The 85mm-250mm (8.5cm-25cm) f4.0-4.5 or f4.0 (Late)

If wide angle lenses were the realm of the rangefinder's greatest strength over the rapidly oncoming "F", the telescopic and especially the telescopic zoom arena was the regime where the SLR was to immediately gain dominance and preeminance.



Version 1: Two Touch Zoom Design; Serial number onset 154901; introduced November 1959 with the original "F". Very pedestrian variable "long focus" approach to making a lens for sports photographers. Though this lens satisfied a real need, it is so awkward to use that it was very quickly replaced in Nikon's lineup with a one touch design. It has a short, relatively hard to grip scalloped focus ring.

Version 2: Onset serial number 157901. Basically a one touch version of Version 1. Scalloped focus ring evolves to long, easy to use diamond textured RIFR which also doubles as a push-pull zoom control.

Version 3: Serial number onset 184711 September 1969. This much improved lens is one that has some apparent very real paradoxes. Though it has more elements in more groups, and hence it has more internal glass to air interfaces than the two previous versions, its pictures are very obviously sharper and more contrasty than with either of the prior two versions. The unsung root of this is that it has the earliest manifestations of Nikon's multilayer anti-reflective NIC coatings on internal glass-air interfaces where it is not obvious to casual observation but where it matters the most. The lens also benefits from having a very meaningful modern update to its basic optical formula. It is a very successful modification of the original lens formula adding one element in one more floating group with the success that it achieves the objectives of constant maximum aperture and sharper results. The color motif goes from black with a chrome front and mounting grip rings to all matte black with only a chrome mounting grip ring.

The improvements to Version 3 are optically and performance wise a significant enough set of differentiating characteristics that it almost qualifies it to be an entirely different lens. The lens evolved from being a relatively marginal performer to being a very, very decent performer.



Though the improvements of Version 3 improved the lens greatly, the improvements came much too late for any meaningful success in the marketplace. It is a shame because version 3 had become a very credible offering, it was noticeably much sharper and higher contrast. It remained, however, heavy and klutzey looking and it, importantly, suffered from the deservedly egregious reputation of its two predecessors. Besides, there were already appearing from competitors, alternative designs (telephoto zooms while it was a long focus zoom) that performed well and were lighter and more compact and less expensive. In the end Nikon was only able to peddle only 1551 (only about 400 more than the original Version 1 considered to be very rare and collectible) of these much improved monster lenses.

To illustrate how advances in optical technology were to impact the look and feel of lenses as the years passed, pictured below is the circa 1969 4 1/2 lb 85-250mm f4.0 Version 3 Long Focus Zoom along side a twelve year later evolved circa 1981 1 3/4 lb 80-200mm f4.0 Telephoto Zoom