Topcon RE Super

Variants & identification

1. Production: about 90,000 by the Maxifiche's serial limits; about 70,000 by Topcon Club, counting the Beseler and Navy bodies, of which it puts the RE Super-named cameras sold to the public at no more than about 30,000. Most went to the United States, so few were sold in Japan.
2. Lenses that meter at full aperture: every RE Auto-Topcor from the 20mm f/4 to the 500mm f/5.6, the RE Zoom Auto-Topcor 87–205mm and the RE Macro Auto-Topcor 58mm f/3.5 (Maxifiche, Wikipedia). The later RE GN Topcors of the Super DM and the RE Topcors of the RE200 have the same RE mount (Topcon Club), so they are expected to couple, though no source describes them on this body.
3. Lenses that meter stopped down: the preset R Topcors, the Macro Topcors 30mm, 58mm and 135mm, Exakta preset and manual lenses, and barrel lenses on bellows. Beseler's sheets say the meter works with any lens, preset or barrel mount, and Eckman metered a Zeiss Tessar stopped down. On the Macro Topcors the diaphragm is worked by hand or a double cable release.
4. F Auto-Topcors (RII, RIII and RS lenses, part of the Auto-Topcor 35mm, 58mm, 100mm and 135mm families): the Maxifiche says their meter-coupling finger turns the opposite way to an RE lens's and that they must not be used on the RE Super, RE-2, Super D or Super DM. Topcon Club says that, unmodified, an F Auto-Topcor on an RE Super meters stopped down. The links stay because the RE versions of those families work on this body.
5. The semi-automatic Auto-Topcors of the Topcon R work their diaphragm through a plunger pressed by the release; Hugo Ruys says they work on the later Topcons only with a shutter-button extension rod. Otherwise use them stopped down by hand.
6. Exakta lenses mount without an adapter, but the Maxifiche says the automatic-diaphragm Carl Zeiss Jena lenses of 1961–70 foul the outer ring of the Topcon bayonet, as other lenses with a bulky diaphragm drive may; preset and manual Exakta lenses and the automatic Angénieux lenses fit. Eckman found that a Schneider Xenon 50mm f/2 reached into the mirror box at infinity and jammed the mirror. Topcon's release is on the opposite side to the Exakta's, so semi-automatic lenses of one maker work on the other's bodies only clumsily (Hugo Ruys).
7. UV Topcor and Hi-Topcor lenses of the leaf-shutter Unirex and IC-1 fit the RE Super, Super D and Super DM through Topcon's UV mount adapter, with stop-down metering (Maxifiche). A Super DM-era Paillard catalogue numbers the adapter #83530.
8. Super D (1972) and Super DM (1973) are separate cameras: the Super D adds mirror lock-up, a release lock and a 135° advance, and the DM adds the winder coupling (Topcon Club; Maxifiche). No RE Super, Beseler Super D of 1963–71, Hanimex or Navy body of this line has them.

