Auto-Topcor and F Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f/1.8

Topcon · Exakta · 1957

via machine translation — corrections welcome

Also known as: Topcor 5.8cm f/1.8 · Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f/1.8 Topcon R · Topcon R Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f1.8 · Topcon R Auto Topcor 58mm f1.8 · Beseler Topcon B Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f1.8 · Auto-Topcor 1:1.8 f=5.8cm Topcon R · Auto-Topcor Autokinon 5.8cm f1.8 · Topcor Autokinon 5.8cm f1.8 · F Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f/1.8 · F Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f1.8 · F Auto Topcor 58mm f1.8 · F Auto-Topcor 58mm f/1.8 · F.Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f1.8 · F.Auto-Topcor 58mm f1.8 · F.Auto-Topcor 1:1.8 f=5.8cm · F Auto-Topcor 1:1.8 f=5.8cm · F Auto-Topcor 5.8cm 1:1.8 · Auto-Topcor 5.8cm 1:1.8 · Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f1.8 · F-Auto Topcor 5.8cm f1.8 · Topcon F Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f1.8 · Topcon F Auto Topcor 58mm f1.8 · Tokyo Kogaku F Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f1.8 · H-F Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f1.8 · H-F Auto Topcor 58mm f1.8 · HF Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f1.8 · Fオートトプコール 5.8cm F1.8 · F.オートトプコール 5.8cm F1.8 · Fオートトプコール 58mm F1.8 · H-Fオートトプコール 5.8cm F1.8 · トプコン Fオートトプコール 5.8cm F1.8 · トプコン R オートトプコール 5.8cm F1.8

Variants & identification

Variant	Mount	Years	Serial ranges	Production
Auto-Topcor 1:1.8 f=5.8cm, semi-automatic (Topcon R)	Exakta	1957–1960	28xxxx (code 28B, as quoted on the MFlenses forum from Topcon Story)	—
Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f/1.8, all black (black Topcon R)	Exakta	1958–1960	—	—
Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f/1.8, Autokinon type (1959)	Exakta	1959–1960	63xxxx (code 63B, as quoted on the MFlenses forum from Topcon Story)	—
F.Auto-Topcor 1:1.8 f=5.8cm (Automatic R / RII, RIII, RS)	Exakta	1960–1963	62xxxx (code 62B, as quoted on the MFlenses forum from Topcon Story)	—
H-F Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f/1.8 (RS, 1962–63)	Exakta	1962–1963	—	—

Specifications: Maxifiche gives the same figures for the Auto-Topcor and the F Auto-Topcor: 6 elements, angle of view 41°, f/1.8 to f/22, focusing to 0.5 m, 49 mm filter. No source found gives the groups, the number of blades or the weight.
One optical design or several: Topcon Club says the Auto, Autokinon, F Auto and H-F lenses share one construction, and that the Auto-Topcors kept their basic construction, with new coatings, barrels and mounts, until the RE Topcor N series of the mid-1970s. The code list quoted on the MFlenses forum from Topcon Story instead dates new optics to the RE lens's code 99B of 1964, with the second and third elements separated. Topcon Club also reports a 58mm f/1.8 with one element fewer used briefly in the late 1960s and withdrawn after complaints. Those RE versions are on the RE Auto-Topcor 58mm f/1.8 page; the disagreement means that page's early lenses may share this one's optics.
The RE Super, RE-2 (Beseler D-1), Super D and Super DM: the sources disagree. Maxifiche says the F Auto-Topcors must not be used on those four bodies, because their coupling finger turns the opposite way to the RE lenses'. Topcon Club says that an unmodified F Auto-Topcor on an RE Super meters stopped down. The links are kept with that limit and that warning. Topcon Club concludes that Tokyo Kogaku converted F Auto-Topcors to RE for a fee, some in a chrome RE-style barrel and some by changing only the mount on the black barrel, so an F Auto engraving on a lens that couples properly is possible.
The RE200 and RE300 (1977–78) keep the RE mount of the RE Super line (Topcon Club); no source describes these lenses on them, and the RE Super's limits are assumed to apply.
The Topcon R: its body has no diaphragm mechanism (Topcon Club; Maxifiche says its bayonet has no coupling at all), so only the semi-automatic and Autokinon lenses work their diaphragm on it. Nothing on an R closes the diaphragm of an F Auto or H-F Auto-Topcor, so it would stay at full aperture; no source describes the combination. No source describes the semi-automatic lens on the RII, RIII, RS or the RE bodies.
Exakta bodies: Maxifiche calls the R's mount a fully compatible Exakta bayonet. Topcon Club says that because Topcon put its release on the other side, a lens with an external preset arm loses that function when moved between Topcon and Exakta bodies in either direction. It does not say whether the lens still mounts and focuses.
The RS's standard lens: Maxifiche names the F Auto-Topcor; Topcon Club names the H-F Auto-Topcor and thinks it came on the earliest RS bodies, before RE Auto-Topcors took over. Camera-wiki's RS lens has a red dot and a 62xxxx serial without a name.
Dates: the R was announced in December 1957 (Topcon Club; Maxifiche 1957); camera-wiki dates it to 1958 from an October 1958 advertisement. The RII came out in Japan in July 1960 (Topcon Club's Japanese text; its English text says 1959). The F Auto-Topcors ended with the RS when the RE Super arrived in 1963.
No price for the lens alone has been found. Topcon Club gives Japanese prices for the cameras: the R at ¥56,000 and the RII at ¥43,000, plus ¥2,000 for the case, and the RIII at ¥48,000. It does not say whether those include the standard lens.

