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

Nikkor 135mm f/2.8

Nippon Kogaku · Nikon F · 1965

our own finding

Also known as: Nikkor-Q Auto 135mm f/2.8 · Nikkor-Q·C Auto 135mm f/2.8 · Nikkor-QC Auto 135mm f2.8 · New Nikkor 135mm f/2.8 · Ai Nikkor 135mm f/2.8 · Ai-S Nikkor 135mm f/2.8 · Nikon 135/2.8 non-AI · ニッコール 135mm F2.8

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Nikkor-Q Auto 135mm f/2.8 · Four elements in four groups Nikon F 1965–1973 135001–144627
163011–178118
189311–367229 		202,654 across the three blocks (Vink)
Nikkor-Q·C Auto 135mm f/2.8 · Four elements in four groups Nikon F 1973–1975 380001–421067 41,067 (Vink)
New Nikkor 135mm f/2.8 (K) · Four elements in four groups Nikon F 1975–1976 430001–464613 34,613 (Vink)
New Nikkor 135mm f/2.8 (compact) · Five elements in four groups Nikon F 1976–1977 730001–757424 27,424 (Vink)
Ai Nikkor 135mm f/2.8 · Five elements in four groups Nikon F 1977–1981 770001–916935 146,935 (Vink) — the largest single block in the family
Ai-S Nikkor 135mm f/2.8 · Five elements in four groups Nikon F 1981–2005 900001–976038 76,038 (Vink)
  1. Vink's quantity column is derived from the serial numbers he has collected, not from Nikon records. Nikon has published no production figure for any version of this lens.
  2. Construction and specification by version, from Vink's specification table: Nikkor-Q and Q·C Auto and the first K, 4 elements in 4 groups, f/22, 1.5m, 7 blades, 600–620g, 96mm long; compact K, Ai and Ai-S, 5 in 4, f/32, 1.3m, 7 blades, 430–435g, 83.5mm. Filter size is 52mm on all of them.
  3. The Nikon Series E 135mm f/2.8 of 1981–1985 is a third design again — four elements in four groups, f/32, 1.5m, 395g — and is not a Nikkor. Vink counts 77,015 of them at 180031–257045. It is not carried as a variant here.
  4. No designer is credited for either optical design, and Nikon has published no name for either optical layout. The 135mm f/2.8 has no entry in Nikon's Thousand and One Nights, which covers the 105mm f/2.5, the 135mm f/2 and the 180mm f/2.8 ED but skips the volume seller between them.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • 52mm filters on every version — the tell against the 135mm f/2, which takes 72mm
  • Seven blades throughout
  • f/22 minimum means the four-element lens of 1965–1976; f/32 means the five-element lens of 1976 and later
  • About 600g means the old design, about 430g the new one

Nikkor-Q Auto 135mm f/2.8:

  • Q for four elements, engraved on the front ring
  • Chrome-ringed barrel, 610g on the first block and 620g after
  • The metering prong is pointed on early lenses and round from about 237xxx
  • NIPPON KOGAKU JAPAN on the ring until 1971, NIKON after
  • Stops to f/22 and focuses to 1.5m

Nikkor-Q·C Auto 135mm f/2.8:

  • C after the Q: multicoated, and the reason Rørslett rates this version above the single-coated ones
  • The distance scale sits outside the filter ring

New Nikkor 135mm f/2.8 (K):

  • Rubber-inlaid focusing ring in place of the chrome and metal barrel
  • Still the old optics: f/22, 1.5m, about 600g
  • Takes Ai conversion kit 43

New Nikkor 135mm f/2.8 (compact):

  • 430g against 600g, and 83.5mm long against 96mm — the difference is obvious in the hand
  • Stops to f/32, not f/22, and focuses to 1.3m
  • Takes Ai conversion kit 42, not 43

Ai Nikkor 135mm f/2.8:

  • Ai ridge and the small second aperture scale
  • The engraving changes mid-run from LENS MADE IN JAPAN to MADE IN JAPAN

Ai-S Nikkor 135mm f/2.8:

  • Depth-of-field scale on a chrome band
  • Three cross-head screws in the mount where the Ai has five
  • Focus throw shortens to 180 degrees from the Ai's 270

Serial-range notes

630001–630003
Three prototypes dated 1964, a year before the production block opens at 135001.
430001–464613 and 730001–757424
The four-element K and the five-element compact K overlap: Vink dates the old lens to June 1975 – March 1976 and the new one from January 1976. For two or three months both were being made, under the same name, in different serial series.
770001–916935 and 900001–976038
The Ai and Ai-S blocks overlap by about 17,000 numbers. Vink's quantities are the widths of the observed spans, so the two figures cannot be added without double-counting that overlap.

