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

Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5

Nippon Kogaku · Nikon F · 1961 · Xenotar type

our own finding

Also known as: Micro-Nikkor 5.5cm f/3.5 · Micro-Nikkor Auto 55mm f/3.5 · Micro-Nikkor-P Auto 55mm f/3.5 · Micro-Nikkor-P·C Auto 55mm f/3.5 · Micro-Nikkor-P.C Auto 55mm f/3.5 · Micro Nikkor P C Auto 55mm f3.5 · Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 K · New Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 · Ai Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 · Nikon Micro 55mm f/3.5 · MICRO-NIKKOR 1:3.5 f=55mm · マイクロニッコール 55mm F3.5

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Micro-Nikkor 5.5cm f/3.5 — preset Nikon F (pre-AI, preset aperture) 1961–1963 171501 – 172572 — first block, from August 1961; filter thread flush with the barrel
172714 – 173821 — second block, to 1963; filter thread raised 		2,321 for the whole 5.5cm run — Vink hangs the quantity on the second block, and 173821 minus 171501 plus one gives the same figure¹
Micro-Nikkor Auto 55mm f/3.5 — compensating aperture Nikon F (pre-AI, meter prong) 1963–1969 188101 – 209525 (21,425) — chrome barrel, feet or metres, from March 1963
211001 – 227335 (16,335) — black barrel, scalloped aperture ring, from December 1966
238011 – 273153 (35,143) — takes Ai conversion kit 63; from 1968, and the last block is marked in feet and metres together 		72,903 across the three blocks — arithmetic on Vink's quantities, not a published total¹
Micro-Nikkor-P Auto 55mm f/3.5 — non-compensating Nikon F (pre-AI, meter prong) 1969–1973 600001 – 620815 (20,815) — front ring engraved NIPPON KOGAKU JAPAN, 1969 to 1971
630001 – 728469 (98,469) — front ring engraved NIKON, 1971 to 1973 		119,284 across the two blocks — arithmetic¹
Micro-Nikkor-P·C Auto 55mm f/3.5 — multicoated Nikon F (pre-AI, meter prong) 1973–1975 730001 – 811928 (81,928) — 1973 to March 1975 81,928
Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 (K) Nikon F (pre-AI, meter prong) 1975–1977 850001 – 925206 (75,206) — January 1975 to 1977 75,206
Ai Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 Nikon F (Ai) 1977–1979 940001 – 948681 — engraved PK-3.13, from 1977
949786 – 980534 — engraved PK
975449 – 992480 — barrel engraving changes from LENS MADE IN JAPAN to MADE IN JAPAN
991581 – 1106077 — three cross-head mount screws where the earlier Ai barrels have five; to October 1979 		166,077 for the Ai run as a whole; Vink gives no separate quantity for the four sub-blocks within it
  1. Vink's quantity column is, in his own words, "Number of lenses made based on serial numbers collected" — derived from observed serial spans, not from factory records. Sums across blocks are arithmetic performed here and are marked as such wherever they appear.
  2. Nikon's own account dates the F-mount lens by its prototype drawings (October 1960), start of mass production (January 1961) and release (August 1961); Vink's first serial block opens at August 1961. The two agree.
  3. Nikon's Tale 85 says the optical system went "about 19 years" without change, from 1961 to the arrival of the f/2.8. Vink's blocks run August 1961 to October 1979, which is eighteen years and two months. The claim and the serial evidence are consistent to within a rounding.
  4. Nikon dates the arrival of the non-compensating Micro-Nikkor-P Auto to 1970. Vink's first Micro-P serial block opens in 1969. The gap is one year and neither source acknowledges the other; the serial evidence is the more granular, and the compensating run is closed at 1969 here on that basis.
  5. No list price for any version of this lens has been found in the sources consulted, in yen or in dollars.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Five elements in four groups on every version from 1961 to 1979. Nothing optical changed in eighteen years; everything that changed was mechanical, and every change is legible on the barrel.
  • 52mm filter throughout, and the HN-3 hood throughout
  • Preset or automatic in one look: a preset ring and a 660° focus throw is the 5.5cm; a meter prong and a 300° throw is everything after it
  • Compensating or not, without dismantling anything: on the 1963–69 lenses the aperture blades visibly open as the barrel is racked out, because the mechanism is holding the effective aperture constant

Micro-Nikkor 5.5cm f/3.5 — preset:

  • Preset iris: the ring is set to the working stop and the aperture closed by hand before the exposure
  • Reaches 1:1 on its own helicoid. No later 55mm Micro-Nikkor does — every one of them stops at 1:2 and needs a tube
  • 660° of focus travel, more than twice the throw of the 1963 lens
  • Seven blades, minimum aperture f/22, 325g — all three change at the redesign
  • PAT PEND on the barrel with LENS MADE IN JAPAN in white on the focus ring (Vink's country column)

Micro-Nikkor Auto 55mm f/3.5 — compensating aperture:

  • The compensating linkage: the iris opens as the barrel extends, so the marked f-number stays the working one at close range
  • Six blades, minimum aperture f/32, 300° throw, 240g
  • Stops at 1:2 alone; 1:1 needs the matching M ring, sold with the lens as a kit

Micro-Nikkor-P Auto 55mm f/3.5 — non-compensating:

  • No compensating linkage. Through-the-lens metering had made it pointless, and the mechanism was deleted rather than improved
  • Rubber focus grip in place of the metal scallops — it arrives here, six years before the K generation brought it to the rest of the line
  • P is the element-count letter (Pente, five); the optics are the 1961 computation untouched

