quite fragile)

Now, I would love to bombard you with pictures. Problem is, I did not manage to get the image to fill my FX1 sensor. I tried a Letus 58mm acromat (without the rest of the Letus, obviously) and I tried a Raynox DCR 250. The Raynox was almost impossible to handle, but I managed to get 1 handheld shot (I held the lens-screen construction). The attachment shows something like a 3/4 crop of the screen, vignetting comes from the Raynox lens, the unsharpness because, as it was handheld, the optical planes did not align. I the middle of the image, where the raindrops are sharp, you can get an idea of the screen's quality. The image is deinterlaced (as I said, handheld ;-) and rotated 180°, the black spots are dust.

Next I will try to build a simple static adapter with this screen for my FX1. Which brings me to the achromat question: Has anybody got a suitable achromat / close up lens suggestion that is able to enlarge a 36 by 24mm screen to cover the whole FX1 image? Has anybody got an idea how many dioptries / how much magnification I'll need?

Wayne, does your SGPro design require any more lens behind the GG apart from the achromat? If not, how much would you ask for one of your achromats?

Ok, now I hoped to inspire some of you to look more closely into this screen option and we can all do some more testing to verify the claims I made above, which are based on two days of fondling with the screen and doing most evaluation with magnifying glasses and the naked eye. So for now, you may take my conclusions with a pinch of salt.

[Carl Jakobsson]

Thanks for sharing the information. I would however like to see moving footage. The grain and dust is much more visible on moving footage than on stills. Also, what lens did you use? F-value?

[I J Walton]

Thank you for doing the test. Although here is a quote from the link you provided, it has me thinking....

"The Ee-S screen makes it easier to focus by reducing the depth of field in the focusing screen. It has nothing to do with brightness, though the effect is to make the screen darker as you stop down. For example, I see no difference in screen brightness between the two screens at f:1.4. But at f:2.8 there's a very strong difference, the Ee-S screen is noticeably darker."

Maybe the other original screen will be brighter, the Ee-A. Is there any reason you chose te Ee-S over the Ee-A?

[Frank Hool]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

... out of focus areas are diffused and the other rays pass through virtually unaffected (and hence nice and sharp).

This statment is very confusing.
All rays are diffused in screening glass. The only artifactial exception are rays those what construct hotspot. Theres no difference for screening glass what is focused image, what is not.
It's easy to explain with experiment. Look at Your screen at axis going through from center of the lens - You are seeing image. Move Your eye away from the center - You still see image(maybe with some screens not so bright).
Why? Not because those rays realized You about moving Your eye another place and they quickly refract themselfs to new place. Rather because all rays what fall to diffuser will splitted to many less intensive lightrays.
Now if You experienced darker image viewing at the angle then it means that every diffuser has directional pattern. That means if You enlarge Your viewing angle then You'll see less intensive rays.

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

- grain shows only in out of focus areas (microlens design)

This is because Your eye can't find them from area which is filled up with fine details. Out of focus areas are smooth it's easy to see there even smallest deflection.

[Thomas Richter]

The problem with moving footage is, that I did not finalise my adapter design yet and have currently no means of mounting screen, lens and camera properly together. Unfortunately, I am off all week (duty travel to the UK) but I will continue to build and share next weekend.

Frank, sorry for my lack of precision. What I meant to say was that the canon screen uses laser cut microlens to diffuse and not a sandblasted surface with random structures. Hence the in-focus areas are not unsharp (blurred by the random screen surface like with a diffusion filter for a camera). That's what I meant to indicate, when I said they are not diffused, which in fact they are (for the reasons you stated above).

I am aware that the test pic I have shown is insufficient to prove anything. I will try to get some footage next weekend, although it may at first be SD (I'll use my raynox converter on my little Pana MX300, that should work to make the screen cover the entire image).

Once I finished the design, I'll buy a new screen and there will be no more dust :-)

The reason I used the EE-S over the EE-A is the finer microlens structure and better bokeh.

I am aware (as mentioned in another thread) that there may be an issue with a circle appearing when the lens is stopped down. I will investigate next weekend.

