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

PC-Nikkor 35mm f/2.8

Nippon Kogaku · Nikon F · 1968 · Retrofocus

our own finding

Also known as: PC-Nikkor 35mm f/2.8 · PC Nikkor 35mm F2.8 · New PC-Nikkor 35mm f/2.8 · Nikon 35mm f/2.8 shift · PCニッコール 35mm F2.8

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Prototype Nikon F — 158011 (the only example Vink has recorded) 1 (Vink)
PC-Nikkor (Nippon Kogaku) · Retrofocus, 8 elements in 7 groups — the 1968 computation Nikon F 1968–1972 851001–861735 (January 1968 – 1972) 10,735 (Vink)
PC-Nikkor (Nikon) Nikon F 1972–1975 870001–886420 (1972 – December 1975) 16,420 (Vink)
K (New PC-Nikkor) Nikon F 1975–1977 900001–904205 (October 1975 – 1977) Vink's 9,635 covers the whole 900001 block — K and Ai together, not separately
Ai Nikon F 1977–1980 904234–905279 (from 1977; Ai-style grip ring)
905320–909635 (to March 1980; the block Vink marks as fitting Ai bodies) 		Included in the 9,635 Vink gives for the whole 900001 block
Ai-S barrel (1980) · Retrofocus, 7 elements in 7 groups (Vink) Nikon F 1980–1999 179091–205761 (June 1980 – 1999) 26,671 (Vink)
  1. Quantities are Vink's, derived from serial-block spans. Nikon has published no production figure for any version. Vink's 9,635 is a single figure for the whole 900001 block and cannot be split between the K and the two Ai sub-versions.
  2. Nikon and Vink disagree about the optics of the November 1980 lens. Nikon's Thousand and One Nights essay No. 17 lists it as a renewal of the lens barrel design and gives no new construction; Vink's specification table gives it seven elements in seven groups against eight in seven for every earlier version. No source reconciles them, and Nikon has published no cross-section of either design.
  3. Nikon's release dates run consistently later than Vink's serial blocks open: May 1968 against January 1968, April 1976 against October 1975, November 1980 against June 1980.
  4. No list price has been published for any version. Nikon's discontinued-product pages cover the PC-Nikkor 28mm f/3.5 and the PC Micro-Nikkor 85mm f/2.8D but not this lens.
  5. The PC-Nikkor 35mm f/3.5 of 1962 is a different lens, not an early variant: six elements in six groups, six blades, 290g. It is treated here as the family's predecessor.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • A knurled knob that slides the whole optical cell 11mm off axis, and a collar that rotates the shift direction through 360° in 30° steps
  • A preset diaphragm: the aperture is set on one ring and closed on another, because a shifted lens cannot drive a coupling
  • 52mm filter thread and HN-1 hood, shared with the 24mm f/2.8 and the 35mm f/3.5 that came before

Prototype:

  • A 158xxx number, outside every production block

PC-Nikkor (Nippon Kogaku):

  • Barrel engraved NIPPON KOGAKU JAPAN
  • Five slotted screws in the mount
  • 210° focus throw — the longest of any version

PC-Nikkor (Nikon):

  • Barrel engraved NIKON; the glass is unchanged from the 851xxx block

K (New PC-Nikkor):

  • Shift grip ring low around the base of the barrel
  • Narrower and slightly lighter than the earlier barrel: 66.5mm across against 70mm, 330g against 335g
  • 190° focus throw

Ai:

  • Shift grip ring moved higher up the barrel, in the Ai style
  • Optically the 1968 computation, unchanged: eight elements in seven groups

Ai-S barrel (1980):

  • Black shift knob where the earlier barrels had chrome
  • Three cross-head screws in the mount, not five slotted
  • 62mm across and 320g — the smallest and lightest of the family
  • 125° focus throw, against 190° on the K and Ai

Serial-range notes

904234–905279
Ai-style grip ring but not yet the block Vink marks as fitting Ai bodies; the transition inside the 900001 run is in two steps, not one.
179091
The 1980 lens abandons the 9xxxxx numbering entirely and restarts in the 17xxxx block Nikon used for Ai-S-era lenses.

