Yes, but have you seen a Nikon copy?

>>Ah Vince, locked in the Gulag of Soviet Lenses,<<

I wouldn't be shooting Nikon RFs today if it wasn't for a Kiev I bought back in the late '80s during a time of Glasnost. It started me down the rangefinder path.
 
>>A Mac snob, too. How charming.<<

RFF is doing a service by keeping Fred busy here online, so that he won't be out on the streets assaulting iPod clones and harming former Soviet orphans.
 
Fred, they are ganging up on you😀 :

here is another S2 look-alike:
9be8_1.JPG


Has anyone ever seen a Neoca?😉

Kiu
 
Hey, I use several Nikkor lens on my horrid, fiddly german cameras. My favorites are the 85/2 and 35/1.8. Recently acquired a really nice 105/2.5 too. And the 35/1.8 is, of course, in Nikon mount, but works OK anyway.

I guess if it is time for true confessions, I used to own a Nikon S, but sold it because I preferred the Contax II. I have been eyeing a Nikon SP too, having used one, but never owned one.
 
I prefer the bayonet over a screw mount, and a combined view-/rangefinder over a seperated one.

In german we have the term "Messsucherkamera" which designates a camera with a measuring finder, i.E. combined view and rangefinder.
Robot and Contax had this long befor Leica, but they where much more expensive and thus not as present as Leica. IMHO that's the reason why close to everybody knows Leica and not so many Contax and just a few Robot.

In Germany many more people have protraits of themselves made with Robot cameras than people who have ever seen one, Robot makes traffic surveilance systems 🙂
 
varjag said:
iPods don't run UNIX.. and Mac snobism never was defined by underlying tech 🙂 If J prophet would reveal tomorrow that OS XI is coming and is based on Vista, all the crowd would be just as happy and rejoicing.
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iPods can run Linux! At least mine does 🙂

But you are probably right about Mac users and Windows, just yesterday a mac addict told me how great her core2 duo Macbook runs MS Office and that she now has realtime spell checking. I had to show her MS Office 95 on Windows 95 running on an ancient 133MHz Pentium PC with realtime spellchecking. She thought that this is something which is impossible without OSx on a dual core CPU.

Up to last year an Intel PC was a very bad thing for every Mac user, now it's the greatest since sliced bread.

Edit: I have a Mac Performa 5200 running OpenBSD 🙂
 
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Sorry Brian, but sitting in front of a computer instead of standing behind a camera distracts me from time to time.
 
Forget Mac or DOS / My favorite operating system was on the TRS-80/200 ... it ran for a week on AA batteries, and its flash memory held about 10,000 words.
Here's a digitized analog photo of it (which the LEAFAX tag says was transmitted at 2400 baud)

attachment.php
 
The Japanese guide to camera collecting was published by the company I work for, a month or 2 ago they cleaned out the stacks and were going to throw a copy away, so I took it, amazing book.

Another brush with greatness story; I just moved to a new part of Tokyo called Oi. I was trying to figure out why this one street has a Nikon sign on it and is called optics street and then the penny dropped.
 
steamer said:
Another brush with greatness story; I just moved to a new part of Tokyo called Oi. I was trying to figure out why this one street has a Nikon sign on it and is called optics street and then the penny dropped.
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Here's a link to some pics (not mine) of Optics Street (Kogaku Dori).

Maybe your pics steamer? 😉

http://blog.q-taro.com/places-in-tokyo/nikon-kogaku-dori/
 
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What an interesting post. Thank you.

Because I'm a bit of a technolgoical nonconformist, with an interest in history, I started using RFs in the late 1980s in response to the big clacking auto-exposure motordrive cameras that everyone else was using. I was something of a oddball, the newsroom staff writer who preferred taking his own pictures instead of working with a staff photographer, because I liked having the creative control over the whole package. What started out as a personal challenge -- using old rangefinders to do newspaper work that was indistinguishable from modern SLRs -- turned into a habit and workstyle. At first, it was a way of saying "nyah nyah nyah" to the folks on the photo staff, who I thought were all way too gear obsessed instead of concentrating on the image. I did things like shoot an entire photo spread with a Kiev and 50mm Nikkor, to prove it could be done. Then I just found that I preferred the rangefinders because they fit my working style. In the late 1990s, I started working in news rooms where unions or a union-like atmosphere prevented me from taking many photos. So I pretty much put away the cameras except for family celebrations.

