Nikon Myths
Perhaps this section should be called "Unconfirmed Stories and Rumors." If you know an interesting story about Nikon, or have corrections or additions
to existing stories, you are welcome to e-mail it to dvbarth@aol.com, and your submission will be considered for
inclusion on this page.
The Nikkorex: into the sea
In the early 1960s, Nikon elected to market a less expensive camera it named the "Nikkorex." There were two primary configurations: one type with a leaf shutter
and the Nikkorex F that had a focal plane shutter. The F was an excellent camera, but the leaf shutter (not made by Nikon) often failed on the other models. At first,
Nikon tried to make repairs, but when the volume of leaf shutter failures reached a certain threshold, for cameras still under warranty, Nikon decided to exchange them
for the Nikkorex F that had the much more reliable focal plane shutter.
Nikon arranged to have a load of broken Nikkorex cameras shipped back to Japan, and they were loaded onto a cargo ship in San Francisco harbor. For some reason,
the ship's crew elected to dump the Nikkorexes overboard after departing the harbor. Perhaps, to this day, there are Nikkorex cameras lying on the ocean bottom.
Nikon USA's response to slow F3 sales?
This legend came from Dr. Michael Cunningham, PhD, August 2002. He heard the story from several sources that Nikon USA felt that sales of the Nikon
F3 were adversely impacted by the large numbers of Nikon Fs that were still in service. In response, Nikon USA allegedly decided to stop repairing the F, and
destroyed all remaining Nikon F parts. The story is told that the Nikon Chicago repair facility took the rare F parts out into a parking lot and ran over them with
a steamroller. There has been no confirmation of this story from Nikon.
Nikon's 1960's ads showed the incredible reliability of the F
This legend also came from Dr. Michael Cunningham, PhD, August 2002. Nikon ran a series of interesting ads in the late 1960s or early 1970s extolling the
reliability of the F. One ad told the story about an F that was smuggled into a politically repressive country in a large jar of water, dried out, and used successfully.
Another ad told about an F that was dropped in a harsh, snowy area like the Himalayas, and then found by the owner more than a year later, cleaned off and it
worked fine. It was these ads and ones like them that sold many photography enthusiasts on the Nikon F, although Nikon didn't use that kind of advertising with
the F2, F3, F4, F5, or D1 series.
"The Nikon Mystique"
Myths and unconfirmed rumors often come about to fill an information void, and this has been the case with Nikon cameras, not because there has been an
intentional agenda to withhold information, but because of the distinct language difference between Japanese and the European languages, including English.
Translating written Japanese is an incredibly difficult, laborious undertaking, and, until a computer is built that can scan Japanese writing and rapidly convert
it into another language, in readable form, we'll have to rely on what information is supplied to us by the information section of Nikon. Simple data, such as the
dates and number of various models of bodies and lenses that have been manufactured, can only be guessed. Of course, Nikon is under no mandate to supply
the rest of the world with information. In fact, the mysteries help build what many call "the Nikon Mystique".