Topcon RS

Topcon · Exakta mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film · 1962

via machine translation — corrections welcome

Also known as: Topcon RS · Topcon R S · Topcon R-S · Tokyo Kogaku Topcon RS · Tokyo Optical Topcon RS · トプコンRS · トプコン RS · 東京光学トプコンRS · 東京光学トプコン RS

Variants & identification

Variant	Mount	Years	Serial ranges	Production
Topcon RS, small nameplate lettering	Exakta	—	3201xxx and 3211xxx up to at least 32113xx (Topcon Club)	—
Topcon RS, last lot with large nameplate lettering	Exakta	—	From 32114xx (Topcon Club)	—

Lens compatibility. The RS bayonet has the internal diaphragm-closing system of the RII and RIII on a larger mount ring (Ruys calls it mount 5: his mount 4, the larger ring of the medical Topcons, with the internal diaphragm-closing system added, used on the RS alone), but no aperture coupling and no meter, although its lenses carry a coupling lever (Maxifiche). The F Auto-Topcors and the H-F Auto-Topcors are the lenses made for it. Topcon Club finds many RS bodies with RE Auto-Topcors and thinks the factory moved the RS to RE lenses once the RE Super was near; on the RS their meter coupling has nothing to work. Maxifiche's warning runs the other way: F Auto-Topcors must not be used on the RE Super, RE-2, Super D and Super DM, because their coupling finger turns the opposite way, which does not apply to the RS.
The preset R-Topcors need no coupling. Ruys says the older semi-automatic Auto-Topcors, whose release plunger sits outside the mount, can be used on the later Topcon cameras with a shutter-button extension rod; he does not name the RS, and no source describes them on it. No source describes the RE GN Topcors or the 1977 RE Topcor N lenses on an RS either. All are linked here because they fit the bayonet, with no metering on this body in any case.
Exakta lenses: Maxifiche says Exakta lenses mount on Topcon bodies without an adapter, preset and plain ones without trouble, but some automatic Exakta lenses do not fit, notably the Carl Zeiss Jena automatics of 1961–70, whose rear mechanism fouls the outer ring of the Topcon bayonet.
Black finish: Maxifiche says all the Topcon focal-plane bodies it covers exist in black or chrome, the Super DM in black only, but it shows no black RS and Topcon Club does not mention one. A black RS is not listed as a version until one is seen.
Standard lens: Maxifiche names the F Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f/1.8; Topcon Club names the H-F Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f/1.8, which it believes came on the earliest RS bodies; camera-wiki describes an early 5.8cm f/1.8 Topcor with a red dot and a 62xxxx serial. How the RS was sold in outfits is not documented (Topcon Club).
The leaf-shutter Topcons of the same years (PR, Wink Mirror and the later UV-mount Uni and Unirex) are a separate system and are not covered on this page.

How to tell them apart (expand)

The RE Super's rounded, box-shaped body (Maxifiche: 'parallélépipédique à angles arrondis'), but with no meter needle window on the top plate, no battery cap on the base and a plain mirror without the RE Super's metering slits (Topcon Club)
An ASA reminder dial on the base, at the left (Maxifiche), in the place of the RE Super's battery chamber cap (Topcon Club)
Two small studs, one on the front above the release and one on top of the speed dial, for the clip-on CdS meter; the RIII has a full shoe on its front instead (Topcon Club)
A prism cover of its own design, different from the RE Super's (Topcon Club; camera-wiki)
No synchro contact for an accessory shoe at the crank base; Topcon Club notes that even an earlier RE Super prototype already had one, and the production RE Super carries its accessory shoe on the rewind-crank base
Coarse, rather glittery plating, as on the RIII (Topcon Club)
TOPCON RS on the nameplate; no Beseler-badged RS was made (Topcon Club)

Topcon RS, small nameplate lettering:

TOPCON on the prism-front nameplate in smaller, thinner letters. The nameplate is a thin printed metal plate stuck to the prism cover (Topcon Club, photographs of an early and a last-lot body side by side)
Rounded RE Super-shaped body with no meter window, and an ASA reminder dial on the base where the RE Super has its battery cap (Topcon Club)

