Nikon patents 37mm macro lens for Nikon 1 cameras

Nikon has applied for a patent in Japan for a macro lens for its Nikon 1 system. The patent describes a lens with a focal length of 37mm and a maximum aperture of f/2.4. In terms of viewing angle, it makes it equivalent to a 100mm lens in 35mm format.

From the patent description at Egami turns out that the lens design is made up of 14 lens elements, divided over 10 lens groups. One of the lens elements is ED type. The lens design, as befits a full-fledged macro lens, has a maximum magnification factor of 1:1 and uses an internal focus mechanism so that the length of the lens does not change when focusing. The length of the lens should be about 7cm. The largest aperture is f/2.4, but because of the 2.7x crop factor of the Nikon 1 system, this is comparable in terms of depth of field to an f/6.5 lens in 35 mm format.

The Nikon lens that is comparable in equivalent viewing angle to the lens in the patent application is Nikon’s 105mm macro lens, the AF-S Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED. This one has also 14 lens elements, but these are divided into 12 lens groups. That lens has a length of 11.6 cm. However, due to the 2.7x crop factor of the Nikon 1 system, the effective maximum aperture of the small macro lens is f/6.5.

When the Nikon 1 system was introduced last September, Nikon already showed a large number of prototypes of possible 1 Nikkor lenses. Underneath was also a macro lens, which makes it plausible that the lens from the patent application is actually under development. At the time, however, Nikon did not disclose any information about the intended focal length of the macro lens prototype.

In late October, along with the announcement of the 70-200mm f/4 VR lens, Nikon announced it was working on three new 1 Nikkor lenses for the Nikon 1 system: a 32mm f/1.2 lens, a 6.7 -13mm wide-angle zoom and a 10-100mm lens without the ‘powered zoom’ feature of the current 10-100mm lens.