This chapter can be very short as Nikon produced just one manual focus zoom lens with all focal lengths shorter than standard prime lenses. More zoom lenses with a starting focal length shorter than 50 mm. can be found in the respective chapters.
Zoom-Nikkor 4.5/28-45 mm.
At the 1974 Photokina Camera Fair in Germany Nikon introduced the world´s first wide angle zoom lens for 35mm.-photography, this two-ring Zoom-Nikkor 4.5/28-45 mm. In 1977 an AI-version replaced this very interesting lens. It is a solid and razor sharp lens, made of 11 elements in 7 groups, with a minimum focusing distance of 1.2 meter, taking 72mm. filters and weighting in at 440 gram. Only some 35,000 lenses were build, so relatively rare and hard to find.