For us in the west, it all began in the Spring of 1950.

That was the time when LIFE magazine photojournalists David Douglas Duncan and Horace Bristol, in transit through Tokyo en route to cover the war raging in Korea, were persuaded by a young Japanese stringer to visit a camera factory in the Shinagawa district of the city.



Out of the chaos and rubble of World War II, Nippon Kogaku Kogyo Kaisha - Japan Optical Company Ltd., - struggled to rebuild its manufacturing programme; it had once employed 23,000 workers in more than 20 factories. Now it was reduced to 2 and a mere 1400 employees.



In the west, the regard for post war Japanese manufactured products of almost any description bordered on the dismissive. Certainly for cameras and optics, the general perception was that only Europe and the USA had the know-how to put together the high quality equipment demanded by professionals. But, as Duncan wrote to me years later after his Yankee Nomad was published in the 1960s, it was the young Japanese photographer's enthusiasm for the new products which persuaded him and Bristol to take time out of a busy schedule for the visit.

One can speculate on where Nippon Kogaku - the mighty and familiar Nikon of today, would be in the pecking order had...

This was the slug used in a Nikon D3 advertsing campaign in the UK in the lead up to the new full frame FX availability toward the end of last year. I found it vaguely amusing, but nonetheless, right on the nail. Thousands had been waiting patiently to get well on the new kit, so in theory at least, Nikon should do well on it.

Nikon's ad campaign, coming so close to the end of 2007, also reminded me that 2008 is a photokina year, not to mention a PMA year; it is likely we shall soon see mock-ups and prototypes of products much speculated and rumoured these past few weeks.

As Nikon is at the top of the conversation pile for the moment, what truth is in the rumour the company will shortly be showing off a new digital S rangefinder camera using the new FX sensor? They have the technology and if Epson and Cosina could make it work, why not Nikon?

Internet forum views have expressed doubts that an S(D) rangefinder model would appear with the original Contax type lens mount; rather, more likely if it does, with a Leica M mount. This would be a great pity, as one of the best features of the original Nikon S series was its serrated wheel operated focus system linked by a simple mechanism to the internal camera lens mount. In operation, sharp subject focus is rapidly obtained, leaving the left hand fingers free...