Topcon RS, last lot with large nameplate lettering:

TOPCON on the prism-front nameplate in larger letters with heavier strokes (Topcon Club: the change falls between 32113xx, still small, and 32114xx)
The film take-up spool is the RE Super's (Topcon Club)

Topcon RS, small nameplate lettering: The earlier bodies. Topcon Club notes that even a camera made in such small numbers has this small difference, and that the shutter of these bodies sounds dry and lower in pitch than that of the last lot.
Topcon RS, last lot with large nameplate lettering: The last bodies. Topcon Club says their shutter sounds noticeably higher than the earlier bodies', and offers only as a guess that the final lot used some internal parts from the RE Super production run where the earlier RS bodies used parts shared with the prototypes.

Serial-range notes

3201xxx and 3211xxx: Topcon Club's reading of the bodies it has handled: seven-digit numbers beginning 320 or 321, each followed by a number in the thousands. The larger nameplate lettering begins at 32114xx.
320001–322125: Maxifiche's limits, six digits, with 322125 given as the last number seen. Its production figure is 'indéterminée'. Camera-wiki calls the camera model 32A, against 46A for the RE Super.

Specifications

Format: 24×36mm on 35mm film
Finder: Interchangeable pentaprism or waist-level hood of the second Topcon type, shared with the RE Super, Super D and Super DM, released by a catch on the right (Maxifiche). The screen is user-interchangeable, the first Topcon on which it is (Maxifiche): the standard screen is a split image in a matte collar inside a Fresnel field, with a visible step at the border between matte and Fresnel that Topcon did not cure until the mid-production RE Super. The split-image prisms are cut at a shallow 6.5°, as since the R, so that they do not black out with slow lenses (Topcon Club).
Shutter: cloth focal plane, horizontal travel (Maxifiche: the same type of shutter as the R series) · 1s–1/1000, B (taken from the RE Super, which Maxifiche describes as the RS plus a TTL meter)
Film advance: single-stroke lever
Meter: None built in. An optional clip-on CdS meter made for the RS fits the two small studs on the front and on the speed dial and couples to the shutter speed only, so its reading has to be set on the lens by hand, as with the RIII's selenium meter (Topcon Club; Maxifiche). Its switch dial has High and Low ranges; at ASA 100 and 1/60 it reads from f/1.4 to f/22, a wider range than the RE Super's TTL meter (Topcon Club).
Motor drive: Compatible — The base already takes a motor drive (Topcon Club, photograph of the base plate); Maxifiche dates motor capability in Topcon bodies from the RS of 1962.
Designed by: Tokyo Kogaku (Tokyo Optical Co.) (東京光学) — maker
Country: Japan
Accessories: Clip-on CdS meter made for the RS, coupled to the speed dial (Topcon Club; Maxifiche), with High and Low ranges (Topcon Club). Topcon Club says nothing else can substitute for it. · Waist-level finder hood in place of the pentaprism (Maxifiche) · Motor drive (Topcon Club; Maxifiche)

Figures we worked out rather than found: Shutter speeds are taken from Maxifiche's RE Super entry, because Maxifiche describes the RE Super as 'Comme le TOPCON RS, plus' a TTL meter and says the RS kept the earlier shutter type. No source states the RS's flash synchronisation speed or whether it has a self-timer, so neither is given.

Where sources disagree

Year

End of 1962 abroad, April 1963 in Japanese magazines — Topcon Club
1962 — Maxifiche; Japanese Wikipedia
1963 — camera-wiki

Better supported: 1962 for the first sales abroad, 1963 in Japan

Production

Very probably fewer than 1,000 — Topcon Club
A first lot of '1,000 or so' made for Europe — Topcon Club, on the same page
Thought to be fewer than 600 — camera-wiki
Indeterminate — Maxifiche

Topcon Club's two statements do not sit easily together, and none of the figures cites a factory record. All agree that very few were made.