• Topcon RE Super, initial type: The first production run. Topcon Club gives its estimate of about 10,000 without a source. The Maxifiche sets the film-speed range at ASA 25–800 before 1964 and 25–1600 after, so the earliest bodies may have the shorter scale; no source ties that change to a serial number.
• Topcon RE Super, early type: Topcon Club dates this type to about 1965 and says it and the mid type are the RE Supers most often seen on the used market. It is told from the initial type only by the advance-lever screw.
• Topcon RE Super, mid type: Made around 1966–67, when Topcon Club says the RE Super's reputation was settled and it sold well despite its price. Internal parts changed in small steps throughout; Topcon Club lists only the outward signs.
• Topcon RE Super, late type: Topcon Club dates the change to about 1968: a prototype with the logo already moved but in a different lettering, pictured in a magazine of about 1969, was built in the first half of 1968, and the production late type followed in mid to late 1968. The update, it says, only brought the look into line with the export bodies, since Tokyo Kogaku could not afford a new body as cheaper TTL cameras arrived. Some internal parts were changed for easier production, the mechanism was not. Made until the Japanese-market Super D of 1972, and not often seen.
• Topcon RE Super, black: Topcon Club calls black RE Supers fairly numerous in the United States, by Topcon standards, and rare in Japan. It warns that many black bodies offered abroad are U.S. Navy cameras and arrive dented, scratched and with dead meters. The Maxifiche says every model of the line was made in black or chrome except the black-only Super DM. Flashback Camera has sold a black-paint RE Super, which it dated to the end of the 1960s, with an RE Auto-Topcor 58mm f/1.4.
• Beseler Topcon Super D (United States): Beseler named its Topcons by letter: the PR was the A, the R the B, the RII and RIII the C, so the RE Super became the D, with Super added for its specification (Topcon Club). Mechanically it is the Japanese camera. Beseler also sold the Super D of 1972 under the same name with the same Beseler TOPCON prism, so a listing titled Beseler Topcon Super D may be either camera: the 1963–71 body has a 46 serial and no mirror lock-up dial, the 1972 one a 71 serial and a lock-up dial beside the mount (English Wikipedia; Topcon Club; Maxifiche). Topcon Club shows a black Beseler body of the middle type and says most black Beselers seen are Navy cameras; it rarely sees early black ones.
• Hanimex Topcon RE Super: Hanimex, the Australian photographic distributor, sold three Topcons under its own name in the mid-1960s: this, the RE-2 and the Uni, which became the Hanimex Topcon RE Auto. Topcon Club's Japanese text places the RE Super only in the mid-type period, its English text says the camera was shipped around 1965 and made for the United Kingdom, and it says it has seen fewer Hanimex RE Supers than RS bodies, the rarest Topcon. Eckman and Photo Thinking say the Hanimex name was used in Australia and New Zealand.
• Topcon RE Super / Beseler Super D, U.S. Navy: From 1963, the Maxifiche says, Tokyo Kogaku supplied many cameras to the U.S. Navy, and RE Supers, Super Ds and Super DMs are found with the marking. Chuck Fehl, writing in the Michigan Photographic Historical Society's Photogram, says the Navy bought several thousand black Super Ds for the Marine Corps in the Vietnam years. Mike Eckman says the Navy and Air Force chose the RE Super over the Nikon F after a head-to-head test; no contract or test report is cited by any of them. Topcon Club counts the Navy bodies in its total of about 70,000. Navy lenses exist too: Topcon Club shows an RE Auto-Topcor 100mm f/2.8 with a red N after the name.

Specifications

Format

24×36mm on 135 film (English Wikipedia)

Finder

interchangeable eye-level pentaprism; waist-level and 6.5× high-magnification finders as accessories

Shutter

cloth focal plane, horizontal travel · 1s–1/1000, B · flash sync X at 1/60 (camera-wiki; Maxifiche); M, F and FP bulbs and electronic flash synchronised by colour-coded speeds on the dial (Beseler); shoe with contact on a bayonet at the base of the rewind crank, and a PC socket (Beseler; English Wikipedia) · self-timer

Film advance

single-stroke lever, 180° (Topcon Club; Beseler); exposure counter resets when the back is opened

Back

hinged and removable, interchangeable with the 250-exposure bulk-film back (Beseler; Maxifiche); the release in the base is a grooved button that is pressed and twisted (Eckman; Photo Thinking)

Meter

CdS, through the lens, behind the reflex mirror: the mirror's silvering is ruled with fine slits that pass about 7% of the light to the cells (Maxifiche; Eckman). Coupled to shutter speed and to the aperture of RE lenses, read at full aperture, averaging over the frame (camera-wiki; Beseler); exposure is set by bringing the needle to a fixed mark (Maxifiche), which Eckman calls a match needle and Photo Thinking a T-shaped pointer centred in a V. EV 2–16 (camera-wiki; Beseler). ASA 25–800, then 25–1600 after 1964 (Maxifiche); camera-wiki and Beseler's 1966 sheets give 25–1600. One 1.35V mercury cell (PX625, Eckman; PX13, Photo Thinking); switched in the base. Topcon Club says the slit pitch was set for each camera's CdS cell, so several patterns exist, and the mirror coating went from magenta-tinged early to cyan-tinged late.

Motor drive

Topcon Electric Motor Drive — Fits under the base without modification, 1–3 frames per second, with a 250-exposure back that mounts once a spacer on the motor is removed (Topcon Club; Maxifiche; Beseler). Topcon Club notes the Nikon F needed factory work for its motor and separate motors for 36 and 250 exposures.

