Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece

If you use a D2 series camera, this is a must-have item. Essentially, it eliminates that "tunnel" effect created by puny crop-factor viewfinders. Crop factor viewfinders are, of necessity, 1.5x smaller than full-frame or 35mm film viewfinders, giving an annoying tunnel vision effect when looking through them. This item magnifies that 1.5 crop viewfinder by 1.7, making it in effect 20% LARGER than a film or full-frame viewfinder view. You are still seeing what your lens sees, and your photos will still be the same 1.5x crop factor, but manual focus, composition, and reading the HUD readouts inside the viewfinder are all vastly improved. It does not stick out too far at all, in fact, if anything, it makes your nose not have to press so hard into the back of the camera. Very great item, especially if you shoot all day, as I do, in low light (weddings, events, etc.). Eyestrain is reduced because you don't have to squint so hard to see what you're focusing on. I'd recommend using this with a Katz Eye split-image focusing screen for even more brightness, clarity, and focusing ease.Conclusion: a great (and small) investment that goes a long way, especially if you're stuck without the full-frame goodness of a D3 or D700. I'm sure some pessimist may find something to whine about, but overall, this item is a great help to me, and probably will be to you as well.Got a D200/300? You might try the Nikon DK-21M Magnifying Eyepiece for Nikon D200 Digital Camera.

As they say, the profit is all in the accessories. And I think I've made a lot of vendors happier because of this. Case in point: DK-17'M' - for magnifying. I have yet to see a generic one, so I went ahead and sent for this pricey piece of glass. Installing it needed a quick look at the instructions since it wasn't intuitive for me. Once I popped off the old one, and bayoneted Mr. DK-17M on, the change in view was much better! I like how it magnifies the image in an already-bright screen of a D700. Since it does protrude back quite a bit, it tended to fog when the camera viewfinder was near my stomach area (hanging from the neck strap). Not an issue with a small microfiber cloth.Eventually, I got the rubber cup (DK-22) and it made it even more comfortable experience over all.Highly recommended!Update (8.20.2013) The DK-17M is still mounted on my D700, and noticed two things you may want to know before purchasing: (1) Since it magnifies the image, you will certainly get more than what you framed when you originally composed your picture. (Not an issue if you will crop tighter during post processing. (2) When attaching the rubber eyecup, be sure to install the retaining ring so you lessen the chances of losing your eyecup (or even just the original rubber) -- I found out the hard way, and lost an eyecup, as well as the original rubber ring. The fact that the 17-M protrudes by about 1/4" behind, makes it even more susceptible to losing the rubber ring/eyecup when moving about.

It's slightly fiddly to assemble onto your camera, but not difficult.The magnification it offers isn't as dramatic as you might expect, but is certainly noticeable. With a D500 it does provide noticeably more visible detail, to my eyes, which is a relief since that's what I wanted it for.The only downside I've seen is that it can exhibit rather strong chromatic aberration around high-contrast edges, in a way I don't recall ever seeing with the built-in viewfinder alone. At first this really confused and perturbed me, because of course I thought my lenses were inexplicably suddenly having these issues, but scrutiny of many sample photos confirmed that the aberration is solely in the viewfinder, not in the lens (and thus not in the actual photos taken).Still, since chromatic aberration *can* happen in the lens, and previously I was reasonably able to tell when it was, this is a bit of a problem - for now, with this eyepiece, I can only assume any chromatic aberration I see is just in the eyepiece, and occasionally I discover once I get home that there was *also* some chromatic aberration happening in the lens too, that I perhaps otherwise would have realised and addressed at the time. Thus why I can't give this a full five stars.Note also that this *does* work perfectly well in concert with the DK-19 Rubber Eyecup. In fact the two together are better for me than either alone, as this eyepiece sticks out further into the eyecup, meaning you don't have to push your face into the eyecup as far to get up against it, compared with the built-in viewfinder.

For the money this is by far the greatest add-on accessory and I have these on all my camera's. This makes the already large view finder's of my Nikon D4s and D850 even larger! This is both helpful for wide-angle lenses and super-telephoto lenses, it makes the optical viewfinder experience so much better. I use these in conjunction with the Nikon DK-19 rubber eye-cup and with the included plastic ring, both stay in place really well. There is the added benefit of not getting face grease all over the back screen of the camera as this setup sticks out a ways as well. Hopefully one day Nikon will make a new version though that has the fluorine coating applied, that's the only thing that stinks about replacing the DK-17F that came with the D850. Overall though this is made really well, Nikon quality engineering and a pretty decent price to performance ratio in my opinion.