What does the D in Nikon lens suffix mean? What's the use?

D stands for distance, which is distance. The lens marked with D can transmit the distance information of the current focus to the fuselage. Distance information is really useless for daily exposure, but it is useful for flash shooting. When the early-rising flash is used with equipment that can't transmit distance information, the output power of the flash can't change flexibly according to the distance of the subject, so it often happens that the distance is too close for overexposure or the distance is too far for underexposure. With the distance information, the fuselage can determine the output power of the flash and get accurate exposure. At present, lenses and fuselages in various countries basically have similar technologies that can transmit distance information to determine flash output (such as ADI of Minolta), which supports 3D matrix photometry system. SB-800 flash is called "magic lamp" because of its accurate output (it needs to be pointed out in particular that Nikon's new lens is no longer marked with D, because the new lens has fully supported the transmission of distance information and does not need to be marked again).

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