Richard Haw's Classic Nikon Repair and Review

Hello, everybody! Have you heard of the legendary “Barrel Man“? It is a wooden statuette carved by the talented Igorot people. He is basically a little wooden man with a big barrel covering his body. When you pull the barrel off from the statuette you will be surprised by his huge wooden spring-loaded penis. It’s a novelty gift and it has become somewhat of a folk culture icon after it was introduced to the rest of the world by travelers. I had one a long time ago at my office which I used as a paperweight and to entertain my guests with. I am reminded of that little naughty figurine by today’s subject. It has a spring-loaded gimmick, but it is not as vulgar as what the Barrel Man has nor is it as big. Anyway, it’s just as entertaining if you ask me.

Introduction:

The Seiki Kogaku S has a pop-up viewfinder instead of the Leica’s simpler window. It is one of its defining gimmicks to circumvent the original German parents. I find it pathetic and useless as you will soon know why later in this article when I talk about how it handles when shooting. Despite that, I find it charming as it gives this camera a special character and silhouette. The funny thing is, it costs a lot more to produce a tiny enclosed viewfinder compared to a simpler flip-type one and the latter would be much more useful. It’s just a waste of space and an unnecessary complexity to solve a simple problem. I guess the Japanese really did idolize the Germans too much, to the extent of learning the bad habit of over-engineering. It’s probably one of the first, if not the first Leica copycat and a primitive one, too.

It is now much cleaner compared to how you first saw it in part 1. Some parts of the plating are corroded and beyond conventional cleaning, there’s nothing much we can do about it. I have replaced some screws and a few small parts from a donor Canon S2 which fits perfectly. I’m lucky to have a few screws that I can repurpose for my spares box, some of them are cross-type screws and are placed in parts that you won’t see externally. Some of the small set screws were replaced with new stainless ones just in case.