I believe I know of a fair number of Nikon lenses in and out of production. Still, the above-mentioned lens right now being auctioned on the German branch of ebay is quite unknown to me. Out of plain curiosity, anybody encountered this lens before?

Greetings Karl Johan

-- Karl Johan Borgis (kjborgis@telia.com), February 21, 2000

Answers

I've never heard of it, and doubt that it is a F-mount lens. Could be a misprint (for f2.8). Can you provide a pointer (URL)?

-- Alan Gibson (Alan@snibgo.com), February 21, 2000.

I remember reading that Nikon once made a "Ultra Micro" MF lens that magnifies down to 10X, and has the highest central image resolution ever acheived with commercially available camera lens. But I can't remeber its focal length or aperture. It was for some special industrial camera. I also don't remember if it had F mount.

-- chuck fan (chaohui@msn.com), February 21, 2000.

I found the lens at: http://www.ebay.de/static/auction/41/4175/417598/41759842.html.

Bjxrn Rxrslett reviews a 28 mm f/1.8 Ultra-Micro-Nikkor on his webpage at: http://www.foto.no/nikon/index2.html (from the above link select "lens evaluations" and then "Nikon Special Lenses" from the menu on the left).

-- Geoffrey S. Kane (grendel@nauticom.net), February 22, 2000.

....yes, that is the lens I saw. Apparently the seller has no idea either. Would be fun to know, though. I tried to contact the lone bidder, but that was not possible on ebay.de

Karl Johan

-- Karl Johan Borgis (kjborgis@telia.com), February 22, 2000.

The following was posted on the Nikon MF onelist: "

"Das Nikon-Handbuch" by Peter Braczko, 2nd edition 1999, includes a list of Micro- and Ultra-Micro-Nikkors, designed for industrial purposes, e.g. semiconductor chip production. It also includes a picture of an Ultra-Micro-Nikkor 1:2/55 mm in a wooden box. According to Braczko, this lens was introduced in 1965 and is not designed to support general photography, any adaption to 35 mm cameras is difficult.

To do macro photography with a bellows, Nikon manufactures a series of "Macro-Nikkors". Braczko lists 4 Macro Nikkors: 2.8/19 mm, 4.5/35 mm, 4.5/65 mm, 6.3/120 mm.

"Das Nikon Handbuch" is published in German language by Wittig Fachbuchverlag, Chemnitzer Stra_e 10, 41836 H|ckelhoven, Germany. As i know, an English translation of the current 2nd edition is on the way.

Best regards Uwe

-- Matthew Smith (mpsmith@email.unc.edu), July 15, 2000.

Hello my name is Bill Baker

at the company I work for we use this lens, for vision inspection on computer chips. I found your article while looking to purchase another one actually...as for as commercial use im not sure how it is used...as far as I know its mainly for inspection purposes...

not sure if this info helps but at least you know a little more about it. It checks the parts for markings, pin location, Coplinarity...stuff like that...for what we use it for it is a very good lens.

Later,

Bill Baker

-- Bill Baker (bbaker@alltemated.com), June 11, 2001.