New patented lens design
Design of the current Nikon 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR
I already mentioned that Nikon will release a new 16-85mm DX lens in 2012 with a fixed f/4 aperture. A new patent (201042547) filed in Japan just became available online and shows the details of a Nikkor 16-85mm f/4 DX VR lens. Here is one of the shown examples (patents usually have several different variations/calculations of the same lens):
- Patent release date: March 1, 2012
- Patent filling date: August 26, 2010
- Related patents: 201042548, 201042549
- Focal length: 16.4-86.4mm
- Aperture: f/4.3 – 4.7 (another example was shown with aperture f/4.1-4.9)
- Angel of view: 20.4 – 85.5°
- Lens length: 140.9 – 110.0mm
- Design: 17 elements in 13 groups (the current model has 17 elements in 11 groups)
- Three aspherical elements (same as in the current model)
- Vibration reduction (VR)
- Internal focusing (IF)
Currently the Nikon 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR DX lens is back-ordered at both B&H and Adorama.
