Nikonos V (rainy street) makeover.

[Landberg]

Hi!
I mostly use my Niknos V for street photography when the weather is bad. But the orange color is not that discreet so i did a small makeover.

 

[peterm1]

Looks cool. I used my Nik 5 in a similar way for street and other photography when I still had one. Although I never made mine over. It was also great (except for its weight) for bush-walking and the like. Years ago I used to scuba dive regularly (rather than once in a blue moon as is now the case) and of course owning a Nikoos was de rigeur for any "serious" diver. But truth be told, underwater photography is bloody hard and I was never successful at it mainly because I was reluctant to invest in the very expensive ultra wide angle lenses needed for really good UW work. However I found the Nikonos was a great camera for shooting above water so long as you could scale focus. I made a few trips to the battle fields of the Pacific (Peleliu, Guadalcanal, New Georgia, Shortland Islands, New Guinea etc) and found it was perfect for jungle bashing. It was so robust I never had any fear of damaging it.

I have to say your mod looks great. What did you use? I have seen that some people have tried using spray Plasti Dip "liquid electrical tape" (I think it is called) on cameras, which is a rubberized solution that would probably work well on the silicon surfaces. Is this what you used?

 

[Landberg]

I have to say your mod looks great. What did you use? I have seen that some people have tried using spray Plasti Dip "liquid electrical tape" (I think it is called) on cameras, which is a rubberized solution that would probably work well on the silicon surfaces. Is this what you used?

I used spray paint dedicated for plastic and rubber. Worked good! Before i just taped the camera with black electrical tape but the tape fell off when the weather got to hot. I guess the paint will "brass" off with time.

 

[FredtheLlama]

Very cool!

I looked into doing something similar, until I brought a Nikonos II.

I might be getting Nikonos GAS!

 

[FrankS]

The advantage of the V over the previous models, besides manual and aperture priority option, is the normal vertical shutter release. I found it difficult not to end up with blurry pictures with a lll due to camera motion at the moment of exposure caused by its combined film wind/shutter release lever.

If I remember correctly, the lV also has a vertical shutter release, but is aperture priority auto exposure only.

Does anyone know technical details about the 35mm lens? Sonar?

 

[Nokton48]

Does anyone know technical details about the 35mm lens?

No technical details here, but it's exactly the same optical formula as used in the earlier Nikon rangefinder 35mm lens. Perhaps you already know this.
It does make it a great shooter lens, especially for the price.

 

[Particular]

I also like the 'Cristo version'.

 

[Mackinaw]

......Does anyone know technical details about the 35mm lens? Sonar?

It's a Gauss-type lens. Same as used on Nikon's rangefinder cameras. Nice article on the lens here:

http://www.nikkor.com/story/0037/

Jim B.

 

[FrankS]

Thanks. That's what I thought I remembered, but with pushing 60 now, I like to double check.

 

[phofseth]

green nikonos

green nikonos

and for those who do not have one yet and want a discreet version without painting it, the Nikonos V also came in green.

 

[FrankS]

I've got 2 orange ones.

 

[Landberg]

and for those who do not have one yet and want a discreet version without painting it, the Nikonos V also came in green.

The green one is nice! I bought my orange one for only $40 with lens. For that price i didn't care about the color. I like the green one more! 😛

 

[FredtheLlama]

I've got an orange and a green one!

I took the green one out around York today because it was raining.

 

[Huss]

Ahh, the green one. Since I got that the orange one has been neglected..

Works great as a camera. Works great as a jack stand.

 

[FrankS]

I already have 2 orange V's with 35, but picked up a black lV with 35, along with a sekonic meter in a Nikon housing, and a waist level finder for my F3, for $40. I love getting a deal!
Oh, and a cheap 3rd party af 80-200 lens I can use on my Nikon 801s.

I used to have a Nikonos lll but had difficulty getting sharp images due to the nature of the shutter release.

 

[Roel]

Just got an orange Nikonos 5 with 35mm lens. I like the sound of the shutter and the sturdy feel. Was thinking of using it for street just as Landberg said.

How good is the image quality in the street (above water)? Anybody care to share some pics or is that off topic? Would love to see some samples for inspiration.

@rik how is the paint holding up on the black Nikonos?

 

[Huss]

How good is the image quality in the street (above water)? Anybody care to share some pics or is that off topic? Would love to see some samples for inspiration.

Great. I love everything about it.

Fuji C200:

 

[peterm1]

I love the clever way that Nikonos lenses show depth of field. For those not familiar with the system, as the camera focus distance or aperture are changed two "prongs" or fingers move inside the lens to indicate minimum and maximum range of focus at the selected distance and aperture. This better allows you to judge if your subject will be in focus and seems much better in use than the static DOF scale found on many manual focus lenses. Given the Nikonos lenses are scale focus - the camera has no rangefinder only a viewfinder - this works pretty well if you can estimate distances reasonably accurately. You would be surprised how many you get right using this system so long as moderately small aperture settings are used.

PS I did find that that 35 mm standard lens was a bit prone to flare but other than that it's modest optical design produced very nice images. This is often the case with moderately specified lenses of course.