All in all I just wanted to point out a really interesting screen. Maybe I am not at the stage of a finished adapter yet, but I'll promise I'll get there soon. I was just so excited that this screen combines (may combine) a good, light and sharp and almost grainless image with good bokeh.

[Wayne Morellini]

Brought the Canon microlens screens up years ago (along with a few others) but people were interested in only talking DIY GG. Good to see progress has finally happened and the price and it is available cheap price now.

[Thomas Richter]

I think these screens are well worth it, they even come with a dedicated tweezers kind of tool to handle them. Which DIY GG does :-)

[Frank Hool]

Anyway, it's very good that we already third indication of a good experience with those screens.

[Biel Bestue]

what about Canon Ee-s against Beattie?

[Toenis Liivamaegi]

We are only day(s) away from testing Beattie, Nikon D100 and canon EE-S and EE-A screens.
It has been confirmed by Ben Winter that a $25 Nikon D100 replacement screen is as good if not better than Beattie when used in vibrating design.

One sure thing I`ve examined is that when your lightning allows f3.5 or more the bokeh issues fade away but noise issues start to kick in.


T

[Thomas Richter]

Ok, first an apology for everyone waiting for more info. My laptop PC broke, hence the delay with more material.

Toenis, congratulations on your little oscillator.

So, here we go with more screenshots. With the broken PC I am currently unable to be put a video clip together.

My biggest problem is that I need a better acromat. I tried an aspherical 12 dpt bi convex lens, but it has different focal planes, as illustrated in the first picture attached (hillside view). In the centre, this screenshot also illustrates the maximum sharpness possible with the GG and the FX1, unfortunately the rest of the image is very much distorted by the lens.

As a result, I had to change to using my Letus achromat combined with a 50mm achromat I had laying around (I'll post pictures of my "gaffa tape prototype" later).

The results are almost as sharp in the centre (it was darker that time of the
day, so maybe that's the reason why they are not as sharp as the first shot). However, the vignetting and barrel distortion has decreased significantly as well as the hot spot problem - however, it's not gone :-(

I think the "Garden Bokeh" shot nicely illustrates the bokeh capabilities of the screen.

So now I am back at square one. I could buy an awfully expensive (by DIY standards!) HD achromat, such as the Brevis 35 one, or I can go on to try and error with cheap lens. Any suggestions?

PS: I still think the Canon EES screen produces an excellent picture, well usable for static design. I wish I had a ready made adapter where I could just drop the screen in to show the gorgeous quality. Unfortunately, I am not there yet.
Maybe Toenis (as I understand he has got the screen lying on his desk) can post a screenshot from his adapter with the oscillator turned off.

Kind regards,

Thomas

All shots taken with a 40mm 1.8 lens:

[Juro Stehlik]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Maybe Toenis (as I understand he has got the screen lying on his desk) can post a screenshot from his adapter with the oscillator turned off.

That would be very helpful. Is it possible, Toenis?

[Toenis Liivamaegi]

Yes, it is possible to post a screenshot during this week.
We are producing a music video to be aired on local MTV and I`m quite occupied with that too.

thomas, FX1 should be able to focus that screen without vignetting/hotspotting without acromat and so on as HVX200 could almost do that.
Try different camera to screen distances and so on. EE screens have focal distance of ca 50mm I quess and camera should not be placed only 10mm away from focusing screen as that can produce some serious hotspotting.

Best regards,
T

[Martin Biskup]

this screen seems horrible than optosigma gg

[Thomas Richter]

Toenis, the focus of the fresnel on the screen is a very good point indeed! I'll try moving further away and focussing directly on the GG.

Martin, I dont have the optosigma, so I cannot compare. However, I find the screen itself (in a static setting) better than my letus screen if used static (I know it is not supposed to).

What I am intending to build is a static design to avoid moving grain issues. I may fail, but lets wait for Toenis' shots, which will be taken in a real professional environment.

Please disregard the dust for now. I'll buy a new, untouched screen once the constructing is done.