Specifications

Aperture range
f/2.8
Diaphragm blades
7
Filter
52 mm
Years manufactured
1965–2005
Country
Japan

What reviewers say

Optical formula

No Nikon cross-section of either 135mm f/2.8 design exists in the published record. The Thousand and One Nights has no tale on this lens — its 135mm tales are the f/2 and the Series E, a third design. Nikon's product pages for it were removed before the Wayback Machine captured them, and Nikon never fitted its manual-focus pages with the construction figures its later ones carry. There are also two designs here, four elements in four groups to 1976 and five in four after, so even a correct drawing would have to say which.

History

The 135mm f/2.8 is the Nikkor telephoto that sold, and the one nobody wrote about. Nikon’s Thousand and One Nights covers the 105mm f/2.5 beside it and the 135mm f/2 above it and the 180mm f/2.8 ED beyond it, and has nothing to say about the lens that outsold all three put together. No designer is credited. No name is published for either optical layout. What is on the record is the count, and the count is close to half a million.

It arrived in December 1965 as the Nikkor-Q Auto, four elements in four groups — Q is Nikon’s mark for four — at f/2.8 to f/22, focusing to 1.5m, weighing 610 grams in a chrome-ringed barrel. Vink’s blocks run 202,654 lenses to 1973 through two visible changes: the weight creeps to 620g in January 1967, and the metering prong turns from pointed to round somewhere around 237xxx. Multicoating arrived in 1973 with the Q·C, 41,067 more, and Rørslett’s ratings put a whole point between the single-coated lens and that one, on flare alone.

Then in 1976 Nikon threw the optics away. The replacement is five elements in four groups and it is not a better lens on paper in the way an ED redesign is better: it is a smaller one. 430 grams against 600. 83.5mm long against 96. It focuses 20cm closer and stops two clicks further to f/32. Nothing in the published record says why, but the timing sits with the New Nikkor and Ai generation, when the whole line was being made lighter, and the practical result is a 135mm that fits a coat pocket in a way its predecessor never did. The old and new lenses were made side by side for two or three months in early 1976 under the same name, in separate serial series, distinguishable in a listing only by weight, by minimum aperture, or by which Ai conversion kit fits — 43 for the old, 42 for the new.

The five-element lens then ran for twenty-nine years, through Ai from March 1977 and Ai-S from September 1981, and Vink’s blocks for those two come to 146,935 and 76,038. They overlap by about 17,000 numbers, so the totals will not add cleanly; the honest statement is that the second design accounts for something over 240,000 lenses and the first for something over 278,000. Alex Luyckx, reviewing an Ai copy that arrived in a Nikon F3 kit, describes it as built like a tank, faultless from f/5.6 and soft in the corners before that, and admits it never once beat the 105mm f/2.5 that came in the same box.

Two things stay open. Nikon has never named the designer of either layout or published a construction type for the four-element lens, which leaves the most numerous Nikkor telephoto of its era anonymous in a corpus that names the designers of far rarer lenses. And the reason for the 1976 redesign — whether it was weight, cost, or the Ai programme — is nowhere on the record at all.

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 Nikkor 135mm f/2.8
Nikkor 135mm f/2.8 Ai-S (Jud McCranie) — Bubba73 (Jud McCranie), via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Sample photo taken with the Nikkor 135mm f/2.8
Nikkor 135mm f/2.8 Ai (Tuxyso) — Tuxyso, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Sample photo taken with the Nikkor 135mm f/2.8
Pohick Creek — Nikkor 135mm f/2.8 (dw_ross) — dw_ross from Springfield, VA, USA, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Nikkor 135mm f/2.8? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $110 across 55 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $73–$150). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $110.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$110$73–$15055
2026-09-06$110$73–$15055

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

Show 169 more listings

eBay links are affiliate links. If you buy through one, Glass Bodies earns a small commission from eBay at no cost to you. It does not change which listings appear, their prices or their order — those come from the search and the sort described above.

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

Related: Nikkor 135mm f/2

Sources (5)

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.