View Full Version : Yes, but have you seen a Nikon copy?
erikhaugsby
03-20-2007, 18:48
Now here's a breed of camera that I have never seen before--a copy of a Nikon. Leica copies are plentiful, but Arsenall (argh) has for sale a Melcon II that looks suspiciously like a Nikon S2 (wind lever, rotating shutter dial, etc). But it does have a Leica screwmount and not the Nikon/Contax helical. Strange.
Kiu, maybe you've seen other cameras like this one. I sure haven't.
edit: forgot the link here (http://cgi.ebay.com/Meguro-Kogaku-Melcon-II-2-5cm-Nikkor-H_W0QQitemZ280093748698QQcategoryZ30063QQrdZ1QQcmd ZViewItem)
jonmanjiro
03-20-2007, 19:10
Very interesting .....
Meguro is a suburb of Tokyo, and is only a stone's throw away from the Nikon factory in Oi.
Pacific Rim has some info:
http://www.pacificrimcamera.com/pp/copies/melcon.htm (http://www.pacificrimcamera.com/pp/copies/melcon.htm)
Looks pretty interesting!
Rob
Strange thing is, the original Melcon was a Leica copy! (Pacific Rim describes them here (http://www.pacificrimcamera.com/pp/copies/melcon.htm).)
-- Michael
P.S. Some of the prototype Nikon rangefinders were screw-mount, though I don't know if they used the 39mm/26tpi of the Leica.
xayraa33
03-20-2007, 20:14
the last Leotax, the Leotax G, looked like an M3 with a Nikon SPish rf window.
http://www.cameraguild.jp/nekosan/leotax.htm
Interesting camera. Judging by tye X-sync speed of around 1/45, it must also use a Leica-style shutter. And that switch that looks like a self-timer is actually switch between flash bulbs and X-sync.
It's a facinating thing. That's what the S2 would have looked like if Nikon had not decided to go with the Contax-based mount. The Contax mount was a fairly last-minute decision, if I recall correctly. Canon and some other makers were going the LTM route, so Nikon decided to go with Contax while greatly simplifying and streamlining the design.
Gabriel M.A.
03-21-2007, 04:51
How do you wind that thing? It looks like it's not for those of us with medium-to-big sized fingers, if it's on the left side (right side looking at the photo).
That is the strangest hybrid I've ever seen. You could focus pretty well at close range with a 135mm lens, I'm sure.
Gabriel M.A.
03-21-2007, 04:54
BTW, any prices I see from those guys, I take 30%-50% off, and that is what the normal price usually is (do a search for other items, those that you are really familiar with: talk about "sticker shock"), even compared with "mint" priced items elsewhere.
>>How do you wind that thing? It looks like it's not for those of us with medium-to-big sized fingers, if it's on the left side (right side looking at the photo).<<
The Pacific Rim website shows that it's got a pretty conventional layout ... it actually looks like a pleasant camera to use.
Let's not forget, the Contax Rangefinders where designed not to violate Leica patents :)
If you compare the Nikon/Contax mount to LTM, it's a lot faster to change lenses using that primitive bayonet. And Contaxes were widely used by photojournalists.
Nikons were pretty established by the time the M-mount was introduced.
I have to agree w/you, here. The Barnack Leicas are hardly "perfect" designs, @ least from a user perspective (they are cute to look @), which is why Leitz eventually found itself borrowing many of the Contax features for the M3 (combined RF/VF, single non-rotating shutter speed dial, bayonet mount, etc.), albeit in improved form.
If you compare the Nikon/Contax mount to LTM, it's a lot faster to change lenses using that primitive bayonet. And Contaxes were widely used by photojournalists.
Nikons were pretty established by the time the M-mount was introduced.
Contax was the first 35mm with bayonet mount. Zeiss didn't really have much to improve their design upon.
I suspect anyone who has used the Contax/Kiev mount for a long time has an experience with a jammed lens stuck onto the camera due to a mis-timed lens change.
I once had a 28mm lens very badly stuck onto my SP. Eventually, slowly, with great patience and a scary amount of physical force, I was able to separate them.
xayraa33
03-21-2007, 08:08
If Nikon had used a better mount we would still be using a modern Nikon rangefinder today (well maybe they would have discontinued it last year).
But the flimsy-latch, wobbly, noisy, annoying-infinity-mounting, small throat, Contax mount doomed the camera. At least they had the good sense to use the reliable Leica shutter. If Nikon had stayed in form, they could have done what Topcon did and used the second worst German lens mount, and used the Exacta for the F.
Then again -- they could have reversed the wind lever as in Alpa...
