Nikon S2 Questions

John Koehrer · Sep 29, 2019

RE: Strap lug reinforcement. Find a store that carries K&S brass tubing & get a piece that fits the eyelet & cut it tolength.
I've used them with and without cementing in place depending on the condition of the strap.
It's still brass but will work for years and probably outlast you.

* If you can get an accurate diameter of the lug, let me know & if I still have some I'll send you a couple of inches.

__Brian · Sep 30, 2019

The Jupiter-12 is cut to the Zeiss Contax specification. Best to measure actual focus, shim the lens if necessary. I use a KMZ J-12 on my S2, shimmed it for good agreement.

ags2mikon · Sep 30, 2019

Please tell me what you refer to as actual focus. Is that on film? I don't understand why my Zeiss Opton does not follow the Jupiter 12 yet my Jupiter 12 follows my Nikkor lenses. Is the objective to be on the money at min focus wide open and off a small at inf a small amount and let dof cover it? If so my Zeiss opton is good to go. I think i am going to test another body today weather permitting and have more data points. These are such wonderful tools for photography and I have been using them almost continuously for 50 years. They will have to pry them out of my cold dead fingers some day.

__Brian · Sep 30, 2019

There is a lot of sample-to-sample deviation in the Jupiter lenses, and some in the Zeiss lenses as well. The Jupiter-12 is a wide-angle lens, F2.8 maximum aperture- unless the focus was way off- is usually good enough on film. The 50mm F2 has much less DOF, focus is more critical. I optimized mine for 8ft to split the difference between close-up/wide-open and infinity. Sonnar focus shift is towards infinity as you stop down. You can optimize for close up work, stop down to F2.8 for good infinity agreement.

If you look at the J-12, notice that 0.9m to infinity is about 270degree turn. This is about 10degrees more of a turn than the Nikon external mount lens. The J-12 focus will stop short of the minimum focus on the S2, comes to rest just short of 0.9, On the Contax/Kiev, it turns just past 0.9m. I just tried the J-12 on my S2 and the same J-12 on the Kiev 3.

ags2mikon · Sep 30, 2019

Your post explains a lot. I just checked another body and the RF is off. At inf it does not align. The inf ground glass looks very close. the body may be slightly to thick so it may front focus at about 100-200 foot. Film can move forward but can't go back. But if the rf is out of wack it won't shoot right. So I need to look up how to adjust the rf. So back to the search engine.

__Brian · Sep 30, 2019

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tveljus/7717742494/in/photostream/

I could not find my picture of the S2, but found the above. I made similar instructions back in 2006.

ags2mikon · Sep 30, 2019

Okay, Thank you. I fount a second body with the rf off. Both horizontal errors. One body is too thick will need shims removed and might need rf adjusted after. At that point I may have all of them in sync. The ones that are right are spot on. On one of the bodies that was spot on the helios 103 was good from inf to 3 foot. The guy that had it also sold me his s2 and 2 kievs. When I get all the bodies going I am going to try the Jupiter 9 and see if I can make it work. Thanks again.

Alan Edward Klein · Sep 30, 2019

StepheKoontz said:
I don't find the parallax to be a big issue, just be aware as you get in close, the top of the image will 'get cropped' and frame looser/up a bit higher. IMHO I'd sell the Zeiss lens and get the 50mm f2 nikkor.

Why the 50mm F2?

__Brian · Oct 1, 2019

The Nikkor-H 5cm F2 can usually be bought for a reasonable price, about 1/2 to 1/3 of the price of the Nikkor 5cm F1.4. In Leica thread mount, you can usually pick up for $150 with patience. The Nikon lens is the correct focal length for the Nikon cameras, the Sonnar is built to the slightly longer 52.4mm standard. Performance of the two lenses is about equal.

Nikon S2 Questions

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