Then, when I did fight my way to be able to do a couple of photo assignments, I found my shooting skills -- my timing and composition -- had grown stale from lack of practice. So, a couple of years ago, to rebuild my photo skills, I started using my RFs again pretty much every week, mainly to take pictures of my kids. It has pleased me very much to be able to combine two great joys of my life ... my daughters and my photography.

I don't experiment much. I like the Nikon RFs because, with a few exceptions, it is a "closed system" -- development stopped 50 years ago. The level of quality, in experienced hands, remains competitive with modern systems. Instead of hungering for the latest lens, I can concentrate on making imges using comfortable, familiar tools. I have lately been filling longtime gaps. I bought a CV 25/4 last year. I've upgraded a couple of chrome lenses -- 28 and 85 -- to black barrel versions.

But for me, the two flagship Nikon RFs, the SP and S3, remain perfect tools for people photography. They have their quirks. But so do all of us.
 
lens mount arguments

lens mount arguments

Imagine someone championing a thread-mount system! Thread mount lenses work fine for short, small lenses but they are difficult at best with long lenses. That goes for the Praktica/Pentax/Contax D mount and for Leica thread. Heading for the M mount was the smartest move Leitz ever made and it took them until 1954 (28 years) to do it, and another eight years to get out of the thread mount business. Then they still used the Leica thread for numerous accessories.

My research indicates that Nikon never seriously considered making their camera with a Leica thread until 1950-1951, well after the Nikon had started production.

The 500mm F5 Nikkor does vignette when mounted with a reflex housing and a Nikon Rf camera, but that is the only optic that I have experienced with that problem. I think it is an insult to compare the Contax/Nikon mount with the Exakta mount. The CN mount is far more substantial, with heavier lugs and a larger throat.

As for the M mount, the 1/8 turn of the lens is an invitation to lens dropping disaster. Nor does its pin lock it on as well as it should. The F mount has a large throat, is secure and wear proof, but it is simply too big for a smaller RF camera.
I do not personally believe that the NC mount was an issue in the Fifties. A lot of professionals used Contaxes, more than Leicas, in the late Thirties and early Forties. Partly that was because Zeiss had better lenses, but the bayonet mount was a selling point. Even Leitz finally realized that.
The only mount I ever had a real problem with was the old Canon breechlock. Never secure and needing three hands to mount a long lens. What were they thinking? Cheers, WES
 
The 500mm F5 Nikkor does vignette when mounted with a reflex housing and a Nikon Rf camera, but that is the only optic that I have experienced with that problem.
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Wes,
Have you tried the 35cm? I just acquired one recently and the focus was frozen,so off to Pete Nikonsmith it went.
Soon as it's back I was going to try it with the N->F adapter mounted on a Nikon F2...but since I don't have a reflex-housing(Fred are you listening?) I would like to send it to you down the road so you could test it with your mirror box, see if it does the same thing the 50cm did!
As you are well aware the 35cm is a much newer design and vintage!

Kiu
 
vignetting with 500mm f5 Nikkor

vignetting with 500mm f5 Nikkor

Fred: This lens easily covers the 2 1/4 format when I tested it using a ground glass and no housing or N-F tube. Yes, it works fine on a Bronica. It also does not vignette on a Nikon F using the N-F adaptor tube. It does not vignette with a ground glass held behind the reflex housing. It does vignette at the focal plane of a mounted Nikon RF camera. I would assume that the problem therefore might lie in the size of the camera mount throat. It might be a problem with my particular lens. While I have done extensive restoration, it was in terrible shape when I got it. Of course, I didn't pay that much for it either.🙂
But while this might affect sharpness, I do not believe that it would affect coverage. Today it focuses fine and the pictures are acceptably sharp.

Kiu: I have never had a chance to test a 350 Nikkor on housing or F. The 350 uses a long-focua triplet formula similar to the 500. Not really that modern a design. It also was used on the Bronica, so it should easily cover the 35mm format. Whether the Nikon RF throat might cause similar vignetting? I have no idea. WES
 
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