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Nikon System
Philip Greenspun (updated September 2006)
The Nikon system of digital single-lens reflex (SLR) bodies and lenses is a popular choice among serious photographers worldwide. This page makes it easy to shop for Nikon digital bodies and Nikkor lenses. Every component manufactured by Nikon is covered, plus a few exceptionally good third-party components. If you are new to photography, you might want to start with my article "Building a Digital SLR System". 

This article goes through every section of the Nikon system and concludes with some starter system recommendations. 

Nikon Camera Bodies
All Nikon digital SLR bodies incorporate a "small sensor" or "APS-C" sized sensor. This is smaller than the standard 35mm film frame and effectively multiplies the magnification of any lens attached to the body. A small sensor is good for telephoto work, such as wildlife photography, where a 300mm lens that is too short for bird photography on a film camera becomes a 450mm (effective) lens. 


Nikon D50, $550 (review), 6 MP and good enough for most family photography; also available in an inexpensive kit: Nikon D50 with 18-55mm & 55-200mm Lenses, $710 (review) (cheap lenses, but good for use outdoors on sunny days and for figuring out what different focal lengths do); note that the D50 requires SD memory cards rather than the standard CF cards used by other Nikon bodies 
Nikon D80, $1000, 10 MP, Nikon's answer to the Canon Digital Rebel XTi (replaces the 6MP Nikon D70S, $700 (review)); the kit zooms are reasonably good, but too slow for indoor usage 
Nikon D200, $1700 (review), 10 MP, the camera for most advanced amateurs 
Nikon D2HS, $3000 (review), only 4 Megapixels but tremendously fast; intended for sports photojournalists 
Nikon D2X, $4300 (review), 12 MP, Nikon's best (and heaviest) digital SLR 
For nostalgia buffs and collectors, Nikon still makes film bodies: 

in-production
Nikon F6, $2300 (review), autofocus, probably the best 35mm film SLR that will ever be made 
Nikon FM10 with 35-70 lens, $260, manual focus, designed for students in intro photography classes 
recently discontinued and possibly still available
Nikon F5, $1100 
Nikon F100, $800 (review), much lighter and smaller than the F-series and almost as durable; this was the standard "second body" that professionals carried in the film days 
Nikon N80, $340 (review), mostly plastic body, reasonably good autofocus and autoexposure systems; rememeber that it is the lens that determines image quality (might actually be cheaper as a kit with a crummy lens: Nikon N80 with 28-80 lens, $300 (review)) 
Three incredibly cheap, all plastic, not very good bodies: Nikon N55, $120; Nikon N65, $170 (review); Nikon N75, $140 
Nikon FM3A, $800 (review), hard to find; Nikon came out with this all-metal manual focus body in 2001. It is a beautifully balanced camera and, with a 50/1.4 lens, will take much better pictures than what 99 percent of digital camera owners capture with their cheap kit zoom lenses. 
Nomenclature
F-number: lower is better. 

VR is "vibration reduction", a technology lifted from camcorder image stabilizers. The lens electronically compensates for unsteady hands. VR is especially important at long focal lengths, e.g., 200mm and above, because the lens magnifies camera shake at the same time it is magnifying the subject. A VR lens will allow you to use slower shutter speeds without introducing camera shake. The alternative to a VR lens would be mounting the camera on a tripod or using a high ISO setting, which reduces image quality but allows the use of higher shutter speeds. 

"ED" is "extra-low dispersion" glass, a more expensive and higher quality glass that reduces chromatic aberration, in which light of different colors takes different paths through the lens, which would result in a dot of white light being fuzzed up by the time it reaches the film or sensor. "IF" is internal focus, meaning that the lens does not change physical length as you focus on subjects that are closer or farther away. 

"DX" are Nikon's lenses that only work on its small-sensor digital SLR bodies, i.e., they don't cast a large enough image circle to be used on a film camera. "G" lenses are Nikon's newest lenses. They don't have an aperture ring, which is a shame because it means that you are forced to adjust the aperture with a command wheel on the camera. The G lenses don't work on older bodies. 

