Richard Haw's Classic Nikon Repair and Review

I consider this shop to be a hidden gem, it’s difficult to find and the only way I knew about this is from a friend. Despite being just a small shop it’s well-stocked and the inventory is better than most shops that I know of. I occasionally find interesting items here, parts, junks and items that are priced reasonably. The owner is friendly and knowledgeable, he seems to know how to repair, too. I always have interesting conversations with him when it’s not busy. The only reason I don’t go there often is it’s situated at the other side of the city, quite far from where I live.

This is what the shopfront looks like, it’s situated at the 3rd floor of an old arcade, by the stairs. From the outside you can see that it has a lot of things inside, some of which aren’t found in other shops. This is not your average used-camera shop, it’s a place for a camera-geek to get their next purchase, big-or-small.

Click on this link for their website. There’s not a lot of things posted there in terms of inventory but it does have a link to what they have at an online auction site. You can message the owner if you like and I am sure that he’ll respond to you if he has the time.

This is their address, 〒110-0005 Tokyo, Taito City, Ueno, 4 Chome−7−8 アメ横センタービル３F. Paste this to an application or use the embedded map here. The shopping arcade itself (Ameyoko Center Building) is easy to locate and all you’ll need to do is locate this shop along the stairs at the 3rd floor.

Looking closely at the display near the storefront you’ll be greeted by these lovely TLR’s. There are some other things here for the fans of large-format photography along with some medium-format gear.

The central display has a couple of nice thing as well, some of which we will see in better detail below.

Here’s a Leica IIIf along with a Nikon S4 with included Nikkor-S.C 5cm f/1.4 that had been overhauled, the latter looks nice, there are no visible scars and the panels appear straight.

This Nikon S2 looks great, the included Nikkor-H.C 5cm f/2 is a great lens despite its humble specs. The set comes with its special leather case which looks clean.

I love these, the W-Nikkor 3.5cm f/2.5 comes in the later black-finish which is a bit rarer compared to the older chrome-look. There is a W-Nikkor 3.5cm f/3.5 here which is priced reasonably, these usually sell for a little bit more.

This rack has plenty of spare parts, I occasionally find some useful things here.

Light-meters and other accessories fill this side of the wall.

There’s a whole display filled with Brownie-boxes and another mostly-filled with Nikon stuff.

You’ll find strobes and other things here. There’s a working Contax AX here being sold for a reasonable price.

Let’s get back to where the precious stuff are, this is where most of the Nikon-related gear are situated.

This is a lovely example of the Nikon F3AF, a complete set with the AF-Nikkor 80mm f/2.8 Ai-S which is a nice, sharp lens. This is Nikon’s first mass-produced autofocus system and it works decently even today despite being slow and cumbersome. Compared to what the other manufacturers had at the time, it is an elegant implementation.

Several Nikon F’s are on-display here. I almost bought the one to the left but I found a better item.

Here’s what you’ll find at the other side, accessories and cleaning tools. I bought a couple of caps for my rangefinder lenses and the price was so cheap.

Here’s something that’s not-so-cheap, a template for cutting film for use with Barnack-clones like a Nicca 3S. You could make one yourself, I personally use my finger as a guide and that works fine for me.

• 

• 

• 

(Click to enlarge)

Of course, this wouldn’t be a good shop without a proper junk-corner. You could find some interesting things here if you are lucky.

This shop has been around for a while and it certainly needs more exposure. It’s a great place and the owner is very friendly, please give them a visit and buy something to help support this humble shop. We should support the little mom-and-pop shops whenever possible because they are not out there to make big money and they form the backbone of the whole used-gear industry.

Thanks for following my work, if you liked this article please share this with your friends so it will get more views. This site earns around $0.50 a day, it’s totally reliant on views. You can also opt to support this site, it helps me offset the cost of maintenance and hosting. You are also helping me purchase, process and scan film. This site promotes the use of film so we are all in this together. See you again in the next article, Ric.

Help Support this Blog:

Maintaining this requires resources and a lot of time. If you think that it has helped you or you want to show your support by helping with the site’s upkeep, you can make a small donation to my paypal.com at richardHaw888@gmail.com. Money isn’t my prime motivation for this blog and I believe that I have enough to run this but you can help me make this site (and the companion facebook page) grow.

Helping support this site will ensure that this will be kept going as long as I have the time and energy for this. I would appreciate it if you just leave out your name or details like your country’s name or other information so that the donations will totally be anonymous. This is a labor of love and I intend to keep it that way for as long as I can. Ric.