Nikon s2 rangefinder camera
Many of the F’s signature qualities stem from the S2 and its predecessors. It doesn’t take long to remember that the S2 was a forebear of that hugely influential (and some would say greatest) SLR of all time, the Nikon F. Its chunky angles and business-like proportions help the S2 cut the sharp figure of a serious photographic machine.īut spending just a few minutes with the camera reveals something uncanny, something strangely familiar. Nikon took cues from the Contax III and pared this down with the succinct Japanese design philosophy of the era. This may be one of the best looking rangefinders ever made. Though it looks a little out of the ordinary at first blush, the S2’s overall aesthetic is timeless and gorgeous. The shutter speed dial was a lift-and-set affair reminiscent of the screw-mount Leica cameras, but it also has a separate dial set directly underneath for slow shutter speeds. The advance lever looked normal enough, but it housed a manually set frame counter that, in true Nikon fashion, goes backward. 5cm f/1.4 lens surrounded by the strangest lens mount this side of the Pacific. The top plate was less shocking, but it’s still a step out of the ordinary. Under this sat an absolutely stunning Nikkor-S.C. Similarly off-putting was a menacing, serrated wheel. The first thing I noticed was the sheer prominence of the two giant windows – one for the rangefinder and one for the viewfinder. I’d heard that Nikon rangefinders are peculiar beings, but I wasn’t quite prepared for the oddity that is the S2. I popped open the box, unfurled the bubble wrap, and what revealed itself was, in a word, surprising. When the camera arrived, I rushed to unpack it. The price was low and the lens was good, so if this experiment went wrong I could just sell it on and continue my frustrating exploration of imperfect cameras. The only brand I hadn’t tried was Nikon, so I sprang for an old S2. In my long period of restless wandering from camera to camera, I’d come to love the style of shooting afforded by classic rangefinders. This latest camera would see me return to the brand that started my mad photographic journey so many years ago. I began to wonder if the problem resided not in the camera, but in me. Have these machines failed me, or have I failed these machines?īut just a few weeks ago I decided to take one more chance at finding the perfect camera. But there was always something that got in the way, some awful flaw that became impossible to ignore with each so-called perfect camera. And in some instances, I got pretty close.
I took chance after chance on every camera the shooting public calls “perfect” hoping that I’d find my own ideal camera.
But that didn’t stop me from trying to find it. Does the perfect camera exist? Not really. We all dream of having the perfect machine, and more than most of us spend lots of time and cash actively seeking it out, even though we know such a search is futile.