Weight

820 g

Dimensions

157 × 56 × 100, body only (Maxifiche) mm

Country

Japan

Original price

United States, Beseler's advertised prices: $369 with the 58mm f/1.8 and $420 with the 58mm f/1.4, in a Beseler advertisement in Modern Photography of January 1964 (as reproduced by Mike Eckman). A Beseler sheet for the D-1 still gives the Super-D at $420.00 with f/1.4; another undated Beseler sheet gives $409 with the 58mm f/1.4. In France, December 1966: 2,310 francs with the 58mm f/1.8, against 2,269 for a Nikon F Photomic T with 50mm f/1.8 (prices quoted in the Maxifiche, which does not say whether they are list or dealer prices). (today $4,250)

Accessories

Waist-level finder, 6.5× high-magnification finder, nine focusing screens, eyepiece correction lenses from −3 to +3 dioptres (Beseler; Topcon Club) · Topcon Electric Motor Drive with battery pack, remote release and 250-exposure back (Maxifiche; Beseler) · Accessory shoe for the rewind-crank base, carrying the flash contact (Maxifiche); Beseler adapter BT-69 for shoe-mount flash units · Extension tubes, variable extension tube, bellows, copy stand, slide copier, microscope adapter (Beseler; Maxifiche) · UV mount adapter for UV Topcor and Hi-Topcor lenses (Maxifiche), #83530 in a Super DM-era Paillard catalogue

The finder lifts off after a release button on the right of the finder well, and the screen lifts out by a tab on its frame (Maxifiche). Five screens at launch, nine later (Topcon Club). The standard screen is ground glass with a Fresnel lens, a fine-focus ring and a split-image spot (Beseler). Topcon Club says the split-image prisms are cut at a shallow 6.5°, which keeps one half from blacking out with slow lenses but focuses less precisely than the 10° prisms of other makers. The meter needle shows in a window below the image, by a relay of the needle's image, and in a second window on the top plate (Maxifiche). Because the meter is in the mirror, every finder and screen keeps metering.

What reviewers say

• Mike Eckman (blog) — Big and heavy but so smoothly made that it handles like a smaller camera; the behind-the- mirror meter was still accurate, even on a 1.5V cell. Set against the Nikon F it ties or wins on most counts, losing on lens choice and the shutter. Highly recommended.
• Josh Solomon, Casual Photophile (blog) — Perhaps the best-feeling 35mm camera he has used, with superb 58mm standard lenses; the narrow Exakta-type mount and a small, costly lens range are the catch. Out-marketed by Nikon, it is now cheap for what it is.
• Photo Thinking (blog) — A large but comfortable camera with a butter-smooth advance; the meter, run on a 1.5V cell, stayed close to a hand meter, though its switch is easy to leave on. The Topcors are very sharp with muted contrast and a warm tint.

History

This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Photographs

Live listings

• TOPCON RE SUPER トプコン ＲＥ スーパー 東京光学 TOKYO KOGAKU 日本製 カメラ JAPAN CAMERA 一眼レフ マニュアル フォーカス — from ¥1,701 · Yahoo! Auctions Japan · auction 2026-11-11 · likely black
• TOPCON RE SUPER トプコン 東京光学 TOPCOR RE フィルムカメラ ボディ — from ¥140 · Yahoo! Auctions Japan · auction 2026-11-11 · likely black
• TOPCON RE SUPER トプコン RE スーパー 東京光学 1963年 35mm フィルム一眼レフカメラ TTL 露出計 動作未確認 — from ¥1 · Yahoo! Auctions Japan · auction 2026-11-12 · likely black
• 【返品保証】 トプコン Topcon RE SUPER RE,Auto-Topcor 13.5cm F3.5 ボディレンズセット e19720 — from ¥22,110 · Yahoo! Auctions Japan · auction 2026-11-12 · likely black
• 【返品保証】 トプコン TOPCON RE SUPER RE Auto-Topcor 58mm F1.4 ボディレンズセット e15068 — from ¥39,890 · Yahoo! Auctions Japan · auction 2026-11-12 · likely black
• 【訳あり品】 トプコン TOPCON RE SUPER RE, Auto-Topcor 58mm F1.4 ボディレンズセット e19055 — from ¥43,230 · Yahoo! Auctions Japan · auction 2026-11-12 · likely black
• ※ 純正品 希少品 Topcon トプコン RE-super 他 レンズキャップ 49mm　h3382 — from ¥3,172 · Yahoo! Auctions Japan · auction 2026-11-14 · likely black

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