AF-S is "silentwave motor". Old-style Nikon autofocus lenses did not have motors in the lens, but relied on a screwdriver blade in the camera body to turn the focus ring. An AF-S lens has a built-in ultrasonic motor, a technology copied from the Canon EOS system. When using an AF-S lens, the photographer can push the shutter release (or a button on the rear of the camera, if a custom function is set) and let the autofocus system do its best, then touch up the focus manually by twisting the lens ring. The AF-S lenses also focus faster and more quietly. 

Normal Lenses
 
A normal or standard lens is light in weight and approximates the perspective of the human eye. Normal lenses have large maximum apertures, indicated by small f-numbers such as f/1.4 or f/1.8, and thereby gather much more light than zoom lenses. It may be possible to take a photo with a normal lens in light only 1/8th or 1/16th as bright as would be required for the same photo with a consumer-priced zoom lens. Another advantage of the large maximum aperture is that the viewfinder will be correspondingly brighter and therefore easier to use in dim light. (SLRs keep the lens wide open for viewing and stop down to whatever aperture you have set just before taking the picture; this is why the viewfinder always looks the same even if you switch from f/1.4 to f/8 to f/16.) 


digital bodies
Sigma 30/1.4, $420, ultrasonic motor, equivalent to a 45mm perspective on a film camera; Nikon does not bother to make a competitive lens 
Nikon 35mm f/2.0 AF, $330 (review); designed for a film camera and the viewfinder will be only half as bright as the Sigma, but possibly higher optical quality, especially since you're only using the center portion of the lens. 
film AF
Nikon 50mm f/1.8D AF Nikkor, $110, a great lightweight bargain and one of the highest optical quality lenses in the Nikon line; you could use this as a portrait lens on a digital SLR 
Nikon 50mm f/1.4D AF Nikkor, $270, less than one f-stop faster than the 1.8; similar optical quality 
film manual focus
Nikon 45mm f/2.8 Nikkor AI-S Manual Focus, $400, very compact and designed cosmetically to go with the FM3a nostalgia body 
Nikon 50mm f/1.2 Nikkor AI-S Manual Focus, $760, a half-stop faster than the 50/1.4, but you lose autofocus and the image quality at f/1.2 is not very good 
In terms of flare, contrast, and sharpness, these are the highest quality lenses that you will ever attach to your camera. If you can do the job with a normal lens, as many of the 20th Century's greatest photographers did, you can save yourself a lot of weight and cost. There are good zoom lenses, but they are very expensive and heavy. 

Wide-to-Telephoto Zoom Lenses
 
A wide-to-tele zoom is what you get as a standard "kit" lens with a cheaper digital SLR body. The range goes from moderately wide through normal to moderately telephoto. They are good when you are too busy to change lenses, e.g., at a wedding reception. The 24mm perspective (full-frame) will capture a table of guests; the 70mm or 105mm long end is good for a flattering portrait. The main weakness of these lenses is that the cheaper ones have a very small maximum aperture, e.g., f/4 or f/5.6, and can only be used in bright light, on a tripod, or with a blast of on-camera flash that gives everyone a moon face. 

made for the small-sensor digital cameras
Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S DX, $1250 
Nikon 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED AF-S DX, $160 
Nikon 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED IF AF-S DX, $335 
Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR DX, $800, this kind of super wide range zoom is typically not very good, but Nikon lards on the dollars and the weight (more than one pound) and the results are acceptable; the vibration reduction compensates to some extent for the slow maximum aperture of f/5.6. 
leftovers from the film days
Nikon 24-85mm f/2.8-4.0D IF AF, $540 
Nikon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5G ED-IF AF, $350 
Nikon 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6G ED-IF AF VR, $530 
Nikon 28-70mm f/2.8D ED-IF AF-S, $1440, big and heavy, but fast and constant aperture; the standard tool for wedding photographers 
Nikon 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6G AF (Black), $100, kit lens for Nikon's cheapest film bodies 
Nikon 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5D, $240, reasonably good, reasonably light, reasonably cheap 
Nikon 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED IF, $340, no vibration reduction and therefore unlikely to be useful at the 200mm f/5.6 end unless you are willing to carry a tripod 
Nikon 35-70mm f/2.8D AF, $710, superseded to a large extent by the 28-70/2.8, but still a very high quality lens; no silentwave motor 
Wide-angle Zoom Lenses
Good for general-purpose dramatic wide angle photography. More distortion than wide-angle prime lenses, which makes them less suitable for photographing architecture (though many kinds of distortion can be fixed by a PhotoShop wizard). 

