Nikon Corporation is pleased to announce that total production of NIKKOR interchangeable lenses for Nikon SLR cameras reached 60 million in March 2011.
In 1959, Nikon (then Nippon Kogaku K.K.) released its first SLR camera, the Nikon F. At the same time, Nikon also released its first NIKKOR interchangeable lenses for Nikon SLR cameras, among them the NIKKOR-S Auto 5cm f/2. In the half century since, NIKKOR lenses have become the favorite lenses of a wide variety of users, and have been extremely well received by a great number of photo enthusiasts and professional photographers.
In August 2010, total production of NIKKOR lenses reached 55 million. Since then, Nikon has continued to expand the product lineup by releasing six new NIKKOR lenses for FX- and DX-format SLR cameras. As a result, the fact that NIKKOR continues to satisfy a wide variety of photographers is evidenced by production of an additional five million lenses in less than one year, bringing total production to 60 million.
The Nikkor Brand.
As the brand name for Nikon lenses, NIKKOR has become synonymous with high-performance, high-quality SLR lenses. The NIKKOR name comes from adding "R" - a common practice in the naming of photographic lenses at the time the name was established - to "Nikko", the Romanized abbreviation for Nippon Kogaku K.K. In 1933, the large-format lens for aerial photography was released with the name Aero-Nikkor.
NIKKOR has always been ahead of the times. The OP Fisheye-Nikkor 10mm f/5.6 fisheye lens for SLR cameras, released in 1968, was the world's first lens to incorporate aspherical lens elements. What's more, NIKKOR lenses for the latest SLR cameras utilize a number of Nikon's own cutting-edge technologies, including Nano Crystal Coat, which virtually eliminates internal lens element reflections across a wide range of wavelengths.
The current lineup of more than sixty NIKKOR lenses for Nikon SLR cameras offers a rich variety of lenses, including fisheye lenses, super wide-angle to super telephoto lenses, micro lenses and PC-E lenses.