Specifications

Formula
Retrofocus
Construction
8 elements / 7 groups
Aperture range
f/2.8–f/32
Diaphragm blades
9
Min. focus
0.3 m
Dimensions
70 × 62 mm
Weight
335 g
Filter
52 mm (0.75 mm pitch)
Years manufactured
1968–1999
Country
Japan

What reviewers say

Optical Ratings

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

Flare & ghosting
ghosts when backlit
Optical formula — Retrofocus

A Nikon-drawn optical layout of this lens does exist — an optical data drawing with principal points and dimensions marked — which corrects this entry's earlier statement that none was ever printed. It cannot be read to a spec: at 274x191 pixels the front two elements and the cemented pair behind them are legible, but the third element renders as a plano- parallel slab and the rear three elements' curvatures fall below the resolution of the scan. Four of the eight elements cannot be assigned a shape.

History

The idea behind this lens is older than the lens. Photographers who had used a view camera knew that a rising front keeps the film parallel to a building and stops the verticals converging, and when Nippon Kogaku moved from the rangefinder S to the reflex F it had a company full of people who made large-format Nikkors and knew exactly what was missing. The first PC-Nikkor, a 35mm f/3.5, reached the market in July 1962 and was the first interchangeable shift lens for a single-lens reflex.

Haruo Sato, reading the original instruction book decades later, found something that is not in any specification table. Three separate barrel mechanisms were built and tried before the f/3.5 was finished, and the first of them tilted as well as shifted. Tilt was dropped on the argument that a 35mm wide-angle already has depth of field a view camera does not, so the movement would rarely be used — a decision that produced a small, simple, quick lens and left Nikon without a tilting lens for thirty-seven years. Sato is blunt about where the work went: on a PC-Nikkor the barrel is the hard part, and the development rested on the mechanism designer rather than the optical one.

The f/2.8 arrived in May 1968 as a redesign for the larger aperture — eight elements in seven groups, nine blades, 11mm of shift, a collar that rotates the direction of shift through a full circle in 30° steps, and a preset diaphragm, because a lens that has moved off the camera’s optical axis cannot keep a mechanical coupling to the body. That last point governs how the lens is used: meter first, centred and stopped down, then shift, then release. Rørslett, who owns the version before the last, rates it sharp across the frame from f/4 to f/16 and warns about ghosting into strong light.

Three of the four barrels that followed changed nothing optical. The Nikon-engraved run of 1972 is the Nippon Kogaku lens with a new name on it. The K of October 1975 lowered the shift grip to the base of the barrel and shed 5g. The Ai of 1977 raised the grip again and, in two steps inside the same serial block, arrived at a lens that meters on an Ai body. Vink cannot separate the K from the Ai in his figures: 9,635 covers the whole 900001 run.

The fourth is the disputed one. In June 1980 the numbering restarts at 179091, the shift knob turns black, the mount screws change from five slotted to three cross-head, and the lens loses 4.5mm of diameter and 10g against the Ai it replaces. Nikon calls this a renewal of the barrel design and describes no optical change. Vink’s table says seven elements in seven groups where every earlier version had eight in seven — one element fewer, in a lens where nothing about the specification, the angle of view or the shift changed. Both statements are published; neither is argued for; Nikon has never printed a cross-section of either version. Whether the last PC-Nikkor 35mm f/2.8, which ran to 1999 and accounts for forty-two per cent of the family, is the same lens as the first is a question the record does not currently answer.

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 PC-Nikkor 35mm f/2.8
Gran Vía towards Plaza de España — tagged PC-Nikkor 35mm f/2.8 (Javier Pérez Montes) — Javier Perez Montes, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Sample photo taken with the PC-Nikkor 35mm f/2.8
Templo de Debod at dusk — PC-Nikkor 35mm f/2.8 (Javier Pérez Montes) — Javier Perez Montes, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Sample photo taken with the PC-Nikkor 35mm f/2.8
Iglesia de las Calatravas — PC-Nikkor 35mm f/2.8 (Javier Pérez Montes) — Javier Perez Montes, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a PC-Nikkor 35mm f/2.8? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $230 across 49 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $200–$250). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: up 2% from $220.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$230$200–$25049
2026-09-06$220$200–$25046

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: PC-Nikkor 28mm f/3.5

Sources (4)

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.