Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8

Nippon Kogaku · Nikon F · 1983 · Close-range corrected, then Gauss

our own finding

Also known as: Ai-S Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 · AI Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8S · AIS Micro Nikkor 105mm F2.8 · AI AF Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8S · AF Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 · AF Micro Nikkor 105mm f/2.8D · AI AF Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8D · Micro-Nikkor 105mm 1:2.8 · Nikon Micro 105mm f/2.8 · マイクロニッコール 105mm F2.8

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Ai-S Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 · 10 elements in 9 groups with close-range correction — Yoshinori Hamanishi's computation, entirely new against the 5/3 of the 105mm f/4 it replaced Nikon F (Ai-S) 1983–2020 182061 – 269070 (87,010) — March 1983 to 2005
300001 – 307712 (7,712) — the 2006 numbering scheme, to 2020 		94,722 across the two blocks — arithmetic on Vink's quantities, not a published total¹
AI AF Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8S · Modified Gauss, 6 elements in 5 groups, with a 3-element teleconverter group behind it — 9 elements in 8 groups, focused by moving three independent groups Nikon F (AF, screw-drive) 1990–1993 200001 – 336230 (136,230) — June 1990 to October 1993, the whole run 136,230
AI AF Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8D · Unchanged from the AF: 9 elements in 8 groups Nikon F (AF-D, screw-drive) 1993–2005 3300001 – 3502976 (202,976) — October 1993 onward, on seven-digit numbers
4000001 – 4009440 (9,440) — 2005 		212,416 across the two blocks — arithmetic¹
  1. Vink's quantity column is, in his own words, "Number of lenses made based on serial numbers collected" — derived from observed serial spans rather than factory records. Sums across blocks are arithmetic performed here and are marked as such.
  2. The introduction date is disputed. Vink's first serial block opens in March 1983. Nikon's own Thousand and One Nights says the optics "were then completely redesigned for the AI Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8S, which quickly became very popular ... soon after its release in 1984." Neither source acknowledges the other; the serial evidence is the more granular of the two, and 1983 is used here.
  3. The name is disputed with it. Nikon calls the manual-focus lens the AI Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8S; Vink types it Ai-S. The S in Nikon's usage is the Ai-S suffix, so the two are the same claim written differently, but listings use both and neither form is wrong.
  4. Vink's filter column reads "52,62" for both autofocus versions. His key describes that field as attachment size followed by internal filter size, and no source consulted here explains what the second figure refers to on this lens.
  5. The AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED of 2006 shares the focal length, the aperture and the name and shares nothing else: fourteen elements in twelve groups, one ED element, stabilisation, internal focus. It is a separate lens and is not counted in this family.
  6. No list price for any version has been found in the sources consulted, in yen or in dollars.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Two optical designs under one nameplate. Hamanishi's manual-focus lens is ten elements in nine groups; Moriyama's autofocus lens is nine in eight, arranged as a Gauss with a three-element rear converter. They are not the same lens made two ways.
  • Manual or autofocus at a glance: 83.5mm long and 515g with a focus lock is the Ai-S; 104.5mm and 555g with no lock is the AF
  • Life size or not: the Ai-S needs the PN-11 tube to pass 1:2, the autofocus versions get there on their own barrel. That single change is most of what the 1987 redesign was for
  • 52mm filter on the manual version and 52mm on the autofocus versions — unchanged across the family

Ai-S Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8:

  • Barrel engraved MADE IN JAPAN, three cross-head mount screws
  • Focus lock on the barrel — the f/2.8 has one and the f/4 does not
  • Depth-of-field scale carried on a chrome ring
  • 52mm filter, HS-14 hood, 515g, seven blades, minimum aperture f/32
  • Stops at 1:2 alone; the PN-11 tube takes it to about 1:0.88, marginally past life size

AI AF Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8S:

  • Reaches 1:1 with no tube, on a barrel that extends as it focuses and shades the front element as it goes
  • 104.5mm long against the Ai-S's 83.5mm, 555g against 515g, and 180° of focus travel against 300°
  • Takes the HS-7 hood; the Ai-S takes HS-14

AI AF Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8D:

  • D on the nameplate: an absolute distance encoder reporting subject distance to the body for flash metering. The optics are the 1987 computation untouched
  • 560g against the AF's 555g — the only physical difference Vink records
  • Seven-digit serials. The AF that preceded it has six

Serial-range notes

182061 – 269070
One Vink block covering twenty-two years of manual-focus production with no recorded internal break. Serial number places an Ai-S 105mm f/2.8 within that block and no closer.
300001 onward
Nikon's 2006 renumbering. An Ai-S 105mm f/2.8 with a 3xxxxx serial was built in 2006 or later — the last 7,712 of a run that started in 1983.
3300001 – 3502976
The AF-D jumps to seven digits and starts at 3.3 million, leaving the AF's six-digit 2xxxxx–3xxxxx block behind. Number length alone separates the two autofocus versions.

