The 5.8 cm F1.4, Nikon's First Ultra Fast Normal Reflex Lens

Nikon's first daunting optical task for its SLR camera was coming up with an excellent F1.4 normal lens. It could not use the superbly designed and executed rangefinder 5cm F1.4 because when it was focussed on infinity (its closest approach of its rear element to the film plane) that placed it about a centimeter or so off the film plane and squarely through the physical space occupied by an SLR mirror (not at all a good thing).

Historical Retrofocus Issues

The first embodiment of an ultrafast "normal" lens proved to be a compromise in design parameters. It is not a 5.0 cm lens, it actually is 5.8 cm and it is not as sharp as the 5.0 cm F1.4 rangefinder predecessor that it was intended to emulate. It actually is not quite as sharp as its contemporaneous predecessor 5.0 cm F2.0 Nikkor-S that was much less expensive and which many "in the know" users opted for. But, it was very fast for its time and its sharpness proved to be easily "good enough". It survived only for a couple of years while Nikon optical engineers worked feverishly to come up with a less compromised design.

During its approximate two year rein as Nikon's fastest SLR lens, only 39,000 of them were produced. Most had the distance scale in both feet and meters, some were in feet only, and a few were in meters only. Only two versions are know to have been produced. The bulk of them and earliest version has a finely ridged aperture ring. The last version has a scalloped aperture ring for ease of gripping.

Production of this lens ceased in early 1962 with the imminent advent of Nikon's much more successful first Nikkor SLR 50mm F1.4 .