Nikon
Nikon
As you can see by the pictures, this Pre-Owned - RARE Nikon 5cm Micro-Nikkor.C-M39 screw mount is the Collapsible version..
Background on the lens
The rigid version of the NIKKOR-Q.C 5cm f/3.5 was the last incarnation of this lens. Earlier versions had the same optical formula but were collapsible, and while those earlier versions were made for both Nikon’s S mount and LTM, as far as I know the rigid one was only ever available in LTM. It’s not to be confused with the Micro-NIKKOR 5cm f/3.5, a much more expensive lens that was Nikon’s first macro lens. This was Nikon’s humble, affordable “kit lens” shipped with the Nicca camera bodies. It was made for a short period of time in the mid-50s. Strangely enough, these days it seems to be cheaper and easier to find than the collapsible copies that were in production for much longer.
The optical formula used here, utilized by Nikon in their lenses since the mid-30s, is Tessar. It’s a simple 4 elements in 3 groups design, hence the letter Q in the name. The letters in old Nikon lenses (rangefinder ones and pre-AI F mount ones) indicate the number of elements so you can have a rough idea of their construction at a glance. U (uni) means one single element, B (bi) 2, T (tri) 3, Q (quadra) 4, P (penta) 5, H (hexa) 6, S (septa) 7, O (octa) 8, N (nona) 9, and finally D (deca) indicates 10 elements.
While collapsible 50mm f/3.5 lenses are among some of the smallest normal lenses, even in extended position, this rigid version of the NIKKOR-Q.C 5cm f/3.5 is surprisingly bulky. It’s still quite a small lens but not something I’d describe as tiny. It’s an inch and a half (3.8cm) long and ever so slightly wider than that at its widest. It extends by about 0.5cm when focused at its minimum distance.
