Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/09/18
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]> This week I found, and bought, a Nikon SP. I was very curious, and this > one was just about affordable. I was pleasantly surprised to find that > with its 50/1.4 the SP is almost exactly the same size as an M2 with the > old 35 Summicron and (on the kitchen scales) weighs an identical 720 > grammes. The finder is a similar magnification to the M3 so this > combination makes a very nice low light 50mm combination. The Nikkor > 50/1.4 lens is positively tiny - I'm looking forward to seeing how it > performs. Does anybody have experience of the lens - in Nikon or Leica > mount? The viewfinder of SP (or all Nikon rangefinders starting from S2) are life-size. You actually look through a plain block of glass. This is actually a superb feature, as it is so natural to keep both eyes open: you can even descend a flight of stairs with the camera on your right eye. However, the edge of the rangefinder window is fuzzy, as it does not use an aerial image for the rangefinder as Leica M does, so the focussing accuracy may not be as good. In addition, SP viewfinder uses two half-mirrors: one for the rangefinder, and another for frame lines, so the viewfinder is less bright, even though the half-mirror for the rangefinder only reflects the centre portion of the field, and the outer portion for the framelines. I have often wished that the M3 viewfinder was 1x. Even though its magnification is so close, but it really is no cigar. I was kind of hoping for an M6T with just 50, 75, 90 and 135mm frame lines, with 1x magnification. Very few SPs are can be considered "affordable" now. I've seen a prestine SP in Tokyo for over $8000, for a regular plain old silver body with a 50/1.4, which is BTW, as I'm sure Marc James Small will point out, is a copy of Zeiss Sonnar 50/1.5 so it is no good at all. However, Nippon Kogaku had had its optical designers trained in Germany before the WW II, so there are various opinions on Nikon's capability at the time to design a lens at all. Remember that Nippon Kogaku supplied binoculars, rangefinders, and other "optical weapons" to the Japanese Imperial Army. Nippon Kogaku's rangefinder for the battleship, Yamato, is quite infamous. It had an effective rangefinder base of something like 15m for measuring the distance to the target, and to provide feedback after a cannon is shot. Nevertheless, Nikkor 50/1.4 is a fine lens, IMHO.