Micro-Nikkor-P·C Auto 55mm f/3.5 — multicoated:

  • ·C after the P: multicoated, and the only change from the version before it
  • 235g, the lightest of the family

Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 (K):

  • PK-3 engraved on the barrel — the extension ring that takes it to 1:1, named on the lens so the user cannot buy the wrong one
  • Takes Ai conversion kit 62 where the Micro-P took kit 63
  • Still pre-AI: a meter prong and no Ai ridge

Ai Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5:

  • Ai ridge on the aperture ring and the second, small aperture scale for the finder readout
  • The last version. The f/2.8 that replaced it in December 1979 is a different optical design, not a further variant

Serial-range notes

171501 – 173821
The entire 5.5cm preset run, two barrel versions inside it, separated by whether the filter thread stands proud of the front ring. 2,321 lenses against 517,719 for the family — the preset is the rarest thing here by two orders of magnitude.
554001 – 554003
Three lenses Vink records as a 55mm f/4 UV prototype that "looks like 55/3.5 micro", dated 1964. A three-element, three-group design and not this lens; Vink notes only the resemblance of the barrel.
600001
The Micro-P block opens a new six-digit series rather than continuing from 273153. Nikon restarted the numbering at the change to non-compensating aperture, so serial order does not run continuously across the family.
975449 – 992480
Ai barrels overlap here: the LENS MADE IN JAPAN engraving and the MADE IN JAPAN engraving are both recorded in this band, and the mount-screw count changes from five to three at about 991581. Serial number alone does not separate late Ai barrels.

Specifications

Formula
Xenotar type
Designed by
Wakimoto Zenji (脇本善司) — computed the Xenotar-type optical system · Azuma Hideo (東秀夫) — worked with Wakimoto on the original rangefinder computation
Construction
5 elements / 4 groups
Aperture range
f/3.5–f/32
Diaphragm blades
6
Min. focus
0.241 m
Dimensions
66 × 55 mm
Weight
240 g
Filter
52 mm
Years manufactured
1961–1979
Country
Japan
Coating
Single-coated to 1973; multicoated from the Micro-Nikkor-P·C of that year

What reviewers say

Optical Ratings

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

Chromatic aberration
negligible
Flare & ghosting
strongly resistant
Distortion
essentially none
Optical formula — Xenotar type
Schematic cross-section drawn for this site from Nikon's own diagram — 5 elements in 4 groups; curvatures and spacing stylized.
Schematic cross-section drawn for this site from Nikon's own diagram — 5 elements in 4 groups; curvatures and spacing stylized. — Drawn for this site

History

One optical design, eighteen years, six barrels. The glass in an Ai Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 of 1979 is the glass Zenji Wakimoto computed for a rangefinder in 1956 — a Xenotar type, five elements in four groups — lengthened by five millimetres so it would clear a mirror. Nikon says the change of focal length was not a matter of taste: the 5cm lens “could not be used with the Nikon F mount without doing so”, the flange distance being what it is. Everything else that happened to this lens between 1961 and 1979 happened to the barrel.

The first version, from August 1961, is the odd one. It has a preset iris — set the working stop on a ring, close it by hand before the frame — and 660 degrees of focus travel, and with all of that travel used it reaches life size on its own helicoid, which no later 55mm Micro-Nikkor does. It is also the only one that is rare: 2,321 lenses in two years, against something over half a million for the family. Richard Haw, who has taken most of the line apart, rates its resolution well for the period and notes chromatic aberration just outside the plane of focus; the handling is what killed it.

What replaced it in March 1963 gave up 1:1 to gain an automatic diaphragm, and added the mechanism this lens is remembered for. The compensating aperture opens the blades as the barrel racks out, so that the f-number engraved on the ring stays the f-number reaching the film as magnification rises. Nikon’s own description is exact — an aperture “that opened the aperture blades so that the effective aperture value does not change in accordance with the shooting distance”. It is a clever answer to a real problem, and it lasted six years. Through-the-lens metering measured the light loss directly, and in 1969 the Micro-Nikkor-P arrived with the linkage simply deleted. The rubber focus grip arrived at the same moment, six years before the rest of the Nikkor line got it.

After that the changes are bookkeeping: multicoating in 1973, a new barrel and the PK-3 tube engraved on it in 1975, Ai indexing in 1977. Vink’s blocks give 21,425 and 16,335 and 35,143 for the compensating versions, 20,815 and 98,469 for the Micro-P, 81,928 for the multicoated P·C, 75,206 for the K and 166,077 for the Ai. Added up that is 517,719 lenses, a figure no source publishes and one that should be read as a floor, since Vink counts serials that have been seen rather than serials that were made.

Two things stay open. No list price for any version has been found, in yen or in dollars, so what a photographer actually paid for the compensating mechanism in 1963 — or for its absence in 1969 — is not on the record here. And Nikon restarted the serial numbering at 600001 when the compensating linkage went, rather than continuing from 273153, which means the family’s numbers do not run in one sequence and no source consulted says why the break was made there.

Expand Collapse

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 55mm f/3.5
Paddo, a mushroom — Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 non-AI at f/3.5 (Arend) — Arend from Oosterhout, Netherlands, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Sample photo taken with the Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5
Paddo — Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 (Arend) — Arend from Oosterhout, Netherlands, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $80 across 55 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $70–$120). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $80.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$80$70–$12055
2026-09-06$80$70–$12056

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

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

Related: Micro-Nikkor 5cm f/3.5 · Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/2.8 · Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 · Micro-Nikkor 200mm f/4

Sources (6)

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.