I have this camera!! Its amazing, been to waterfalls and lakes and rivers with me. The autoexposure is pretty good, and the lenses are stunning. Fun fact, the Nikonos 15mm is still the sharpest underwater wide angle of all time.
I have used a Nikonos III for about 3 summer seasons now to document and photograph the beach and the surf camp I run. I also have the same 35mm f2.5 lens. I have always read that the 35mm lens is the only lens for nikonos that they claimed was amphibious. meaning they could be used for above and below water. Where nikon said the other lenses were for below only. I am not so sure how correct that is though. I have had great success with this lens above and below though. I will say that I love the look I get from that lens soo much so that I actually bought a s3 rangefinder and a 35mm f2.5 s mount to find out if it is the same look. I just bought it recently. Hopefully I will be able to test this out over the next few months.
That was definitely not the intent when built, but it can fill that niche, with a few others. Some were used by the US military from Vietnam to the mid 1990's.
I am guessing you are basing that off the Wikipedia article, which is unsupported by any other source and questionable in its lense designation listing.
