The 55mm Micro-Nikkor family

[David H. Hartman]

The Nikkor-N 35/1.4 and Nikkor-N 28/2 are the first Nikkors with multi-layer coatings on all lens surfaces. These lenses have deep red, blue and green coatings. The marketing department did not think to advertise the fact until a year later when the ".C" designation reappeared. This time it is white (not red as before) and indicates the lens has multi-layer coatings.

I believe Nikon and Canon were a coy about first double coating and then multi-coating lenses at a time when they had an inventory of single coated lenses to sell off. I've seen a few clearly multi-coated Nikkors with out the "C" designation. The one I remember for certain was a 45/2.8 GN Nikkor.

Dave Hartman 

[chambeshi]

The latest advance is Nano Crystal Coating which from memory first appeared on the AF-S 300/2.8 VR in 2004. This coating is fragile so can only be used on selected internal surfaces.

Correct, This is emphasized in the commemorative book Eyes of Nikkor. N-coating is one of the features distinguishing the excellent IQ of the 300 f2.8G. Presumably, the first Micro-Nikkor to receive the N-coating was the 105mm f2.8G IF-ED VR in Feb 2006, followed by the 60 f2.8G released in January 2008.

One might suspect the N-coating specifications has been modified since introduction.

[Akira]

At the risk of repeating what has already been said about coatings (but hopefully putting it all together in one place so it makes sense ...)

Roland, thank you for chiming in and make the matter clear!  I was expecting your input. 

[triglav]

This has been probably beaten to death, but I still cannot find a decisive information:

Which one of the pack would be the best for 1:1 copy work, aka film scanning with a digital camera?

As a rule of thumb I would simply go for the latest version, meaning a 55mm/2.8 AI-S in this case, but

there are some reports on the net that state some earlier versions are better optimised for the 1:1 task.

Is that so, or another urban legend?

Thanx

[Birna Rørslett]

All were optimised for 1:10. Quality declines towards 1:1, however if you refrain from stopping down too far, any of them except the 5.5cm (from the early '60s) will do the job. Don't go beyond f/8 on the aperture scale. Do note the early Nikkor-P with aperture compensation will not stay at f/8 nominal, but open up to around f/5-f/5.6 when set to 1:2. An M2 ring does the remaining task of getting to life-size 1:1.

[triglav]

Birna,

thank you so much for the input :-)

This "optimised for 1:10" info I see all the time, but do you happen to know the original source for that? :-)

I beg your pardon, but I recall Bjoern Roerslett saying on his magnificient website (which I cannot find anymore, BTW) that some iterations of this lens were better suited for 1:1 copy work than others.

But did someone actually tested different gen. lenses against each other, 1:1 macro and corner resolution?

[Bent Hjarbo]

You can find the info here:
http://www.naturfotograf.com/index2.html

[Bent Hjarbo]

But what will be best for 1:1 copying?
I have some enlarger lenses, both 50 and 80 mm

[ARTUROARTISTA]

The photo is from this morning, taken with a Micro-NIKKOR Auto 55mm, 3.5

[Jürgen Pfeiffer]

I conducted tests with a Micro-Nikkor P-C Auto and several enlarging lenses with focal lengths ranging from 50 to 135 mm. For slide and negative reproductions at a scale of 1:1, the EL-Nikkor 63 mm f/2.8 proved to be the best.

[triglav]

Juergen,

many thanks, so that El-Nikon would be the next candidate. :-)

For a as-good-as-it-gets 1:1 copy work with a high MPix digital camera we are probably in the area of industrial optics.

Information is scarce, hard to find and sometimes even hard to understand.

[Bruno Schroder]

Good to know, Jurgen. Which version was it: the old or the newer one?

[Jürgen Pfeiffer]

Good to know, Jurgen. Which version was it: the old or the newer one?

It's the newer version Bruno.

[Øivind Tøien]

I recently had to decide between using my 55mm f/3.5 AI and the AF 60mm f/2.8 micro-Nikkors for film/slide scanning. It is worth noting that to compare, one need to consider that the body will display effective aperture for the 60mm, but not the 55mm. I found that at the same effective apertures the 60mm had better definition of the film grains in the far corners, which is not surprising considering that it is corrected to 1:1 without use of extension tubes. Using my Z8 I found an effective aperture of f/13 to be a good compromise between compensating for non-flat film and diffraction when scanning at near 1:1 and placing focus point between center and the corner. There are room for errors in this test with respect to accuracy of the aperture settings, so I would recommend testing the available lenses for one self.

The 60mm is a bit hard to manually focus, but has the advantage that once set it stays in position without need for taping down the focus ring. Typically focus remained the same though multiple film strips or equally mounted slides.

[triglav]

Oeivind,

pardon me, which exactly version of the af 60mm micro nikkor are you talking about, there some of them out there?