made for the small-sensor digital cameras
Nikon 12-24mm f/4G ED IF Autofocus DX, $935 
leftovers from the film days
Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8D ED-IF AF-S, $1480, the professional's lens, with its fast and constant maximum aperture, turns into a moderately wide to normal very high quality zoom lens on a Nikon digital SLR 
Nikon 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5D ED-IF AF, $490, a reasonably good alternative 
Telephoto Zoom Lenses
 
These are good complements to a normal lens when traveling. The long end may not be useful indoors due to a small maximum aperture. 

made for the small-sensor digital cameras
Nikon 55-200mm f4-5.6G ED AF-S DX Nikkor Zoom (Black), $190, cheap, slow, crummy 
leftovers from the film days
Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR Zoom Nikkor, $1750, the standard professional choice, and a good lens for a digital SLR too; very heavy 
Nikon 70-300mm f/4-5.6D ED AF Nikkor SLR Camera, $330 
Nikon 70-300mm f/4-5.6G AF Nikkor SLR Camera, $180, half the weight, half the cost, half the optical quality of the 70-300/5.6D 
Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8D ED AF Zoom Nikkor, $900 (review), no silentwave motor, no vibration reduction, shoulder-crushing weight, high optical quality, superseded by the 70-200 AF-S VR lens 
Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED Autofocus VR Zoom Nikkor, $1480 
Wide-angle Prime Lenses
 
These let you get close to your subject while still showing a lot of background information. Wide angle lenses are good for "environmental portraits" in which the subject occupies most of the frame, but nearby objects are in sharp focus. Photojournalism has gone gradually wider and wider over the years. A typical photo in a newspaper these days might be taken at 20-24mm on a full-frame camera, which would be 14-17mm on a small sensor digital camera. 

A prime wide angle lens will have much lower distortion of vertical and horizontal lines than a zoom lens and is therefore preferred for architectural photography. All of these lenses are designed for film and full-frame sensor cameras. 

made for the small-sensor digital cameras
Nikon 10.5mm f/2.8G ED AF DX Fisheye, $580, very wide, very curved corners, good for the cramped interior of a submarine; considered a "groovy" effect back in the 1960s 
leftovers from the film days
Nikon 14mm f/2.8D ED AF, $1400 
Nikon 16mm f/2.8D AF Fisheye, $760, full-frame fisheye 
Nikon 18mm f/2.8D AF, $750 
Nikon 20mm f/2.8D AF, $490 (review), a focal length that became popular in the 1980s for photojournalism, but not dramatically wide on a Nikon digital SLR 
Nikon 24mm f/2.8D AF, $300 (review) 
Nikon 28mm f/1.4D AF, $2380 
Nikon 28mm f/2.8D AF, $230 
Nikon 35mm f/2.0 AF, $330 (review) 
defrosted leftovers from the 1970s
Nikon 24mm f/2.0 AI-S Manual Focus, $590, maximum aperture and image quality for available light photojournalism 
Nikon 35mm f/1.4 Nikkor AI-S Manual Focus, $1220 
Telephoto Prime Lenses
 
A prime or fixed focal length telephoto lens offers maximum image quality, light gathering capability (aperture), and magnification. The good ones are big, heavy, and designed for use on a monopod or tripod. Sports and wildlife photography require these lenses. Nikon does not make any telephoto lenses specifically for their small-sensor digital cameras, which is a shame because it would be possible to cut the cost and weight dramatically without the requirement of casting a 24x36mm image for an old film camera. 

leftovers from the film days
Nikon 85mm f/1.4D AF Nikkor, $1000 
Nikon 85mm f/1.8D AF Nikkor, $390 
Nikon 105mm f/2.0D AF DC-Nikkor, $950, first of Nikon's innovative lens design giving the photographer the ability to throw foreground or background intentionally out of focus 
Nikon 135mm f/2.0D AF DC-Nikkor, $1530, the other Nikon lens that lets you selective blur portions of the image 
Nikon 180mm f/2.8D ED-IF AF, $665, an incredibly sharp and light lens, standard choice for studio fashion photographers with full-frame film bodies in the late 1980s; becomes the equivalent of a 300mm lens on a Nikon digital body and therefore good for animals in the zoo and dramatic telephoto images 

