Film TEST SHOTS - 1938 SEIKI-CANON MODEL S, F2 NIKKOR AND F4.5 NIKKOR LENSES

M. Valdemar

Top Veteran
Location
New York City
Here's something you don't see very often.

I had a 5cm Nikkor f2 Lens for the Hansa Canon for years, a lucky flea market find.

A few weeks ago I got a Seiki-Canon 1938 Model S in beautiful cosmetic condition. I had been looking for a body for years, finally found one that wasn't insanely priced.

Youxin Ye did an astonishing job overhauling the camera and cleaning the mild haze out of the two lenses. He got it back to me in record time. He had worked on one other Seiki-Kogaku of this type and knew how to disassemble the camera. I highly recommend him to anyone who needs work done on a vintage camera.

The overhauled camera works like new. Smooth and precise, much better than I thought. It is not a crude camera, it is quite well made. The uncoated lenses were bright and clear. The F2 is a Sonnar copy much like 1950's F2 5cm Nikkors. The f4.5 lens is a Tessar type, which was offered as a lower cost option to camera buyers at the time. This lens proved not as popular as the f3.5 5cm Nikkor, so it is rarer to find today. The F2 Nikkor is rarer still.

I took the camera out to the park for some test photos on some very expired ISO 200 film. Generic store film, but I think it was made by Fuji.

The results with both lenses were very good for an 82 year old camera. Simple scans from a 1 hour processing place in Chinatown, NY.

There is a little bit of flare from the f2 wide open, which is well controlled after stopping down. The f4.5 is sharp wide open and improves tremendously by f9, which is one of the stops on the lens. Both lenses are excellent at infinity.

Framing is via a tiny "pop-up" viewfinder.

I don't think you'll see many images from this camera and these two lenses anywhere else. This is an exclusive for Camaraderie.org.

The subject is my daughter and a few buildings in NYC.

(I wish I could find someone to machine a Leica M-adapter for these lenses, I would like to try them with the Techart-Pro focus device on a Sony A7II. But I don't think there would be much demand for them, it would probably have to be a one-off!)

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A very nice camera indeed. A 1938? Lucky find. And also lucky to find a competent technician to work on it. Does Youxin Ye happen to have a website?
 
He can work on many rangefinder and vintage cameras and lenses. The best thing to do is just email him and ask him if you have a specific requirement. He replies very quickly.

He does excellent work on any Leica and Leica copy of course, but he is not limited to them.
 
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