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

Nikkor-S(·C) 5cm f/1.4

Nippon Kogaku · Nikon S + LTM · 1950 · Sonnar

Also known as: Nikkor 5cm f/1.4 · Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 · Nikkor-S.C 5cm f/1.4 · Nikkor-S·C 5cm f/1.4 · Nikkor-SC 5cm f1.4 · Nikkor-S 5cm f/1.4 · Nikkor-S 50mm f/1.4 · Nippon Kogaku 5cm f/1.4 · 5cm f1.4 · Nikkor-S 50mm f/1.4 Olympic · Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 Millennium

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Nikon S (1950 baseline) Nikon S 1950 50050101–50052110 (first batch, code 5005, May 1950)
5005816–5005972 (short seven-digit 5005 sub-block)
316xxx–417xxx (later six-digit blocks) 		~100,000 total across the run (Pacific Rim estimate)
Leica screw mount LTM — — —
"Olympic" (1964) · Double Gauss / Planar type, 7e/5g Nikon S 1964 140001+ (observed span 140027–141651) ~2,000 per Mikio Kuno, Everything About Nikon Rangefinders (1990, via RFF; ja.wiki agrees but may derive from Kuno) vs ~1,651 confirmed by serial span — no factory figure survives (Rotoloni: "NK didn't keep very good records")
"Millennium" (2000) · Double Gauss, 7e/5g (the Olympic formula with updated glass + multi-coating) Nikon S 2000 20xxxx Chrome S3-2000 sets >8,000; black sets (June 2002) 2,000
How to tell them apart (expand)

Nikon S (1950 baseline):

  • Marked S·C until the transition to plain S at ~serial 396000, late 1958/early 1959 — C stood for 'coated,' dropped as redundant once coating was universal (all Nikkors coated regardless of marking)
  • Engraved 5cm, not 50mm

"Olympic" (1964):

  • Carries NO Olympic symbol despite the collector nickname
  • Engraved 50mm rather than 5cm — the only vintage variant so marked (the 2000 Millennium reissue also reads 50mm)

"Millennium" (2000):

  • Engraved 50mm (modern-era marking, like the Olympic)
  • 9 aperture blades; 43mm filter; multi-coated
  • Shipped with the S3-2000 reissue bodies: chrome sets, then black sets from June 2002

Serial-range notes

50050101–50052110
First batch; code 5005 = May 1950 per the early-serial [design-completion YYMM][sequence] decoder (maenomeri.tokyo + NHS, cross-confirmed).
316xxx–417xxx
Later six-digit blocks; heavy chrome-over-brass construction gives way to lighter barrels; 'Tokyo'→'Japan' beauty-ring transition along the way.
~396000
S·C → S engraving transition, late 1958/early 1959.
358100–358400
Silver-aluminum batch.
331242, 407978
Documented black examples.

Specifications

Formula
Sonnar
Construction
7 elements / 3 groups
Aperture range
f/1.4
Min. focus
0.91 m
Filter
43 mm
Years manufactured
1950
Country
Japan

What reviewers say

Optical Ratings

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

Chromatic aberration
low
Spherical aberration
strong
Vignetting
heavy
Flare & ghosting
severe
Distortion
low
Optical formula — Sonnar
Schematic cross-section drawn for this site — topology from Canonical Sonnar 7e/3g (front singlet, cemented triplet, cemented triplet, iris between groups 2 and 3 — same scheme as the Zeiss 50/1.5 Sonnar it was scaled from). Type confirmed by Richard Haw's repair article (explici; curvatures and spacing stylized.
Schematic cross-section drawn for this site — topology from Canonical Sonnar 7e/3g (front singlet, cemented triplet, cemented triplet, iris between groups 2 and 3 — same scheme as the Zeiss 50/1.5 Sonnar it was scaled from). Type confirmed by Richard Haw's repair article (explici; curvatures and spacing stylized. — Drawn for this site, CC BY 4.0

History

Nippon Kogaku’s official chronicle dates the completion of the 5cm f/1.4 to July 1950 — the first serial batch carries the code 5005, which the early-serial decoder reads as May 1950, and the 1951 date found on Japanese Wikipedia reflects market availability rather than design. Whichever month you prefer, the lens moved fast: by December 1950 it had superseded the Nikkor-S·C 5cm f/1.5, itself on sale for under a year, as the system’s fastest standard lens. Optically it was a Sonnar type, seven elements in three groups, in the lineage that ran back through the f/1.5 to the prewar Zeiss original — stretched roughly a fifth of a stop faster.

It became the workhorse of the entire rangefinder era. Production ran from the heavy chrome-over-brass first batches through later, lighter barrels, with the beauty ring changing from “Tokyo” to “Japan” along the way — around 100,000 in total by Pacific Rim Camera’s estimate, spread across serial blocks from 5005001 into the 417xxx range. The S·C engraving gave way to plain S in late 1958 or early 1959, at around serial 396000 per Rotoloni (p.106): the C stood for “coated,” and Nikon dropped it as redundant once coating was universal on every Nikkor regardless of marking. A Leica-screw-mount version is confirmed — surviving examples are documented complete with box and bakelite keeper can — and collector notes record black-barrel examples and a silver-aluminum batch among the serial-range quirks.

In 1964 the name was handed to an entirely different lens. The “Olympic” Nikkor-S 50mm f/1.4 — the collector nickname; no Olympic symbol appears anywhere on the lens — was designed by Yoshiyuki Shimizu (清水義之), with its mass-production drawing dated April 1964. It abandoned the Sonnar for a seven-element, five-group Double Gauss design (Nikon’s own essay calls it an orthodox Gauss; a four-group figure circulating from Japanese Wikipedia is the outlier), with new lanthanum glass in four of its seven elements, and it is the only vintage variant engraved 50mm rather than 5cm — the 2000 Millennium reissue also reads 50mm. How many were made is genuinely unsettled: Mikio Kuno’s 1990 book gives about 2,000, while the observed serial span (140027–141651) accounts for roughly 1,651 — and no factory figure survives, Rotoloni noting that Nippon Kogaku simply didn’t keep very good records.

The story got one more chapter. In 2000, for the S3-2000 reissue sets, Nikon put the 50mm f/1.4 back into production as the “Millennium” — the camera work went to Sendai Nikon and the lens to Tochigi Nikon — with the same seven-in-five Olympic formula, now with updated glass and multi-coating, nine aperture blades, and a 43mm filter thread. More than 8,000 chrome sets were built, followed by 2,000 black sets in June 2002: a fifty-year arc, from the fastest ambitions of 1950 to a deliberate act of remembrance.

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-S(·C) 5cm f/1.4
Le Penseur︱沉思者 (The Thinker) — shot on a Nikon S2 with the Nikkor-S·C 5cm f/1.4 — Nisa yeh (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Sample photo taken with the Nikkor-S(·C) 5cm f/1.4
Cha For Tea︱喫 茶 — tea-house scene, Nikon S2 with the Nikkor-S·C 5cm f/1.4 — Nisa yeh (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Sample photo taken with the Nikkor-S(·C) 5cm f/1.4
Childhood Memory︱童年 — Nikon S2 with the Nikkor-S·C 5cm f/1.4 — Nisa yeh (CC BY-SA 2.0)

More sample photos elsewhere

These photographers keep all rights to their work — enjoy it at the source.

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Nikkor-S(·C) 5cm f/1.4? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $210 across 53 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $180–$420). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $210.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$210$180–$42053
2026-09-06$210$180–$43055

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

Show 140 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-N(·C) 5cm f/1.1 · Nikkor-S·C 5cm f/1.5 · Nikkor-H(·C) 5cm f/2

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.