What's become the rock bottom price ...

V

Vickko

Veteran
Local time
12:24 PM
Joined
Oct 14, 2005
Messages
2,827
What's become the rock bottom price for the reproduction S3-2000 in black and SP special editions?

It's not something I need, but every time I see one, specially on the 'bay, I'm tempted.

And I've got the original versions.

Vick
 
abenner said:
where can I get an SP 2005 for that price? (382,000 yen / $3250)

best price on ebay is $3900.
Click to expand...

these low prices are on Yahoo Japan mostly,
were they do not sell to outsiders unless you want to employ a japanese middleman agency to do the bidding for you.
...too much monkey business for me to be involved in.
 
I'm not disparaging this camera, but I never realized it was based on a Contax design, complete with the little focusing wheel. These prices are way beyond my budget and I'll have to be content with my Kiev 4AM.

Are these cameras being bought primarily to collect, or will any of you be putting one into daily use? I would assume the former.
 
they certainly are not cheap to buy any way cut it, but they never were.
most if not all people on this forum are photographers to varying degrees,
so most want these newish Nikon rf offerings to photograph with.
 
That's great to hear. I can imagine it would be a great camera to use. The 35/1.8
with that kind of speed sounds like an all round street-shooter lens.
 
you can save a bundle if you use a Canon VT w a Canon 35/1.8 as a street shooter instead.
but it is still not the Nikon rf experience.
 
tedwhite said:
I'm not disparaging this camera, but I never realized it was based on a Contax design, complete with the little focusing wheel.
Click to expand...

The lens mount is based on the Contax design (complete with little focusing wheel, which some people like) but the camera itself is an original Nikon design.

Basically, when they started designing a 35mm camera back in the late '40s, they looked at the two most popular makes, Leica and Contax. Where the Contax had better features of the two (bayonet lens mount, removable back-and-bottom for easier loading) they used them as a starting point, and where the Contax had worse features (e.g. complicated and difficult-to-service shutter) they started with the Leica's features as a starting point.

Once they had a design that combined the best features of the leading cameras, they continued to improve on it steadily as better technology became available. Pretty smart way to design a camera, especially if you've never done one before (which was the case with Nikon when they were starting out.)
 
jlw said:
Once they had a design that combined the best features of the leading cameras, they continued to improve on it steadily as better technology....
Click to expand...
Then they made the Nikon SP...Leica ended up making a new lens mount to keep up;) :D

Kiu
 
>>Then they made the Nikon SP...Leica ended up making a new lens mount to keep up<<

The M lens mount came out in 1953/54, which was three to four years before the SP (1957). The M3 was Leica's response to the top quality cameras coming out of Japan (Zeiss's response to Japan was lawsuits instead of innovation, but to be fair, Zeiss had massive corporate and legal problems related to postwar breakup of Germany -- preservng and salvaging as much of the company as possible was their priority -- but it showed in the lack of development for the Contax line).

The SP was a counter-response to the M3. The "3" in M3 allowed you to shoot three different lenses without a separate finder -- 50, 90, 135. The SP upped this to six-built-in frames ... 28, 35, 50, 85, 105, 135. Leica achieved six framlines about 20 years later.

Quality-wise, the SP and S3 cameras are Nikon Fs with a different viewing mechanism.

The Nikon designs include an extremely dependable Leica-based shutter and a Leica-based rangefinder mechanism (but the central RF patch on a Nikon is not as visible and defined as on a Leica M camera). Unlike Leica, the Nikon RFs, beginning with the S2, have 1:1 lifesize viewfinders.

The recent lower prices for Nikon S3s and SPs make them again affordable for users, as opposed to collectors. I think Nikon collector prices have passed through their "tech bubble" phase -- they have ceased being crazy speculative and now more accurately reflect their inherent quality.

Pricewise, from the very beginning, Nikons were never intended to be cheap cameras and lenses. In the 1950s, Nikon was comparable to buying a Lexus instead of a Mercedes.

I have three original Nikon RFs that have all seen daily use. My S3-2000 has been my grab and go camera for the past year.
 
Last edited:
jonmanjiro - you could make a little money as a middleman for a U.S. buyer if you were so willing

by the way, Fujiya still got any of those "used" SP sets for a great price? I read your post on the NHS site
 
In the mid-to-late 1950s, Life magazine and National Geographic were equipping their staffs with Nikon bodies plus, at a minimum, the 35/1.8, 50/1.4 ane 105/2.5. Not because they were cheap -- they weren't -- but because of their quality.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom