A Brief HistoryIn November, 1957, a half century ago, I was 13 years old and just beginning my involvement with photography. In that year Nikon introduced theNikon SP, a now legendary rangefinder camera. It was expensive, (about $2,500 with 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor, in today's dollars – ($415 then)) and aimed at the professional photographer. Only some 22,000 cameras of this model were ever made between 1957 and 1965. The SP was designed to compete with and indeed surpass theLeica M3, the first of the "M" series, which had been released in 1954, and which still continues today with the latestM8digital.

The Nikon SP turned out to be that company's ultimate rangefinder camera, and when the original Nikon F SLR came out just two years after the SP's introduction, rangefinder cameras started a rapid decline in popularity. Though less expensive and lower speced Nikon S3 and S4 rangefinder models were subsequently made, they too eventually went out of production. With the e...