What do the abbreviations on a Nikon lens mean?

Lenses with AF-D indication have Auto Focus Distance. If your lens has this abbreviation, it will report the focal distance to the camera body.

An AF-G lens has no aperture ring. These lenses are suitable for all new Nikon cameras. Pay close attention to whether this lens is suitable for your camera.

Lenses with AF-S have an Autofocus with Silent Wave motor. This autofocus motor provides a fast, silent, and accurate automatic focus.

AF-P stands for Autofocus Pulse, which means that your lens has a special stepping motor. This lens is very silent when focusing, so you can use it to record videos, for example. You don't hear any sound when focusing with this lens.

ASP is short for Aspherical. This refers to aspherically ground lens elements that provide correction for all possible lens aberrations. These lens elements are cut in a special way.

CRC stands for Close Range Correction. If you focus from close up, the technology ensures that the lens uses specific lens elements to get your subject in focus.

Defocus image Control allows you to determine the amount of spherical aberration in the foreground or background of your photo. You do this by turning the DC ring.

DX stands for Digital eXpanded. These lenses are only suitable for Nikon SLR cameras with an APS-C sensor.

Extra Low Dispersion is an optical material that has been developed to combat chromatic aberration and provide better image quality. Chromatic aberration shows itself in photos as purple edges around details with a lot of contrast.

FX refers to a full-frame sensor. Lenses with this format are optimized for full-frame cameras, but can also be used on an APS-C camera. If you use them on an APS-C camera, you won't get the full image quality of the lens.

Lenses with a G in the name belong to the top segment of Nikon. The lenses are made of high-quality optical elements and are durable.

IF is Inner Focus. With these lenses, only the inner lens group moves when focusing, so the physical length of the lens doesn't change.

Nano means that the lens has a special Nano Crystal Coating. This coating ensures that reflections are reduced. Because the coating is expensive, you often see it with Nikon lenses from the higher category.

Nikkor Z is the mount for Nikon system cameras. Nikon makes a distinction between lenses for full frame and APS-C system cameras. The lenses for APS-C cameras have a DX indication.

For lenses with Rear Focus, the rear lens group moves in order to focus. This ensures a faster autofocus.

Perspective Control Electronic. This is Nikon's indication for a tilt shift lens. With PC-E lenses, you can make tilt and angle movements, so that the image is shifted up or down to get the right perspective.

PF stands for Phase Fresnel. The lens elements of lenses with Phase Fresnel are made up of several layers, making them compact and light. The disadvantage of this structure is that you get bright points of light and lens flare more quickly. That is why Nikon has added a PF Flare Control function in the software. This corrects the effect.

The S-line lenses are optimized for Nikon full frame mirrorless cameras. They also have a Z mount. The letter S in the line stands for Slim. These lenses offer high image quality.

Nikon's Super Integrated Coating ensures that ghosting and light spots are kept to a minimum. This allows you to make clear photos and videos in different light situations.

SWM stands for Silent Wave Motor. This is an autofocus motor motor that provides lightning-fast, silent, and very accurate autofocus. The motor uses ultrasonic sound waves for this.

VR is image stabilization or Vibration Reduction. The lens contains a system that compensates for vibrations, so it reduces motion blur.