Nikkor-M 300 f/9
All photographs © 2008 Jose Meneses – All rights reserved
This is a famous lens on the large-format photography world. It is very good optically and a very good choice for extreme sharp landscape or portrait photography. It is able to reproduce the most subtle colour variations with extreme accuracy. While it was made to cover the 8x10" format it is somehow limited for that film size as the image circle doesn't allow much of camera movements. Due to the extreme sharpness of this lens and colour reproduction, it is widely used not only on 8x10" cameras, but also with 5x7" and 4x5" cameras.
Nikkor-M 200 f/8, Nikkor-M 300 f/9 and Nikkor-M 450 f/9 specifications
| NIKKOR-M | 200mm f/8 | 300mm f/9 | 450mm f/9 |
| Lens construction | 4 elements in 3 groups | 4 elements in 3 groups | 4 elements in 3 groups |
| Max. aperture | f/8 | f/9 | f/9 |
| Min. aperture | f/64 | f/128 | f/128 |
| Angle of view | 45º(f/8) 55º(f/22) | 55º(f/9) 57º(f/22) | 50º(f/9) 52º(f/22) |
| Image circle | 166mm(f/8) 210mm(f/22) | 312mm(f/9) 325mm(f/22) | 420mm(f/9) 440mm(f/22) |
| Max. film size | 5x7”(f/22) | 8x10”(f/22) | 10x12”(f/22) |
| Shutter size | Copal 0 | Copal 1 | Copal 3 |
| Shutter speeds | 1 – 1/500, T, B | 1 – 1/400, T, B | 1 – 1/125, T, B |
| Front filter size | 52mm | 52mm | 62mm |
| Flange focal distance | 193.7mm | 290.0mm | 428.4mm |
| Weight | 180gr | 290gr | 640gr |