Nikon 200mm f/2.0 Nikkor ED AF-S VR, $4300 (review) 
Nikon 200-400mm f/4G IF-ED AF-S VR, $5150, a great lens for wildlife 
Nikon 300mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S, $4500 (review), the standard lens for sports photographers, supplemented by a teleconverter 
Nikon 300mm f/4.0D ED-IF AF-S, $1100 
Nikon 400mm f/2.8D ED-IF AF-S, the same idea as the 300/2.8, but a bit more magnification, weight, and expense 
Nikon 500mm f/4D ED-IF AF-S, $unknown, about the same size as the 300/2.8, but more magnification and smaller maximum aperture 
Nikon 600mm f/4D ED-IF AF-S, bigger than a 300/2.8, more expensive than a Kia subcompact sedan 
manual focus
Nikon 85mm f/1.4 Nikkor AI-S Manual Focus, $1350, a very poor value compared to the newer autofocus 85/1.4 
Nikon 135mm f/2.8 Nikkor AI-S Manual Focus, $570 
Nikon 500mm f/8.0 Reflex-Nikkor Manual Focus, $1210; mirror lenses are slow and out-of-focus highlights have an unnatural donut shape; just because it works on the Hubble Space Telescope doesn't mean that it will work for you... 
Teleconverters
Nikon TC-14E II 1.4x AF-S, AF-I Auto Focus Teleconverter, $410 (review) 
Nikon TC-17E II (1.7x) Teleconverter AF-S, $420 
Nikon TC-20E II (2.0x) Teleconverter AF-S, $450 (review) 
Manual focus teleconverters: TC-14A (1.4x), $280; TC-14B (1.4x), $850; TC-201 (2.0x), $410; TC-301 (2.0x), $850 
The better Nikon telephoto lenses are designed to work optically with the teleconverters. Image quality will be acceptable, even at maximum aperture. As noted above, however, there is no free lunch. A teleconverter provides additional magnification, but the overall amount of light gathered by the lens remains the same. Thus, you lose one f-stop of light with a 1.4X converter and two f-stops with a 2X converter. The viewfinder will be dimmer and the camera will have a tougher time autofocusing. With a 2X converter and a slower lens, therefore, you will lose the ability to autofocus with many bodies. 

These are heavy lenses. If you have a tripod quick-release system, get plates for each lens and remember to mount the lens, not the camera body, to the tripod. 

Macro Lenses
 
Macro lenses let you fill your photograph with a subject that is physically small. The longer the focal length of the macro lens, the farther away you can be from your subject, which is important with live insects, for example. A macro lens that goes down to "1:1" can be used to take a frame-filling photo of something that is 24x36mm (1x1.5 inches) in size, the same dimensions as a frame of 35mm film or the sensor on a full-frame digital body. All Nikon macro lenses can be used for ordinary photographic projects as well, i.e., they will focus out to infinity if desired. Note that a "macro zoom" will focus reasonably close, but is not a substitute for a "macro lens". 

Nikon 60mm f/2.8D AF Micro-Nikkor, $420 (review) 
Nikon 105mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR Micro Nikkor, $895, a new design with everything good that a lens can have.. image stabilizer, internal focus, ultrasonic autofocus motor, 9-bladed diaphragm for attractive out-of-focus highlights ("bokeh"); maximum magnification 1:1 
Nikon 200mm f/4.0D ED-IF AF Micro-Nikkor, $1910, good for photographing insects and in other situations where you need to get farther back from your subject 
Flashes
 
The easiest way to ruin a photograph is to use on-camera flash, which blasts the subject with an unflattering light. The resulting lack of shadows means that it is tough for a viewer to make out the features of the subject. On-camera flash is useful outdoors for filling in harsh shadows. Otherwise, the professional uses flash mostly bouncing up towards the ceiling or held as far away from the camera as possible. This is why the professional camera bodies don't incorporate the pop-top flashes the way that consumer bodies do. 

