Bill Smith's Photography

 An unseasonably warm Sunday afternoon, didn't have to wear a winter jacket or wear gloves you have no idea how happy I was, as much as I like my winter photography gloves, shooting with them is more about protecting your fingers from frostbite than fine motor dexterity to work the camera controls.  I pulled my Nikon S3 2000 Rangefinder and shot with the Nikkor S Mount 50 F1.4 but shot most of the roll on an S Mount 35 F2.8 Voigtlander Color Skopar lens because the lens hood for the 50 F1.4 lens kept falling off on me. There has to be a 3D printed replacement out there somewhere. Voigtlander at the turn of the millennium released lense in Leica Thread mount (M39), M mount but also Contax C mount for your Zeiss Ikon IIa and IIIa and, Nikon S mount for their rangefinder system which is an almost clone of the Contax II and IIIa.  In the end it was a stunning day and I love the results I got.  Camera: Nikon S3 2000, Nikkor S 50 F1.4 lens, Voigtlander S Mount 35 F2.5 Colo...

 Yeah, I gotta stay away from Ebay. I now have a decent Nikon rangefinder collection, the Nikon S3 2000 looks new even though it was made 25 years ago and based on a 60 year old camera design. In hindsight this along with the SP 2000 introduced in 2005 was Nikon's last kick at the can with pure mechanical film cameras, so much so, retired employees were tracked down and rehired to run the assembly lines because the current employees didn't have the expertise.  A few short years later a massive product cull reduced the film camera catalogue down to the FM10 (made by Cosina for Nikon) and the F6, everything else, gone. There will never be another Nikon film camera, ever. Those who knew how to make them are gone, the supply chain is gone and to get that back up in running doesn't make financial sense.  That said rebuilding Nikon rangefinders for a short run in for the home market was a great way to cap an era off.  Camera: Nikon S3 2000, Nikkor S 50 F1.4 lens.  Fil...