In 1959, Nippon Kogaku’s first SLR, the Nikon F, took the professional camera market by storm – so much so that the company continued making it until 1974, a run of 15 years and 862,000 cameras.
But it wanted to expand beyond the somewhat limited professional market in order to sell more lenses. It needed a lower-priced camera, but its big problem was that it had very limited production capacity at that time. The manufacturer needed to source this camera elsewhere… so, it turned to Mamiya.
Of course, new cameras don’t just appear on demand. They take years to develop. But it so happened that when Nippon Kogaku (now Nikon) came calling, Mamiya had a new camera body almost ready. It agreed to modify it to accept Nikon lenses and, in June 1962, the Nikkorex F was born.
This new Nikkorex was a bit of a gamble for Nikon, as it used the then-new and unproven Copal Square, vertical-run, metal-blade, focal plane shutter. Copal, along with Mamiya, Pentax and Konica, were to be the only firms to receive the shutter once it became available – and Nikon was not on the list. But Mamiya was, and it built the Nikkorex F under contract.
The Copal Square shutter proved reliable and a huge success. So much so that virtually all modern focal plane shutters now use its basic design.
The Nikkorex F lacked some of the professional features of the Nikon F, such as interchangeable finders, motor drive coupling, and the ability to accept ultra-wide lenses (due to the lack of a mirror lock-up).
It was not as robust as the Nikon F, but it was lighter, reliable and provided a much more affordable entry point to Nikon’s lens system. In just three years, nearly seventy thousand were sold.
The Nikkorex F run ended in July 1965, when Nippon Kogaku replaced it with its own Nikkormat F (sold in Japan as the Nikomat F) series – and the Nikkorex name was retired, forever.
Curiously, the Nikkorex F was sold in a few markets, notably Germany, as the Nikkor ‘J’.
After the Nikkorex contract ended, Mamiya sold the camera design to Riken Optical Co. who sold it as the Ricoh Singlex – it kept the Nikon lens mount and was made by Mamiya under contract. It was also sold by Sears as the Sears SL-11. Both the Ricoh and Sears versions came with an Auto-Rikenon 55mm f 1.4 lens.
Of course, this wouldn't be the last time that Nikon collaborated with another company to make a camera…
Find out more about photography's past in David Young's book, A Brief History of Photography.
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Take a look at the best Nikon cameras of today, along with the best Nikon lenses for DSLRs and the best Nikon Z lenses for mirrorless cameras.
