Auto Rikenon 55mm f/1.4 (M42)

Ricoh · M42 · 1967

Also known as: Auto Rikenon 55mm f1.4 · Auto Rikenon 55mm f/1.4 · Auto Rikenon 55 mm f1.4 · Ricoh Auto Rikenon 55mm f1.4 · Ricoh Auto Rikenon 55mm f/1.4 · Ricoh Rikenon 55mm f1.4 · Rikenon 55mm f1.4 · Rikenon 55mm f/1.4 · Rikenon 55mm 1:1.4 · Auto Rikenon 1:1.4 f=55mm · Rikenon 1.4/55 · Rikenon 55 1.4 · Ricoh 55mm f1.4 Rikenon Auto · Ricoh 55mm f1.4 Auto Rikenon · Ricoh 55mm f1.4 M42 · Ricoh 55mm F1.4 · Auto Sears 55mm f1.4 · Auto Sears 55mm f/1.4 · Sears 55mm f1.4 Auto · Sears Auto 55mm f1.4 · Auto Sears 1:1.4 f=55mm · Auto Sears 1.4/55 · Sears 55mm f1.4 M42 · Rikenon 1,4/55 · オートリケノン 55mm F1.4 · リケノン 55mm F1.4 · リコーリケノン 55mm F1.4 · Rikenon 1:1.4 55mm · Rikenon 1:1.4 f=55mm · Rikenon 55 mm f/1.4

Variants & identification

Variant	Mount	Years	Serial ranges	Production
Auto Rikenon 55mm f/1.4	M42	1967	—	—
Auto Sears 55mm f/1.4 (Sears, Roebuck)	M42	1967	—	—

Construction is disputed. Japanese Wikipedia gives 7 elements in 5 groups, citing Classic Camera Senka No. 9 (p.105), and Mike Eckman's spec list agrees; Dr. Ricoh's table and camera-wiki's Singlex II page give 6 elements in 5 groups; Matt Denton gives 6 in 4. No source ties the different counts to different versions, so no figure is set on this page.
Filter: 55 mm per Matt Denton, the M42 Lens Database and Kamerastore's listing; Dr. Ricoh's table gives 52 mm. Closest focus 0.5 m on the lens's own scale (Eckman) and per Denton and Kamerastore; the M42 Lens Database gives 48 cm. Six aperture blades per Denton, the M42 Lens Database and Kamerastore. Weight is given as 306 g (Denton), 312 g (M42 Lens Database) and 330 g (Kamerastore); size as 66 mm diameter by 52 mm (M42 Lens Database) or 68 × 45 mm (Kamerastore). Aperture f/1.4 to f/16 on every source.
Two barrel versions are reported only on the MFlenses forum (2010): one poster says there are at least two, one resembling other 55mm f/1.4 lenses attributed to Tomioka and one 'a bit different'; another, comparing his lens with that poster's photographs, describes it as matching the first type except that the band under the A/M switch is black instead of aluminium. Those photographs are no longer online and no dated comparison exists, so they are not separate variants here.
Dates: 1967 is the Singlex TLS's release in Ricoh's list (June 1967) and the year Eckman gives for the Sears TLS catalogue listing. Aperture Preview reports a Sears advertisement saying the Sears TLS could not be ordered before 1 November 1966. Japanese Wikipedia dates the Singlex TLS to January 1964, which Ricoh's own list does not support. No end date found.
No price for the lens alone is on record. Ricoh's Japanese list prices are for body and lens together: Singlex TLS ¥51,000 with the f/1.4 against ¥42,000 with the f/1.8; TLS 401 ¥57,500 against ¥47,500. Sears's 1967 Spring/Summer catalogue price for the TLS with this lens was $197.00 (catalogue list price, via Eckman). The December 1967 Sears newspaper advertisement Eckman reproduces, at $144.88 (regular $169.85), is for the TLS with the f/1.8 lens, not this one.
Maker: Ricoh does not say who made the lens. The Tomioka attribution rests on forum posts and seller titles ('Tomioka Planar'); Denton, writing of Ricoh lenses in general, guesses they were outsourced to makers such as Cosina. Neither is confirmed by a Ricoh or Tomioka document.

