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

Nikkor 55mm f/1.2

Nippon Kogaku · Nikon F · 1965 · Double Gauss, seven elements in five groups

our own finding

Also known as: Nikkor-S Auto 55mm f/1.2 · Nikkor-S.C Auto 55mm f/1.2 · Nikkor-S·C Auto 55mm f/1.2 · New Nikkor 55mm f/1.2 · Ai Nikkor 55mm f/1.2 · Nippon Kogaku Nikkor-S 55mm f1.2 · ニッコール 55mm F1.2

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Prototype Nikon F — 970101–970110 3 recorded by Vink; van Dijk has never seen one on the market
Nikkor-S Auto 55mm f/1.2 (first version) Nikon F 1965–1967 970111–985390 ~15,300¹
Nikkor-S Auto 55mm f/1.2 (second version) Nikon F 1967–1971 184711–215730 ~31,000¹
Nikkor-S Auto 55mm f/1.2 (Nikon name ring) Nikon F 1971–1972 220001–240561 ~20,600¹
Nikkor-S·C Auto 55mm f/1.2 Nikon F 1972–1974 250001–300556 ~50,600¹
New-Nikkor 55mm f/1.2 (K) Nikon F 1974–1977 350011–385739 ~35,700¹
Ai Nikkor 55mm f/1.2 Nikon F 1977–1978 400001–425518 ~25,500¹
NASA versions Nikon F — 8000111–8000116
800001/1001–800018/1018 		Vink records about 116 in the 8000xxx block and 18 in the 1001-series; van Dijk says 18 lenses were converted
  1. Quantities are Roland Vink's per-block figures, from collected serial numbers rather than factory records.
  2. Two independent estimates of total production nearly agree. Nico van Dijk, counting version by version, arrives at "somewhere around 175,600 lenses" over twelve and a half years, at a monthly rate rising from about 800 to about 1,800. Summing Vink's per-block quantities gives about 178,700. Neither is a factory number.
  3. The date of the New-Nikkor is unsettled by a year and a half. Nikon's own history says the design was modified to use a new nitrate material and the New-Nikkor 55mm f/1.2 was put on the market in 1975. Vink's serial table starts the K block in November 1974. Van Dijk says the version "came into production in April 1976." All three describe the same barrel and the same serial block beginning at 350001/350011.
  4. Van Dijk gives the total number of changes to the optical formula as two, at serials 220001 and 350011, and describes both as minor. No source consulted here publishes the two prescriptions, so how minor is not independently checkable — the element and group counts, the filter size and the aperture range are identical across all of them.
  5. The Nikkor-O 55mm f/1.2 is a different lens with the same numbers on it: eight elements in six groups, thirteen aperture blades, a Leica thread mount and a fixed focus, built in the 1970s for photographing cathode-ray-tube screens. It is not a variant of this family.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Seven elements in five groups from 1965 to 1978 — the layout never changed, only the glass, twice
  • 52 mm filter thread on a 73.5 mm barrel: the front ring is far wider than the thread it carries
  • The rear element is cut flat on one side to clear the aperture lever, which is what produces the cat's-eye highlights at full aperture

Prototype:

  • About a 60–62 mm filter ring, not 52 mm
  • Triangular meter prong and a ribbed aperture ring

Nikkor-S Auto 55mm f/1.2 (first version):

  • Six-digit serial preceded by No.
  • Scalloped focus and aperture rings with a 5 mm chrome band between them
  • The first 2,000 or so have no groove in the aperture ring, and thirteen ribs rather than eleven
  • Aperture ring screwed on, not lifted off — this version cannot take a later Ai ring

Nikkor-S Auto 55mm f/1.2 (second version):

  • Serial block restarts, incomprehensibly, at 184711
  • Aperture ring lifts off after releasing a side screw, so an Ai ring can be fitted
  • Smaller lettering than the first version; five back-plate screws from about serial 193000
  • 215731 is the last lens recorded reading Nippon Kogaku Japan

Nikkor-S Auto 55mm f/1.2 (Nikon name ring):

  • Name ring reads Nikon; the No. before the serial number disappears
  • Rear elements multi-coated ahead of the fully coated S·C
  • Round meter prong

Nikkor-S·C Auto 55mm f/1.2:

  • S·C on the name ring, amber coating in reflection, 6 mm chrome band
  • Slot screws to serial 260000, cross-head screws after

New-Nikkor 55mm f/1.2 (K):

  • Flat black barrel with a rubber focusing grip; the scalloped rings are gone
  • Focuses to 0.5 m rather than 0.6 m
  • 72 mm across rather than 73.5 mm; 61 mm long; about 410–415 g

Ai Nikkor 55mm f/1.2:

  • Double row of aperture figures for direct readout
  • Asymmetric meter prong to about serial 413400
  • Last batch reads MADE IN JAPAN in black rather than lens made in Japan in white, and adds a rear flange protector