Were European camera designers testing LSD assisted camera design?
the Contax rf mount and the Exakta mount were designed before LSD - 25
was concocted by Hoffmann.
maybe they were ergot induced devlish designs?
>> Never said that about a Nikon...<<
It need not be said. Nikons have an inherent, unspoken beauty.
You know, ten years is a long time to limp along with a horrid, finicky lens mount. Hey, Contax did it for 30 years. It is mystery that Nikon even survived, being saddled with such a terrible burden for those ten miserable years
The infinity lock is not the end of the world, and only applies to internal mount 50s.
The only really "finicky" lens mount I've worked with was the Canon FD ... several times I thought I was adjusting f/stops and -- due to the catlike reflexes of my youth -- was able to catch the lens as the dropped to the floor.
If you flip through the book "The great LIFE photographers", there's about equal amount of bio photos with photographers of 1930s-1950s holding Leica and Contax cameras. I don't believe it was a marketing or design disaster of such a scale.
All depends on how you look at tools. 90% of the computer users in the US use Windows and live with endless viruses, 49% voted for Bush, people go into auto dealers and buy Kias, some buy beige carpets, what can I say? Some people believe they were abducted by UFOs.
Also 70% of rangefinder users buy M mount camers, while 95% of forum posters substitute critical thinking with flawed analogies.
Using or not using anything is your personal choice, not some absolute measure of validity.
The NikonWebmaster feels our pain.
All depends on how you look at tools. 90% of the computer users in the US use Windows and live with endless viruses, 49% voted for Bush, people go into auto dealers and buy Kias, some buy beige carpets, what can I say? Some people believe they were abducted by UFOs.
I am not going to use a Contax.
A Mac snob, too. How charming.
He's probably a Yankees fan, too. :D
A Mac snob, too. How charming.
>>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.
That would be a UNIX snob.
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.
Ah, the Super Nettel. I have a couple of those &, true to ZI rep, they have balky shutters, but the Tessar on 1 of them has helped give me some of my favorite images.
If embarrsasing truth be told I have owned a couple of Zeiss cameras, both Super Nettels, a pretty 35mm.
http://www.pacificrimcamera.com/pp/zeiss/snettel/sn1.jpg
Photo from pacificrimcamera.com, Mike is a good guy to buy one from.
NIKON KIU
03-21-2007, 13:51
Fred, they are ganging up on you:D :
here is another S2 look-alike:
http://i22.ebayimg.com/06/i/000/93/56/9be8_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 :)
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.
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 :)
Sorry Brian, but sitting in front of a computer instead of standing behind a camera distracts me from time to time.
NIKON KIU
03-21-2007, 15:57
Kiu it is time for you to buy two books. "The Japanese Guide to Camera Collecting" (out of print but often on Amazon) and "300 Leica Copies"
I already have problems the way it is...:bang: :bang:
Kiu:D
Why? I love being able to combine analog capture w/digital editing & distribution.
I am rather surprised to see the number of film users who are scanning and finishing on a computer, somehow it seems a bit off to me, acceptable, but off.
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)
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=42729&d=1174522000
NIKON KIU
03-21-2007, 20:48
I am rather surprised to see the number of film users who are scanning and finishing on a computer, somehow it seems a bit off to me, acceptable, but off.
Off?
Really?? most people here would think you are off!
Why?
How else can you get the Nippon "glow" @ 1.4?
Does your P/S digicam offer 1.4? Or the Nippon "glow"?
I know your digicam does the job but this forum has nothing to do with simplicity or the "job", WE ARE RFF!! We choose to do it the RF way!!
Load that darn S3 2000 and write a new chapter here!! It's well due!
NHS article: Using a new Nikon S3
http://nikonhs.org/editorials/editorial_using_s3.html
Kiu
Sometimes I do wish the Nikon Historical Society Webmaster was a little more positive about historic Nikons.
NIKON KIU
03-21-2007, 21:15
Sometimes I do wish the Nikon Historical Society Webmaster was a little more positive about historic Nikons.
Oh, Fred is Fred...he is like HCB in his later stages:D :D
Kiu
And he is certainly a wonderful source of information.
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.
jonmanjiro
03-22-2007, 03:07
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.
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/
I'll have have to make a pilgrimage some time.
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.
NIKON KIU
04-01-2007, 23:14
How about a Condor?
http://page8.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/h50803315
http://img261.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/users/1/6/3/8/leicabb-img600x450-1175425093dscf0081.jpg
Kiu
wes loder
04-02-2007, 08:04
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
NIKON KIU
04-03-2007, 13:12
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.
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
wes loder
04-04-2007, 05:19
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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