Serial format

Seven digits, 3201xxx and 3211xxx — Topcon Club, from bodies examined
Six digits, 320001–322125, last number seen — Maxifiche

Better supported: Seven digits

Topcon Club reads the numbers off cameras it has handled, and the RE Super that followed also has seven-digit numbers (Maxifiche: 4600001–4690000). Maxifiche's limits may have lost a digit.

What reviewers say

No reviews aggregated yet — this family is still in the research queue. Written one? We'd love to index it.

History

The Topcon RS is the RE Super without its meter. Tokyo Kogaku’s TTL system was running late, and Topcon Club tells how Beseler, its American distributor, kept pressing for a new camera. Pushed by the sales department, the development department reluctantly released what it saw as an unfinished camera under the RS name, as an SLR to be used with an external meter. Topcon Club says it seems to have gone on sale abroad at the end of 1962 and appeared in Japanese magazines in April 1963. The RE Super was finished in May 1963, and the RS was dropped. Japanese Wikipedia says most went for export, with a few sold in Japan. No Beseler RS was made: the leaflet Topcon Club shows is German, and Topcon Club believes Beseler was given the RE Super from the start.

The RS brought in the body Topcon kept through the RE Super, Super D and Super DM: the rounded box shape, a new interchangeable prism and waist-level hood, user-interchangeable screens, and a base that already takes a motor drive. The bayonet is still the Exakta-derived Topcon mount, with the internal stop-down lever of the RII and RIII, but no aperture coupling. Its meter is a separate CdS unit that clips on to two small studs, one above the release and one on the speed dial, and couples to the shutter speed only, as the RIII’s selenium meter did, so the aperture it reads has to be set by hand. Where the RE Super has its battery cap on the base, the RS has an ASA reminder dial. Inside, the mirror has none of the RE Super’s metering slits. Topcon Club describes a very dry shutter sound, which it thinks may come from the empty space where the TTL parts would be, or from the light mirror.

How many were made is not known. Topcon Club thinks probably fewer than 1,000, but also says a first lot of 1,000 or so was made for Europe. Camera-wiki says fewer than 600, and Maxifiche says the number cannot be determined. Topcon Club reads the serial numbers as seven digits beginning 3201 and 3211; Maxifiche gives 320001 to 322125. There are two versions. The earlier bodies have TOPCON in small, thin letters on the printed metal nameplate on the prism. From 32114xx the letters are larger and bolder, and the last bodies also have the RE Super’s take-up spool and a higher-pitched shutter.

The standard lens is disputed. Maxifiche names the F Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f/1.8. Topcon Club names the H-F Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f/1.8, which has the F Auto’s diaphragm in a chrome RE-style barrel; it was told that the H in the name comes from a special order for Hitachi. Its author admits he does not know for certain that this was the RS’s standard lens, but believes it came on the first RS bodies and that later ones came with RE Auto-Topcors, which is how many are found today. Both fit the RS, which has no meter coupling for the opposite turn of their coupling fingers to matter. Maxifiche warns that the F Auto-Topcors should not go on the RE Super and later bodies; Topcon Club says the H-F lens stops down in the same direction as the F Auto, so the same caution applies to it.

Topcon Club calls the RS the hardest Topcon camera to find. When buying, check the nameplate, the studs and the base: an RS has the RS nameplate, no meter window and an ASA dial where the battery cap would be. A meterless RE Super, or one with a dead meter, is not an RS. Mechanical faults can be repaired with parts from a scrap RE Super, but the RS’s own CdS meter and its prism cover, which differs from the RE Super’s, cannot be replaced from anything else. How the RS was sold in outfits is not documented, so a body with an RE Auto-Topcor is not a mismatch on that ground alone.

Expand Collapse

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

More sample photos elsewhere

These photographers keep all rights to their work — enjoy it at the source.

Live listings

The listings collector hasn't run for this family yet — check back soon, or search the marketplaces directly meanwhile.