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Nikon DK17M is a magnifying eyepiece. It fits on Nikon camera bodies with the round eyepiece (D1,D2,D3,D700,F6,F5...etc), replacing the standard eyepiece on the camera.

If you use a Nikon DSLR with the "normal" rectangular eyepiece, Nikon has a different magnifying eyepiece for you, product number is DK-21M


Installing the DK-17M onto your camrea is very easy and should only takes 30 seconds:
Just close the viewfinder window (or else the eyepiece will be locked), then unscrew the stock eyepiece. Screw on the DK-17M and open the viewfinder window and that's it!.

The DK-17M gives you a 1.2x magnification factor so what you can see from the viewfinder will be bigger and clearer. The DK-17M eyepiece is quite a bit thicker than the stock eyepiece, and i actually like it because it's easier for my eye to stick to the viewfinder with this screwed onto the camera.




With a 1.2x magnification ratio the difference in viewfinder image size is not really huge. But unlike some other magnifying eye piece that has a larger magnification ratio, the DK17m installed, you can still (just) see the whole viewfinder including the LCD info. Just that you need to make sure your eye is very close to the viewfinder. If you wear glasses then you may not be able to see the whole viewfinder image.

At around $40US, it's quite an expensive eyepiece. But the optical quality is definitely much better than other cheaper magnifying eyepiece i've used before. There is no noticable distortion or other degradation when it's installed. The eyepiece itself feel and looks great as well (especially when you remove the rubber) But does it worth the price? I guess it's a bit hard to decide. It's definitely not cheap and the increase in viewfinder image size is good but not huge. But on the other hand, both the optical and build quality are awesome. If you got a nice camera like the D3 or D700, there is no way you would want to attach a cheaper and inferior quality finder eyepiece to the camera.

Anyway, here are a few pictures with the DK17m attached to the camera:


This is the original D700 viewfinder


This is with the DK17M installed



This is with the DK17M installed (rubber removed)


This is with both DK17M and DK19 installed (review here: http://www.nikonjin.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=114)





which one do you like the most?

Stop showing off the SB-900! hahahah

I like DK-19!!!

Why do you need the 1.2x????

Are you jealous of my SB900? haaaa

why do i need 1.2x? Bigger and clearer viewfinder is always better!

Who isn't jealous of that sexy SB-900?????

Nice review! Do you think its worth getting?

i don't know if it's worth getting or not.

i like it, the quality is great and i have it on my camera all the time.

but $40US for only a slighty increase in viewfinder size.. hm... you decide i guess

I have the DK-21m magnification eye-piece (like x1.15) for D300. It's not very good quality, corners are little blurry. Even when it's on, the view is still a tad smaller than D700's viewfinder and definitely lacks its clarity too. It's definitely worth getting magnification cups for DX viewfinders, but is it necessary to have a magnification cup on the D700 when it's already so good? Also, don't suppose DK-17m works on D300? since it's round...

The benefit of the magnifying eye piece on a FF camera like D700 is definitely a lot smaller than on a DX camera.
is it necessary to have a magnifying eye piece on the D700? I would say no as the viewfinder is already quite bright and clear compare to a DX camera. But its always good to have a bigger viewfinder .. and same question can be asked for the D300 as it's viewfinder is a lot brighter and bigger than a entry model DX camera like D60 or any compact cameras.
Its all comparatively speaking.

Well i know my D700's viewfinder with the DK17m attached is still tiny when compare to a medium format camera..

Yes D300's viewfinder is alot bigger than D60, but it's still very difficult to MF with them. It is small compared to film SLRs, even the cheap F55. Until we can MF accurately 100% of the time, DX users will continue to whine about tiny viewfinders. Medium format viewfinders sound nice, but it comes at the price of extra bulk. Full frame offers a nice balance of useability & practicality. I suspect perhaps magnification of x1.0 on DX will be big enough for accurate MF, though Nikon would probably never do it.

I wonder how the 4/3 format crowd live with their tiny viewfinders...

(08-15-2009 03:33 PM)jeffery Wrote: [ -> ]I wonder how the 4/3 format crowd live with their tiny viewfinders...

I'm wondering the same too. As there is a large group of them uses adaptor/MF lenses as their normal lenses.

To be honest, i sometime still find it hard to MF accurately on my D700 even with the magnifying eyepiece installed. I'm mostly relying on the green dot and the arrow indicators when MF.
The good old MF SLRs are still a lot better because of the split prism viewfinder screen.
And another problem is, in the old film days, how often do we print/look at our photos larger than 6x4? less than 1% for me. at that size, so we don't really notice if the focus was slightly off.

But with the DSLR , we always check (not view) the picture at 100% zoom. So even a tiny error in focus would become very very obvious especially when you are shooting at wide open.

the green dot is not always useful, it tells you SOMETHING is in focus but not necessarily what you want to be though. Yes split prism viewfinder is great, however they'll make the viewfinder look even more messy than it already is. I heard a theory that said manufacturers removed split prism viewfinders during the dawn of AF age because they didn't want people to know how unreliable their AF system was, haha.