Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/02/26

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Nikon S3 millennium
From: "Dave Myers" <myers@bluelake.org>
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 08:43:04 -0500

Ken Iisaka said:

> > Nikon went to the titanium shutter curtains with the F. The Nikon RFs
> > were all cloth shuttered, like the Leicas.
>
> The first few hundred Fs had cloth shutter curtains, unofficially.  The
> later SPs which were produced alongside Fs had titanium shutters, as
> well as black S3s which were produced in 1963.  If the cloth shutter was
> damaged, Nikon replaced it with titanium, so you occasionally see S2,
> early SPs, chrome S3s and S4s with titanium curtain.

I had a black S3 which I bought used in Japan in 1972.  As I recall, it had
a cloth shutter curtain.  By the way, I traded it for an M6 and a lot of
cash because it is just not as user friendly as the M6.  One thing that I
found particularly annoying was that the whole lens turned when focusing, so
when you changed the aperture, you also often changed the focus -- very
awkward indeed.

The picture of the new S3 looks EXACTLY like the one I sold 3 years ago --
very cool idea on the part of Nikon.

Dave Myers