Nikon SB-600 Speedlight Flash, $200, bounces up, bounces sideways, zooms in and out, the right flash for most consumers 
Nikon SB-800 AF Speedlight, $330, same basic idea as the SB-600, but more power; built-in ultra wide angle adaptor 
Nikon SB-30 AF Speedlight, $115, a simpler flash, good for on-camera fill light or in a multiple flash setup 
Nikon R1 Wireless Close-Up Speedlight System, $430, great macro flash system to use with bodies that have a built-in flash, such as the D200 
Nikon R1C1 Wireless Close-Up Speedlight System, $660, the same idea, but for bodies such as the D2x that do not have a built-in flash 
Nikon makes a great line of products, both wired and wireless, for coordinating and controlling multiple flashes. Covering all of these accessories is beyond the scope of this article, but if you are going to use flash as a primary light you should consider added additional speedlights and mounting them off-camera. 

Perspective Correction Lenses
A perspective correction (PC) lens lets you take a picture of a building, from ground level, without the lines converging and making it look as though the building is falling over. It works because you are able to shift the front portion of the lens up, the lens being designed to cast a larger image than the 35mm film frame. To some extent, this is obsolete because these kinds of linear distortions can be fixed post-exposure in a digital editing tool such as Adobe PhotoShop. All of Nikon's PC lenses were designed for their film bodies and are manual focus. If you are deeply interested in in-camera perspective adjustments, note that Canon makes a more flexible line of "tilt-shift" lenses that come closer to what is possible with a 4x5 view camera (cloth over head, bellows, sheet film). 

Nikon 28mm f/3.5 PC Manual Focus, $1740 
Nikon 85mm f/2.8 PC Micro-Nikkor, $1900, offers very close focusing for macro work as well as perspective correction 
Accessories
Zeiss lens cleaning kit 
SanDisk flash cards: 8 GB; 4 GB 
For a camera body and one lens, the average professional photographer would not use a case at all. To hold a camera system, you should probably find a nearby professional camera shop and experiment to see how your gear fits. I usually end up preferring Tamrac and Lowe cases. Here are a few ideas: 

Tamrac Velocity 7, for a D50 or D70s and small prime or small (cheap) zoom lenses 
LowePro Off Trail 1, belt back for smaller bodies and lenses 
Tamrac 5606, one D200 body, two or three professional-sized lenses, one flash 
Recommended Starter Nikon SLR Systems
 
Average family: 

Nikon D50, $550 (review) 
Sigma 30/1.4, $420 for indoor photos without flash (zoom alternative: Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S DX, $1250) 
Nikon 12-24mm f/4G ED IF Autofocus DX, $935 for the first family trip 
Nikon 180mm f/2.8D ED-IF AF, $665 for the soccer game 
Lexar 2GB SD card (SanDisk SD cards are supposedly prone to failure) 
Serious photographer: 

Nikon D200, $1700 (review) 
Sigma 30/1.4, $420 
Nikon 12-24mm f/4G ED IF Autofocus DX, $935 
Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR Zoom Nikkor, $1750 
SanDisk 8 GB CF card 
More
Lens chapter from Making Photographs 
Discontinued and Miscellaneous
Digital Cameras • D70s • D2Hs • D1 • D100 • D1H • D1x • D70 • Coolpix P1/P2 • Coolpix 2500 • Coolpix 5000 • Coolpix 775 • Coolpix 8700 • Coolpix 995 

35mm Film Cameras • SLR Body Comparison Chart • F100 • F100 • F3/T and F3 • F4 • F6 • FE and FE2 • FM3A • N65/F65 • N80/F80 • N80/F80 • N90s 

Lenses • 105mm/2.8D AF • 20/2.8 AF • 200 F/2G AF-S VR IF-ED • 20-35mm f/2.8 AF D IF • 24/2.8 AF • 300mm/2.8 AF • 35mm AF f/2D • 60mm/2.8 AF macro • 80-200mm/2.8 AF 

Scanners • Coolscan 4000 • Super Coolscan 35mm Film Scanner 

Text and pictures copyright 1993-2006 Philip Greenspun. The top left photo was taken with a 20mm lens. The top right photo with a 300/2.8. 

philg@mit.edu
 © 2000-2006 Luminal Path Corporation and contributors. Contributed content used with permission. 
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