Nikon 1 community has been debating whether Nikon will abandon the system entirely, ever since the DL series of compact cameras with the 1“ sensor was announced at the end of February. The last Nikon 1 related announcements – Nikon 1 J5 and Nikon 1 Nikkor VR 70-300mm f/4-5.6 announced in April 2015 and March 2014 respectively – were made quite a while back, which naturally contributes to the anxiousness of N1 users. The V3 being two years old and there being no sign of the V4, the next high-end model, doesn’t help matters either.
But as the Japanese blog Egami reports, Nikon could be working hard on a fast wide angle prime as we speak. The 9mm f/1.8 (24mm full frame equivalent) described in the published patent is designed for 1” sensors, which implies that it could also be intended for a DL series camera or a lower end Coolpix A model. As you can see in the schematic below, the lens has a moderately complex optical formula, consisting of nine elements. Just to put things into perspective, the 1 Nikkor 10mm f/2.8 has six elements in five groups, while the optically superb 1 Nikkor 32mm f/1.2 has nine elements in seven groups.
Do note, however, that Nikon has filed this patent on the 11th of August 2014 and that many lens design never make it to the market. Nikon has for example also filed a patent for a native 1” macro lens (37mm f/2.4) in April 2011, which still hasn’t been announced.
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