Screen shade.

jamaeolus · Expire: 2015-08-20

I cobbled together a screen shade for my 60D to use in bright light to focus live view. Took about 1/2 hr using black poster board and black gorilla tape and some 3/4 pvc irrigation tube. Cost less than a dollar. I copied a design I saw for a magnifier on an exakta waist level finder. The PVC tubing is split and just taped lengthwise to slide over the edges of the view screen. (2 other pieces taped vertically to give a little flexible push inwards on the slider portions of pvc to keep them from flopping off the edges. I didn't use a protractor I just eyeballed it. First I cut 2 trapezoidal pieces of cardboard with the small side equal to the lengths of the vertical and horizontal axes of the screen. I guessed at the angle to get a decent taper in the box. Then I layed it out on a larger piece of cardboard such that I would have pen lines to fold at the corners and cuts at the top and bottom. I did add a small tab to overlap at the junction as is typically seen in cardboard box construction, cut and taped together. The PVC tubing was split lengthwise and taped to the bottom and top edges corresponding to those on the screen. If I were inclined I could make it much more elegant using more careful measurements and glue instead of tape but my first iteration works reasonably well.

philslizzy · Joined: 07 Aug 2012 Posts: 4745 Location: Cheshire, England

Sounds like a great idea. Would be good to see some photos.

jamaeolus · Expire: 2015-08-20

philslizzy · Joined: 07 Aug 2012 Posts: 4745 Location: Cheshire, England

Nice design. I see you used square section PVC tube, that confused me. I use a product called plasticard, available from model shops link to their website here: https://slatersplastikard.com/plastikard/standardPlastikard.php

This material is styrene and can be glued with modellers cement or epoxy. You can also get this material in tube form, round and square. The square section tube could be useful to fillet the corners.

here is some I bought recently:

you can get it in black, which I would prefer but you must paint it black anyway to use it.

A suggestion for Mkll !!

uddhava · Expire: 2021-06-21

Interesting topic for me since the screen on my Canon is too small to use one of the LCD shades sold cheaply on
Ebay. With the shade I could use Magic-lattern with focus peaking and zoom focus. Do you use it with a tripod or
just hold the camera away from your face as steady as you can?

jamaeolus · Expire: 2015-08-20