NASA versions:

  • Oversize focus scale in feet only
  • Finely knurled focus ring; black inscription around the front element, nearly invisible

Serial-range notes

970111–985390
First marketed block. Aperture ring is screwed on and cannot be exchanged for an Ai ring; owners who wanted one on an Ai body milled the original.
216000–219999
Empty. No lens has been recorded in this range, and the optical formula was altered at 220001.
220001
First of two small changes to the formula; name ring changes from Nippon Kogaku Japan to Nikon; rear elements multi-coated.
230000–240000
Spare name rings numbered in this range were distributed to repairers. A serial here is weaker evidence of date than elsewhere.
350011
Second and last change to the formula, with the new glass of the New-Nikkor. Close focus shortens to 0.5 m.

Specifications

Formula
Double Gauss, seven elements in five groups
Designed by
Shimizu Yoshiyuki (清水義之) — optical design
Construction
7 elements / 5 groups
Aperture range
f/1.2–f/16
Diaphragm blades
7
Min. focus
0.6 m
Weight
425 g
Filter
52 mm (0.75 mm pitch)
Years manufactured
1965–1978
Country
Japan
Coating
Single layer to 1972; multi-layer from the S·C of October 1972

What reviewers say

Optical Ratings

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

Spherical aberration
undercorrected
Vignetting
heavy
Flare & ghosting
moderate
Coma
severe wide open
Optical formula — Double Gauss, seven elements in five groups
Schematic cross-section drawn for this site from Nikon's own diagram — 7 elements in 5 groups; curvatures and spacing stylized.
Schematic cross-section drawn for this site from Nikon's own diagram — 7 elements in 5 groups; curvatures and spacing stylized. — Drawn for this site

History

The five millimetres in this lens’s name are the whole story. A Double Gauss will go to f/1.2 readily enough; what it will not do is go to f/1.2 at 50mm and still leave room for an SLR mirror to swing. Nikon’s own account is candid about the sequence: rangefinder designers had already built f/1.4 and f/1.1 lenses, the reflex camera took that away from them, other makers stretched even their f/2 lenses to 55mm to get the back focus, and Nikon stretched to 5.8cm for its first fast fifty. Shimizu Yoshiyuki, whose working life was normal lenses, settled on 55mm for f/1.2 and took the speed.

The design was finished in the summer of 1964, prototyped that winter, drawn for mass production in late spring 1965, and on sale in December — seven elements in five groups, 420 grams, a 73.5 mm barrel carrying an ordinary 52 mm filter thread. Nikon’s competitors took longer. Canon reached f/1.2 at 58mm in 1962 and at 55mm in 1968, and did not get to 50mm until 1980.

Across thirteen years the layout never changed. The glass did, twice, at serial 220001 and again at 350011, and van Dijk calls both alterations minor; the second came with the new nitrate glass of the New-Nikkor and bought a shorter focusing distance, 0.6 m to 0.5 m. Everything else that happened to the lens happened to its barrel: scalloped rings to 1974, a rubber grip after, multi-coating in October 1972, and an Ai aperture ring in the spring of 1977. There is no Ai-S version, because Ai-S arrived in 1981 and the lens was gone in April 1978, ended by the Ai Nikkor 50mm f/1.2 that finally did what Shimizu had been unable to do in 1964.

Whether it is a good lens depends entirely on the aperture it is judged at, and the honest answer at f/1.2 is that it is a fast lens rather than a corrected one. Coma is the dominant fault — massive artifacts from f/1.2 through f/2 in one careful test, with f/5.6 needed for clean corners — and spherical aberration is undercorrected, so point sources glow. Vignetting runs about 2.7 EV wide open, and the rear element is cut flat on one side to clear the aperture lever, which is why out-of-focus highlights at the edges are shaped like cat’s eyes. Flare resistance, the thing most often assumed to be terrible on a lens of this age and speed, is better than expected.

Two numbers here are unusually well corroborated and one is not. The production total is agreed to within two per cent by two independent counts — van Dijk’s version-by-version tally of about 175,600 and the sum of Vink’s serial blocks at about 178,700 — which is as close to a settled figure as this family gets. The NASA versions are not settled at all: Vink lists roughly 116 lenses in an 8000xxx block and eighteen in a separate 1001-series, van Dijk says eighteen were converted, and nothing consulted here explains whether those are two counts of one thing or descriptions of two.

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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 Nikkor 55mm f/1.2
Nikkor 55mm f/1.2 on a Nikon FM — dr_relling, via Openverse (flickr) (BY 2.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Nikkor 55mm f/1.2? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $210 across 48 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $180–$250). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $210.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$210$180–$25048
2026-09-06$210$180–$25048

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: Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 (F mount) · Nikkor 50mm f/2 (F mount) · Noct-Nikkor 58mm f/1.2

Sources (7)

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.