It’s a well-known fact that Nikon wants to conquer the cinema world and develop high-end cinema lenses. Nikon is known as a still-camera-manufacturer, however, a long time ago it developed cinema lenses for movie cameras titled Cine-NIKKOR. Will these lenses be revived after the RED Digital Cinema acquisition? 

A new cine-zoom on the horizon

Hiroyuki Ikegami, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Nikon’s Imaging Business Unit, together with RED Digital Cinema CEO, Keiji Oishi, of Nikon’s Imaging Business Unit, elaborated on Nikon’s plan regarding the penetration into the cinema market. This plan is now possible after the full acquisition of RED Digital Cinema by Nikon. As we wrote, one interesting ‘action item’ is the desire of Nikon to produce cinema lenses, as stated: “We are actively considering lens development for cinema, and we are aware that many of customers use the old NIKKOR”. Indeed, as spotted by one of Nikon Rumors’ sources, one of these lenses will be the NIKKOR Power Zoom 28-135, which, according to the pictured size would be a cinema lens. We don’t know the phase of the production, but we can guess that Nikon wants to fulfill its desire to develop and produce lenses and cameras for cinematographers. That reminds is of Cine-NIKKOR which indicated Nikon’s true passion for aiming at the movie world rather than the still world.

Cine-NIKKOR revived?

Here’s a short explanation of Nikon’s history: Nikon (then Nippon Kogaku) had been developing lenses for movie cameras since the pre-war period, and first produced prototypes of the Cine-NIKKOR for 8mm and 16mm movie cameras from 1938 till the following year. Furthermore, as one of several reconstruction plans following World War II, Nikon planned the production of lenses for movie cameras and projectors and the Cine NIKKOR lenses ached the distinction of a number of them being exported to the USA and being mounted of the first 8mm movie camera made in Japan. Although less well-known than NIKKOR lenses for SLR cameras, the Cine-NIKKOR was a pillar of the company’s earnings until the birth of its camera business. Many Cine-NIKKORs were never commercialized. There is an astounding variety of lens types, including many lenses with advanced specifications such as high magnification zoom lenses and large aperture ratio lenses. Moreover, the experience gained from developing Cine-NIKKOR lenses, especially high magnification zoom lenses, was later utilized in the development of zoom lenses for SLR cameras, leading to Nikon’s future achievements. However, the full acquisition of RED Digital Cinema opens up many opportunities in that direction and hence, can seriously push Nikon to become a cinema company per se.

Final thoughts

We will definitely see some solid Nikon’s glass shortly. Not sure if this would be a renovated version of the Cine-NIKKOR, but if we need to bet on it, then we’ll go in that direction.