Revenge of the Nikonos?

[Rick Dreher]

The Nikonos line of interchangeable lens diving cameras—perhaps the ultimate all-conditions system—might be resurrected in digital form. (See the very end of this interview with Nikon's Tetsuro Goto.)

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.focus-numerique.com%2Fnews_id-1725.html&zn=en&sl=fr&tl=en

A hint this soft means that any such rollout won't be happening in the next two months, which should give you plenty of time to save up what will doubtless be a very large sack o' cash. For anybody desiring a pro-quality bomber camera, a digital Nikonos would be just about perfect.

Some history:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikonos

Cheers,

Rick

[Greyson Howard]

That would be great … for diving. But as I understand how Nikonos lenses work, they'll only focus under water. Why we need goggles, and why there's air space between a normal camera and dive housing have some air space, is to allow our eye or the camera to focus properly underwater, but the nikonos lenses are like underwater eyes, meant to function under water.
But if I'm wrong about this, that's great.
I've often thought that a mirrorless micro four thirds type nikonos would be cool in reducing bulk.

[Franco Darioli]

Greyson
A couple of the lenses, W35 and W80 were for land and underwater use. The focusing scale was for land use and were meant to estimate the distance underwater. In practice most divers pre set the lenses and waited till the subject was within the range covered by the pre set depth of field.
The typical success rate was 3-5 shots per 36 exp film (mostly Ektachrome…)
The short lived RS (SLR) version had 1 lens for land and underwater use.
The Nikonos was used a lot to cover the Vietnam war .
Franco

[Mike Snodderley]

Ultra bomber digital rangefinder for the most extreme conditions? Sign me up. Probably will be rather heavy, but hey, thats the price you pay. I could see this being useful for VERY difficult conditions, where bulky gloves make operating a normal camera difficult. Traditionally Nikonos cameras were designed to be easy to use with thick gloves on, so it would probably be great for mountaineering. It makes them big though.

Only thing is, what form will it take? Will they bring back the classic interchangeable lens rangefinder, or will they bring Nikonos back as a nameplate, for a line of ruggedized cameras? Personally I would be fine with the latter, if it was a line of cameras going from casual rugged to pro level bulletproof. Remember Nikon does not have ANY 'rugged' point and shoot cameras currently, so they probably want to bring the legendary Nikonos name back with a bang.

This is definitely something to keep an eye out for. Thanks for the heads up.

[Author]

Posts