How to tell them apart (expand)

Fully automatic diaphragm with an A/M switch at the base of the barrel; aperture ring f/1.4 to f/16 nearest the mount, then the depth-of-field scale and a wide metal focusing ring (Eckman)
Engraved AUTO RIKENON or AUTO SEARS on the front ring, 1:1.4 f=55mm, LENS MADE IN JAPAN
M42 screw thread only. The 1962 Rikenon 55mm f/1.4 for the Nikon F-mount Singlex and the K-mount XR Rikenon 50mm f/1.4 are different lenses
Not an EE lens: on the Auto TLS EE it gives manual exposure with full-aperture or stop-down metering, not shutter-priority automation

Auto Rikenon 55mm f/1.4:

Front ring engraved AUTO RIKENON 1:1.4 f=55mm, a serial number and LENS MADE IN JAPAN
The standard f/1.4 lens Ricoh lists with the Singlex TLS (June 1967) and the Ricohflex TLS 401 (October 1970)
Examples photographed by Denis Barthel (Wikimedia Commons), Mike Eckman and Matt Denton are black-barrelled with a ribbed focusing ring and a bright metal ring at the front of the barrel; on the Commons and Eckman examples the metre scale is in green

Auto Sears 55mm f/1.4 (Sears, Roebuck):

Front ring engraved AUTO SEARS 1:1.4 f=55mm, a serial number and LENS MADE IN JAPAN, in the same layout as the Ricoh engraving (Matt Denton's example, serial 265507, on a black Sears TLS)
Sold with the Sears T.L.S.: the Sears manual lists catalogue numbers 7325 with f:1.4 lens (chrome trim) and 7360 with f:1.4 lens (black trim), alongside the f:1.7 and f:1.8 outfits

Auto Rikenon 55mm f/1.4: Ricoh's own camera list names only "Rikenon 55mm F1.4" as the lens of the Singlex TLS and the TLS 401; the engraving on the lens reads AUTO RIKENON. Mike Eckman's black Sears TLS, of the redesign he dates to 1971, is photographed with this Ricoh-badged lens (serial 70513) rather than the Sears-badged one, so a Sears body is not proof of a Sears lens. Forum posters report at least two versions of the barrel; see the table notes.
Auto Sears 55mm f/1.4 (Sears, Roebuck): The Sears department-store version of the same lens. Eckman reports that the Sears Spring/Summer 1967 catalogue listed the TLS with a 55mm f/1.4 Auto Sears lens at $197.00 and did not offer the body alone. Dr. Ricoh's lens table and Matt Denton both say it is the same lens under another name; Denton owns one of each.

Serial-range notes

Serials seen in photographs: 70513, 101100, 265507, 3196xx, 305518: Eckman's Auto Rikenon on a black Sears TLS reads 70513; Matt Denton's Auto Rikenon reads 101100 and his Auto Sears 265507; the Wikimedia Commons Auto Rikenon reads 3196xx (last digits hidden); a Hard to Find dealer listing gives 305518. No source ties serial numbers to dates or to the barrel versions forum posters describe.

Specifications

Aperture range: f/1.4–f/16
Diaphragm blades: 6
Min. focus: 0.5 m
Filter: 55 mm, 55 mm (Denton, M42 Lens Database, Kamerastore); Dr. Ricoh gives 52 mm
Years manufactured: 1967
Country: Japan

What reviewers say

Mike Eckman (on a Sears TLS) (blog) — The lens is what he rates highest about an otherwise unremarkable camera: sharp and contrasty on slow copy film, very good wide open apart from some softness in the corners, sharp corner to corner once stopped down.
Matt Denton, Matt's Classic Cameras (blog) — One of the sharpest lenses he owns and a heavy, all-metal build, but prone to flare without a hood: a portrait session lit by strobes came back with a soft spot in the centre of every frame. His Auto Sears copy is the same lens.

History

The Auto Rikenon 55mm f/1.4 was the fast standard lens of Ricoh’s M42 screw-mount reflexes. Ricoh’s camera list gives the Singlex TLS, released in June 1967, with a “Rikenon 55mm F1.4” and prices the outfit at ¥51,000 with that lens against ¥42,000 with the f/1.8. The Ricohflex TLS 401 of October 1970 carried the same lens at ¥57,500 and ¥47,500. Those are Japanese list prices for body and lens together; no price for the lens alone has been found. The lens itself is engraved AUTO RIKENON 1:1.4 f=55mm. It has a fully automatic diaphragm with an A/M switch at the base of the barrel, an aperture ring from f/1.4 to f/16, and a focusing scale to 0.5 m.