Specifications

Formula
Close-range corrected, then Gauss
Construction
10 elements / 9 groups
Aperture range
f/2.8–f/32
Diaphragm blades
7
Min. focus
0.41 m
Dimensions
66.5 × 83.5 mm
Weight
515 g
Filter
52 mm
Years manufactured
1983–2020
Country
Japan
Coating
Nikon Integrated Coating; no coating change is recorded in the sources consulted

What reviewers say

Optical Ratings

Aggregated from the reviews above — follow the links for the full picture.

Chromatic aberration
severe at distance
Spherical aberration
corrected close-up
Flare & ghosting
visible ghosting
Distortion
essentially none
Optical formula — Close-range corrected, then Gauss

Nikon publishes a cross-section under this nameplate, but it draws the autofocus lens — Moriyama's 1987 computation, nine elements in eight groups — and the design at the head of this page is Hamanishi's manual-focus one, ten in nine. Nikon's own product page for the manual lens states the ten-in-nine count and carries a photograph rather than a figure. Drawing the autofocus layout here would put a different lens on the page.

History

Nikon’s first 105mm Micro was not designed as a macro lens for a camera. It was the Bellows-Nikkor 105mm f/4, a reproduction optic in five elements and three groups, and in 1975 Nikon fitted it with a helicoid and sold it as the Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/4. It worked, and it was slow, and focusing a dim finder at close range is the one thing macro photography asks that a slow lens cannot help with.

The replacement was a complete recomputation. Yoshinori Hamanishi — who had already moved the 55mm Micro from Xenotar to Gauss to get it to f/2.8 — produced ten elements in nine groups with close-range correction, and the lens reached the market with a full stop of extra speed and none of the old glass in it. Vink’s first serial block opens in March 1983; Nikon’s own history says 1984. Neither acknowledges the other, and the serial evidence is the finer-grained of the two.

It sold for twenty-two years on one block of numbers, then another 7,712 under Nikon’s 2006 renumbering, and by then the design was thirty-seven years old. Richard Haw, who has had one apart, calls it exceptional wide open and near-perfect for distortion, and then names its one real fault: colour error at ordinary distances is severe — “some of the worst results I have ever seen” — which matters less than it sounds for a lens bought to photograph flowers at half a metre, and more than it sounds for anyone using it as a portrait tele.

The autofocus version of 1990 is a different lens wearing the same name. Keiji Moriyama finished it at the end of 1987: a modified Gauss of six elements in five groups with a three-element converter group behind, nine elements in eight, focused by moving three groups independently. It reaches life size on its own barrel where the manual lens stops at 1:2 and needs the PN-11 tube, and that is most of what the redesign bought. The AF-D of October 1993 added a distance encoder for flash metering and changed nothing optical; between them the two autofocus versions account for 348,646 of the family’s 443,368 recorded lenses, against 94,722 manual ones.

Two things stay open. No list price has been found for any version, in yen or in dollars. And the 1983-or-1984 question is not a rounding: Nikon’s own account and the serial record disagree by a full year on when a lens this widely owned went on sale, and nothing consulted here reconciles them.

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This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Example photos

Sample photo taken with the Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8
AF Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 (Simo Räsänen) — Ximonic (Simo Räsänen), via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Sample photo taken with the Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8
Neoscona oaxacensis in its web — Micro-Nikkor 105 (Carlos Valenzuela Montuy) — Cvmontuy, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)
Sample photo taken with the Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8
Viburnum plicatum — Micro-Nikkor 105 (Ibara) — 小石川人晃, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $190 across 36 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $150–$220). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $190.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$190$150–$22036
2026-09-06$190$150–$22036

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

Show 90 more listings

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Listings updated 2026-09-11. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/2.8 · Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 · Micro-Nikkor 200mm f/4

Sources (3)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this lens, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.