There were some rumors for a while that Nikon was in trouble. To be fair these were more than rumors, even Nikon admitted the amount of market share lost to Canon when the company’s DX sensor was at the heart of their professional offerings.

But now Nikon’s ramping up and it looks like they’re itching for a fight with their arch rival Canon. This is stellar news for users of either the Canon or Nikon platforms as the two companies are taking the wraps off a ton of new products. We’re really expecting the pace of development in the pro space to heat up as pressure is put on both companies to deliver.

I’ve even recently heard a Canon rep mentioning that once Nikon starts to ramp up lens development, it’s game on. And it seems that this is exactly what Nikon is doing.

In the run-up to PMA, Canon took the gloves off first with announcements of some impressive lenses—the EF200mm f/2L IS USM and the EF800mm f/5.6L IS USM, which were first shown in glass cases at PDN PhotoPlus 2007 last October. Priced at $5999 and $11,999 respectively (and scheduled to be released in April), these are mammoth pieces of glass with water-resistant housings and some noteworthy specs. The 200mm, for example, can focus down to 6.2 feet (at which you should be able to take portraits of capillaries). The 800mm is two pounds lighter than the popular 600mm f/4 IS USM (although ten pounds of lens is ten pounds of lens).

Nikon fired back today with some new lens announcements of their own. Nothing quite so far reaching as Canon’s telephotos (pun intended), but there were several very interesting specialization lenses and a more general lens.

First up is the new AF-S Micro Nikkor 60mm f/2.8G ED macro lens that’s able to focus down to .6ft at the closest distance and provides up to 1:1 ratios for real, life-size macro images. This is Nikon’s first macro with the Silent Wave motor and it uses Nano Crystal Coat, Extra Low Dispersion glass. Available in March, this lens will carry a $550 MSRP.

Next is the wide-angle PC-E Nikkor 24mm f/3.5D ED lens, a perspective control lens (one of my faves) with a tilt/shift mechanism that allows shooters to fine-tune perspective control. This is a killer lens for the architectural shooter and the wide-angle makes it possible to capture tall buildings in a single bound. The tilt/shift gives photographers the ability to adjust +/- 11.5mm on the shift and +/- 8.5 degrees on the tilt control. This won’t ship until this summer, which is one of the big reasons we feel this lens is a shot at Canon, as summer feels sadly far off.

Finally Nikon released a lens aimed at prosumers, the AF-S DX Nikkor 16-mm lens, bringing the VR technology to the masses. This non-pro lens still incorporates ED glass, Silent Wave motor tech and the company’s VR II image stabilization.

We can’t think of anything better for photographers than a competition between these two behemoths. Bring it on guys.

PMA 2008 Video Coverage of New Nikon Lenses (3 NIKKOR lenses) by Damon Webster, PhotoInduced.com