Nikon have announced that the total production of Nikkor SLR lenses had reached fifty million as of August 2009. The first F-mount Nikkor was the Nikkor-S Auto 5cm f/2, released in 1959 along with the first-ever Nikon SLR camera, the Nikon F. The 50 million lenses have thus been produced over the course of the last 50 years, with the last 5 million being produced over the past year. Almost all F-mount lenses sold in the last half a century will mount on any Nikon SLR ever made, except for some invasive fisheyes produced in the 1960s. However, not every camera-lens combination will utilise the full potential of the camera or the lens. (Some of the newer DSLRs may not meter and/or autofocus with older Nikkors, DX lenses don’t cover the full frame on 35mm film, VR lenses won’t provide stabilisation on bodies predating the Nikon F5 of 1996, lenses bearing the G designation have limited use on old film SLRs etc.). Nevertheless, the current lineup of more than sixty Nikkor lenses for Nikon SLR cameras also offers a wide variety of lenses, including fisheyes, super wide-angle to super telephoto lenses and micro lenses.

Review: Read our in-depth review of one of the latest Nikkors, the AF-S DX Nikkor 35mm f1.8G

Nikon Press Release

Total Production of NIKKOR Lenses for Nikon SLR Cameras Reaches Fifty Million

Nikon Corporation (Michio Kariya, President) is pleased to announce that as of August 2009 total production of NIKKOR lenses, interchangeable lenses for Nikon SLR cameras, reached fifty million. Total production of NIKKOR lenses reached forty-five million in August 2008 with production of an additional five million over the past year.

Nikon (then Nippon Kogaku K.K.) released its first NIKKOR lens for Nikon SLR cameras, the NIKKOR-S Auto 5cm f/2, in 1959 along with its first SLR camera, the Nikon F. In the fifty years since then, NIKKOR lenses have been extremely well received by a great number of photo enthusiasts and professional photographers.

The current lineup of more than sixty NIKKOR lenses for Nikon SLR cameras offers a wide variety of lenses, including fisheye lenses, super wide-angle to super telephoto lenses and micro lenses.

The NIKKOR brand
As the brand name for Nikon lenses, NIKKOR has become synonymous with high-performance, high-quality SLR lenses. The NIKKOR name comes from adding “R”—a common practice in the naming of photographic lenses at that time—to “Nikko”, the Romanized abbreviation for Nippon Kogaku K.K. In 1933, the large-format lens for aerial photography was released with the name Aero-Nikkor, making last year the 75th anniversary of the NIKKOR brand.

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