While it’s just a rumor, the usual “leak” person who is ALWAYS right about their rumors has spoken:

We will see some wide and mid-range prime lenses from Nikon, SOON, as early as today or tomorrow in fact. Rumored are of course AF-S updates to almost ALL Nikon primes. As some of you may not know what AF-S is, it’s the type of auto focus motor and it actually refers to the SWM AF method which is “the same” as Canon’s USM or Sigma’s HSM. Basically it’s lightning fast and dead silent, with manual focus override at any time without flipping switches. As opposed to the AF-D auto focus that uses a screwdriver technology to mechanically power the lens from a motor in the camera body. Pretty dang fast, but noisy and clumsy.

Also rumored is the return from manual-focus glory, the legendary Nikon 35mm f/1.4 and 50mm f/1.2 lenses.

Personally, I’d like to see:

~ A 16mm or 17mm DX lens, either f/1.4 or f/1.8, depending on how much they would cost and how sharp they could be.

Something tells me this lens will never come, so I guess I’ll have to wait for an affordable FX body so I can get *this* lens:

~ An AF-S version of the AF-D 28mm f/1.4, a lens so legenday and mythical that it goes for over $3,000 sometimes on Ebay.

~ An AF-S VR (yes, stabilized) version of the 50mm f/1.8 and 85mm f/1.8 lenses. I’d SO buy these instead of f/1.4 or f/1.2 versions! Okay if I were a rich geek I’d buy them all, but you know what I mean…

I’d especially like Nikon to come out with an affordable FX body soon, so that I can take advantage of the amazing DOF and low light performance that would be afforded by f/1.4, or f/1.8 and VR, and of course clean ISO 6400. (As I’ve said before, I’d only get an FX body for use with those fast-apeture primes; for zooms I’ll eternally stick with the small, light, affordable DX system. Whenever I need to be reminded of this, I just pick up a Canon 5D + 70-200 f/2.8 IS, and I fall in love with my D300 + Sigma 50-150 f/2.8 all over again…)

=Matt=