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It took me some time to actually understand Nikons lens system. You gotta give credit when credit is due, so I owe it to my man Faez for giving me the info when I first started out photography.

Nikon lens system is fairly complicated, so I will only cover lens made in the past 30 years as they’re more relevant with our current usage. I’ll also be covering only some of the abbreviations you see on lenses.

Now most lenses made within the past two decades can be used with the new Nikon bodies without a glitch. Some bodies don’t have motors inside such as the D40, D40x and D60. But they’ll work fine manually.

If your a first timer trying to buy your new lens replacing that kit lens, you’ll find that there’s alot of abbreviations in the specification of the lens. Things like , now this is on an actual lens, < DX SWM VR ED IF Aspherical 72 > . If you look under the barrel of your lens this will be printed on it. So errr, what the hell does that mean?

• DX – The DX format sensor, employed in Nikon digital SLR cameras, is smaller in area than 35 mm format film. It simply means that it can only be used on digital bodies and not on full-frame cameras, which are the D3x D3 and D700. So besides the three, your all good to go.
• SWM - Silent Wave Motor  >Nikon AF-S lenses employ SWM technology as a component within the autofocus system to ensure fast, quiet operation in professional and enthusiast lenses. As the name suggests, it makes focusing quieter than the older lenses, which were alot noisier, kinda like R2D2 whizzing about.
• VR - Vibration Reduction (VR) >Vibration-reduction techniques are intended to reduce the effect of camera shake that causes blurred images when a camera is operated at a low shutter speed. It counterbalances the shake in the lenses itself. Works best with still objects.
• ED -Extra-Low-Dispersion >Nikon especially developed ED (Extra-low Dispersion) glass to provide pricise optical colour correction. To reduce chromatic aberrations. Its just a lens coating.
• IF - Internal Focusing (IF) > Nikon IF technology is designed to keep the length of a lens constant as it is being focused by employing a focusing lens group that moves entirely within a non-extending lens barrel.
• The number , exp 72, says the diameter of the filter needed for the particular lens.

Another thing i’d like to mention is the gold leaf writing in a box on top of the lens barrel. Yes the one with the golden Nikon. exp < AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm 1:3.5-5.6 G ED >

• AF-S – An autofocus lens with a Silent wave, integrated, coreless focus motor (1996 ). Some older bodies can’t autofocus with them (N60, N8008). Some newer bodies (D40, D40x) can only autofocus with them.
• 18-200mm – indicates the focal length range of the lens.
• This is important so take note, 3.5-5.6 – it implies that the maximum aperture it can open up is f/3.5 , but depending on the focal length, the maximum aperture varies. So at the 18mm end, the max aperture is f/3.5. While on the 200mm focal length, the max it can open up is f/5.6. This variation is due to the optics inside the lens. You can get a fixed aperture lens, say a pro grade 17-55 f/2.8 DX, but were talking about GBP 800 folks. So nows you knows. A lens becomes more pricey as it max f/stop increases.
• G - There use to be a time when aperture was set on lenses. Lenses use to have an aperture ring. U don’t need that with digital so all the lenses without an aperture ring is denoted by a G.

So what do these info have to do with you?? For those of you having a Nikon D40, D40x and D60, get lenses that have AF-S, if you want autofocus capability that is.  Buy VR for better non blurry pictures. Get DX so your digital body gets the best. And thats it really ; ) hope this was helpful.

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