I believe that we'll see two to four new Nikkor lenses announced later this month. The question that I keep getting is this: which ones?
Nikon's patent activity has long been a source of likely upcoming products. Not all products patented get launched, but quite a high percentage do. So, here's what we've seen in the patent files over the past couple of years (I've already covered the upcoming Nikon 1 lenses in an earlier post):
- 10mm f/4, 18mm f/3.5 DX, 24mm f/2.8, 50mm f/1.2, 105mm f/2, and 800mm f/5.6 primes.
- 24-70mm f/3.5-4.5 and 28-145mm f/4 mid-range zooms.
- 55-300mm f/2.8-4, 70-200mm f/4, 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6, 100-400mm f/4-5.6, and 200-500mm f/4.5-5.6 telephoto zooms.
- 200mm f/3.2 macro.
Of the lenses I think are most likely sooner rather than later: 70-200mm f/4, 200mm f/3.2, 50mm f/1.2, and 18mm f/3.5 DX. But predicting Nikon lens launches is difficult, as glass is a variable that sometimes impacts launch decisions. In the extreme example: if you started up a batch of glass for the 800mm f/5.6 and got through to the polishing process and discovered that you weren't getting the yield of high quality glass you needed, you might delay the launch and restart the glass process, which can take as long as year. Even with the smaller lenses I'm sure that glass prioritization is a sticky issue. Strong demand for the 70-200mm f/2.8 might have you prioritizing that over a 70-200mm f/4, for example.
In short, we rarely know about a Nikon lens launch until first samples start to hit the field, and sometimes that's not right until prior to launch.
I think it's a safe bet that we've got a handful of lenses still coming this year, despite the four Nikon 1 lenses.