16 megapixels

After 52 years Nikon finally produced 60 million Nikkor lenses yesterday, just two months after Canon’s 60 millionth EF lens rolled off the line, according to a press release.

The road to 60 million lenses started in 1959 when Nikon, Nippon Kogaku K.K at the time, released their first SLR the Nikon F. Which at the same time, Nikon released the first Nikkor lens. Canon wouldn’t release their first EF lens until 1987.

Nikkor comes from adding an “R” to Nikko. At the time Nikko was the Romanized version of Nippon Kogaku K.K. and adding “R” was common practice when it came to branding photographic lenses, according to Nikon’s website. In 1933, Nikon released the Aero-Nikkor, a lens used for large-format aerial photography.

The current Nikkor selection has 60 lenses ranging from fish-eye to super-telephoto.

What’s your favorite Nikkor lens?

A Belgium store is advertising an extremely rare, limited edition box set of the latest AF-S 35mm, 24mm and 85mm f/1.4 lenses. Only 100 of these sets were produced and are currently being sold for 4,899 euros on the Belgium site. Yesterday, according to Nikon Rumors a store in Sweden will begin selling some of those 100 box sets. No word on whether or not these limited edition box sets will be available in the States.

(via Nikon Rumors)