Journeys From A Small Room

Why would I want to do this ? I hear you ask, well after five years of hard graft with this camera and trying in the last three years to clean the dust and rubbish that accumulates out of it. Not necessarily the right way. I found I had made little scratches that were even more annoying than the original dust and hairs that seem to find their way into this very, apparently, tightly sealed area!

Next Question? Why so long before doing this? well for a long time Canon have been saying that if you do anything to your camera in invalidates their warranty. Secondly that you couldn’t change the focusing screen on a Canon 70D, and that really didn’t make sense as had I sent it to Canon for changing, they could do it!

So as I do from time to time, I look on the internet and see if anyone has found a way to do this themselves. Imagine my delight when I saw a video on You Tube of a Canon 70d Focus screen being changed, step by step.  By a guy called JS. Not that hard is it?

Well before you even think about embarking on this type of activity there is something you need to think about. The quality of what you are putting back into your camera.

So I trawled the internet again and found DHcamera an American camera spares and repairs company selling spares. Great and they would post to the UK! Even better, because although I am currently living in Thailand it is still easier for me to get things sent via the UK.

So via the UK , Via my Daughter, this arrived today. It took bout two weeks t arrive in the UK and then another 7 days to get to me.

So armed with my blower, my small screwdriver set, rubber gloves, tweezers and spot lamp, i started the process of dismantling the inside front of my 70D. As per video. Just so you know, I watched the video several times until I was happy with what order i was to dismantle and reassemble in. I still had my laptop on standby , video poised at any point to help if i got stuck.

All went very smoothly and about half an hour later, although it felt like longer, I had a nice new shiny, blemish free focusing screen back in my viewfinder, and oh what a joy! No annoying little bits of dust and debris, and definitely no Scratches!

This is the Screen…….

and the little plastic tool is for clasping the little protruding leg to handle it by so you don’t damage it again on the way in!

Great camera kit insert liner.

Good quality material, well padded and more than enough partitions.Strong Velcro fasteners for the lid which are fully adjustable!as are the dividers.

This bag liner takes as shown below in the photos; Canon 70D with Tamron 10-24mm attached Canon 18-135mm STM Canon 55-250mm STM Plus room for the end cap and some lightweight cables/remote set/spare battery Great value for money!

I have been using this now for sine March 2019, and I have not regretted getting it one bit. It fits very snugly(almost too much so) into my Osprey Back pack, but better into my Swiss gear Shoulder bag so much better. Great for managing not to crack your camera and lenses together when out shooting, and very quick and easy access through the top Velcro, material lid.

I must admit it has been one of the most useful for my money items/accessories I have bought for my camera kit. And still shows no signs of wear or breaking The Velcro tags are still as annoyingly sticky as the day I got it!

With The 70D, 18-135, and 55-250mm stm

With The 70D, 18-135, and 55-250mm stm

In closed position

Cost from 5-10 GBP a bargain for what it does. So for day pack users I can’t recommend this enough.

Step Up rings? some of you maybe asking.. if you know then you can just go to the section on what I thought of this set I bought.

If you don’t then stay with me here….

Right if you have done any kind of Photography you will have heard people say they are using filter/filters. Now these come in two types, screw on your lens type and slide into a holder attached to your lens type. For step up rings we are only talking about the screw on types of filter you might want to put on front of one of your lenses

Now filters come in different types and sizes, for example a UV filter will come in sizes to fit most standard lenses. e.g. 49mm, 67mm, and 77mm and even 84mm. Now this is great as most people put on a UV filter and it never comes off! they are cheap and easy to get from all sorts of manufacturers. But the more specialised ones like ND filters, well read on.

Lets say you want a Circular Polarising filter, to create some dramatic skies, or a Neutral density filter to create some smooth silky water effect or stretched clouds effects to create a sense of movement.
well you would need a fairly decent sized filter to cover your widest lens(landscape)

Most landscape photographers have an ultra wide lens, usually starting from 10mm and finishing anywhere between 18,20, 22, and 24mm. Distance and these lenses diameter is usually somewhere between 72mm and 84mm depending on which lens you have. so you have to buy a filter that will match this diameter of lens, right? Right, but what if you want to use it on a smaller lens you own, say your 18-55mm kit lens, well that is where a step up ring comes into play. So you don’t get any unsightly circular vignetting you can buy a step up ring which attaches to the front smaller diameter lens but the front fits your larger ND filter (77mm) .

Like this….

This is a 49mm-77mm step up ring

This is the ring with no filter but attached to the 49mm lens

This is the step up ring attached to the 49mm lens with the 77mm filter instu

So now, I can use my ND filter, not just on my ultra wide angle lens, but on any of my lenses as I bought one for my Canon M 15-45mm kit lens which is tiny, my Canon 18-135mm stm which is 67mm, and my Canon 55-250mm stm zoom lens which is 58mm. These sizes are what is referred to as the Filter size.

So instead of having to shell out for each and every lens I own, so long as I buy a 77mm filter(any type, ie. UV, CPL, ND) I can fit the one to any of my lenses. This also means I can afford to buy a really good version of one instead of cheap versions of the many sizes.

So I bought a set of metal screw on, thin, step up rings. Quite a few of the cheap manufacturers will do whole sets of sizes either up or down, I decided that I didn’t need that many and just got the three I needed for the three lenses I have. These don’t cost more than anything from £1-3. So don’t need to pay out more. I got mine from Lazada here in Thailand, but I would have got them or even Amazon.co.uk