Nikon engineering quality

For a while I've had a dusty 50mm f.1.8 Ai sitting in a box. I picked it up from a rummage box at a camera fair for pretty much nothing as the grease in the helicoid had gone bad - it wasn't stiff, more like dry and loose. Anyway, I've usually used my 55mm Micro AIS as a long standard, so never really needed another 50mm. Finding a few spare hours one cold evening I thought I might have a go at at service attempt. I had no repair manual so went into it blind. What a joy to work on it was. It was really beautifully designed. It was amazingly simple, not in a cheap way, but in an elegant way. The precision with which everything fitted together and articulated was beautiful. It actually looked like it was built to be serviced too, not sealed forever and forgotten. My only mistake was not noting how many turns on each helicoid before separation which meant a few goes to get it to focus to infinity. Anyway, helicoid was re-greased, everything cleaned and re-assembled and I now have a fully functional 50mm standard. I've been into a few FMs and FM2s as well and found the same thing, simple, elegant, precise. Going into an OM1 always fills me with dread in comparison, that's more like working on a watch...

Nice to know! Shades of a Leica screwmount?

As an engineer myself who appreciates simple, elegant designs, I completely shared your sentiment when I stripped down and repaired one of my Nikon 50 / 1.8’s. A simple, elegant design for sure.

Agreed. My 50 f1.4 Ais in for a little service.

MartinCrabtree said:

Agreed. My 50 f1.4 Ais in for a little service.

View attachment 215886

Click to expand...

That looks like fun and I look forward to doing this type of activity!

Read up well first. It took a couple tries to get infinity focus right.

If you think Nikon's are easy to work on, then try any of the Nikon F2 models especially the F2s and AS models. Not for the faint hearted! They need quite a number of specialist tools to take apart without damage. Pin wrenches, slotted screwdrivers and a knowledge of how to reset everything afterwards.

As Woody Guthrie said: “Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple.”

They aren't that simple. Judging the whole brand based on 1-2 lenses can't yield accurate results. I service my Olympus OM cameras and proprietary lenses. Servicing OM-1/OM-2 and Zuiko 50 mm f/1.8 is as you say, "simple, elegant", while servicing OM-4 and Zuiko 135 mm f/2.8 is hellish.

P.S. Another example of simplicity and elegance can be found in older generation Pentax bodies and SMC-M lenses.

That Nikkor 50mm 1.8 Ai is a real gem of a lens. Wonderful optical design in a light small and sharp package. The Ai version is what I consider the best all around Nikon 50. As you noted the build quality is superb and really represents a high point for Nikon design and manufacturing; the following 'slow' 50's dropped in build quality. I've rebuild quite a few and one trick I would do is trim off a bit of the thin chrome ring and reduce the minimum focussing distance. You have to be careful not to take too much material off or the lens will pull too far out and you run the risk of disconnecting the aperture linkage.

The scallop focus pre-AI Nikkors are some of the most solidly engineered lenses ever made. AF lenses may be superior optically, but they're Christmas cracker toys in comparison.