This enabled them to use a faster speedlight (about 1 / 60 sec.) than could be employed with the S2 (approx. Nippon Kogaku managed to reduce the mass of the mechanical portion, while increasing the speed of movement of the focal-plane shutter curtain.
The first area was the improvement of overall shutter performance. In its development, attention was paid mainly to two(2) areas. It is a complicated structure which incorporates a coincidence-type rangefinder and adds - one after another - frames which are compatible with a variety of lenses.įurthermore, the parallax (the difference in the position of view from the viewfinder and that from the shooting lens) is automatically fixed by a linkage with the rangefinder.Ĭlosely trailing the viewfinder in importance was the shutter. This was not the case with the Nikon SP, however. The term "full-size" represents the effect of looking through a piece of glass with no angles to refract light - in theory, a very simple mechanism. This full-size finder was also employed with the SP, and the bright frame for each lens was replaced within the field of vision. The operational ease of the Nikon S2's life-size (1x) viewfinder was reconfirmed. Since the zoom-type finder was too large in those days, the developers opted for the bright type. The other finder was a bright frame switchable type.
They then produced two samples, one of which was a virtual image zoom-type finder. However, the developers determined that the device was simply too big to be incorporated in the planned camera, and the idea was scrapped. This style was used for an external universal viewfinder attached to an accessory shoe. One of the ways was to employ a mask-switching real-image viewfinder, which enabled the user to see the view area clearly. Nippon Kogaku's objective was to achieve "a field of vision that was compatible with interchangeable lenses with different focal lengths", and as they saw it, there were several ways to go about this. Their attitude had changed from "catch up" to a more confident, aggressive "overtake" way of thinking.įocus during the development of the follow-up to the S2 was on the viewfinder. Their goal of producing a camera that would dethrone the Leica M3 was no longer merely a pipe dream - their technology had come so far as to make this a very real possibility. In 1955, the year following the release of the S2, Nippon Kogaku began developing its successor. It's evident that they were also very aware of the "Leica M3", which at the time was considered the world's top 35mm-format camera.
The necessity for a built-in universal viewfinder which supported a variety of lenses was something that Nippon Kogaku's development team was already aware of. In fact, over 60,000 S2s were sold, making it the best-selling camera in the S series.Īs I've noted in previous articles, the use of interchangeable lenses - particularly among Nikon / Nikkor users - has become more prevalent.Īmong such users, the S2 was regarded as inconvenient because its viewfinder was only compatible with a 5cm normal lens. Preceding the SP was the Nikon S2, released in December of 1954.Īs the Nikon M and S before it, the S2 earned high praise for its lens performance and overall superior quality.īut the S2 also featured an operational ease that surpassed its predecessors.