In the United States it came with Sears’s version of the camera. Mike Eckman reports that the Sears Spring/Summer catalogue of 1967 listed the Sears TLS with a 55mm f/1.4 Auto Sears lens at a catalogue price of $197.00, and that the camera was not sold body only. The cheaper $144.88 he quotes from a December 1967 Sears newspaper advertisement is for the outfit with the f/1.8 lens. The Sears manual lists the f/1.4 outfit under two catalogue numbers, 7325 with chrome trim and 7360 with black trim. The Sears lens reads AUTO SEARS 1:1.4 f=55mm in the same layout as the Ricoh engraving. Dr. Ricoh’s lens table and Matt Denton, who owns one of each, both treat it as the same lens. The badge does not always follow the body, though: Eckman’s black Sears TLS, of the 1971 redesign, is photographed with a Ricoh-badged Auto Rikenon.

The published specifications disagree. Japanese Wikipedia, citing Classic Camera Senka, gives seven elements in five groups, and Eckman agrees. Dr. Ricoh and camera-wiki’s Singlex II page give six elements in five groups, and Denton gives six in four. Denton, the M42 Lens Database and Kamerastore all give a 55 mm filter thread and six aperture blades, but Dr. Ricoh gives 52 mm. Weights run from 306 g to 330 g. On the MFlenses forum in 2010, one poster reported at least two versions of the lens and another described his as having a black band under the A/M switch where the other type is aluminium. The photographs they compared are no longer online, no dated comparison exists, and nobody has tied either version to an element count. Ricoh does not say who made the lens. Forum posters call it a Tomioka design and some sellers title it “Tomioka Planar”, but no Ricoh or Tomioka document has been found to confirm it.

The lens fits all five of Ricoh’s M42 bodies. The Singlex TLS and TLS 401 meter through the lens at the taking aperture; on the Sears TLS, Eckman notes, switching the meter on stops the diaphragm down for the reading. The export Singlex II, SLX 500 and Auto TLS EE of 1975–76 take it as an ordinary screw-mount lens. It is not an EE lens. The Auto TLS EE’s shutter-priority automation needs Ricoh’s EE lenses: the manual’s accessory-lens table lists EE versions of the 28, 35, 135 and 200 mm, its cover shows the camera with an Auto Rikenon EE 50mm f/1.7, and there is no EE 55mm. With this lens the Auto TLS EE is a manual camera: its manual allows metering at full aperture, with the lens selection dial set to f/1.4 and the indicated f-number then set by hand, or metering stopped down. Two other Ricoh f/1.4 normals are often confused with it. The Rikenon 55mm f/1.4 of 1962 was made for the Nikon F-mount Singlex, and Japanese Wikipedia attributes it to Sankyo Kohki. The XR Rikenon 50mm f/1.4 is a later K-mount lens. Neither will screw onto an M42 body. The other M42 standard lenses, the 55mm f/1.8 and f/2.8 and the 50mm f/1.7, f/2 and f/2.8, have their own pages.

When buying, read the engraving and work the A/M switch: the diaphragm should close to the set aperture when the switch is moved to M and spring open again at A. Eckman and Denton both rate the lens highly for sharpness. Eckman found it very good wide open apart from some corner softness, and sharp across the frame when stopped down. Denton found it prone to flare without a hood, so a hood is worth having. As far as any source shows, Ricoh-badged and Sears-badged copies are the same lens, so the badge comes down to preference. One recent figure is a dealer asking price, not a sale: Hard to Find, a Dutch shop, listed a Ricoh-badged copy (serial 305518) at €139.

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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.

Example photos

Sample photo taken with the Auto Rikenon 55mm f/1.4 (M42) — Auto Rikenon 55mm f/1.4 in M42, front ring engraved AUTO RIKENON 1:1.4 f=55mm — Denis Barthel, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

More sample photos elsewhere

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Sample photo wanted — shot with a Auto Rikenon 55mm f/1.4 (M42)? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

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