How to tell them apart (expand)

Engraved 1:1.8 f=5.8cm and Tokyo Kogaku: Auto-Topcor on the semi-automatic and Autokinon lenses, F.Auto-Topcor or H-F Auto-Topcor on the fully automatic ones. A 58mm f/1.8 engraved RE.Auto-Topcor, or a black one engraved AUTO-TOPCOR 1:1.8 f=58mm, is the later RE lens
Exakta-type bayonet, but the release sits on the opposite side to an Exakta's (Topcon Club; Maxifiche)
49 mm filter thread, the same as the RE Auto-Topcor 58mm f/1.8; the 58mm f/1.4 takes 62 mm

Auto-Topcor 1:1.8 f=5.8cm, semi-automatic (Topcon R):

An external arm and release plunger stand out from the barrel on the side of the Topcon release, the opposite side to an Exakta lens; the arm is pushed down to cock the diaphragm and the body's release button fires it (Topcon Club; the Wikimedia Commons Beseler Topcon B)
The diaphragm stays closed after the exposure until the arm is pushed down again (Topcon Club)
A coloured cover round the release plunger marks the focal length: silver on the 5.8cm, emerald green on the 3.5cm and gold on the 10cm (Topcon Club)
Black barrel with a ribbed metal focusing ring, a bright front ring engraved Tokyo Kogaku Japan No. and the serial, and a dual metre/feet scale; the hood clips into slots cut in the front of the barrel rather than a bayonet (Commons photograph; Topcon Club)

Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f/1.8, all black (black Topcon R):

Black to the very front of the barrel, and the release-plunger cover, silver on the ordinary lens, black as well (Topcon Club)
Serial beginning 28, the same block as the chrome-trimmed lens; made in parallel with it, not later (Topcon Club)

Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f/1.8, Autokinon type (1959):

No cocking lever: the diaphragm closes as the release plunger is pressed and reopens as it is let go, like Steinheil's Auto-Quinon (Topcon Club)
Same optics and outward design as the semi-automatic lens, with the same silver release cover (Topcon Club)

F.Auto-Topcor 1:1.8 f=5.8cm (Automatic R / RII, RIII, RS):

Front ring engraved F.Auto-Topcor 1:1.8 f=5.8cm Tokyo Kogaku (the Wikimedia Commons Automatic R-3)
No external arm or plunger: the diaphragm is closed by a lever inside the body's bayonet (Maxifiche, Topcon Club)
Black barrel with a rubber-covered focusing band, which Topcon Club calls the first in the world, and the distance scale turning inside a clear plastic window (Topcon Club; Maxifiche)
A diaphragm coupling finger at the rear that turns the opposite way to an RE Auto-Topcor's (Maxifiche, which photographs the two side by side)
Bayonet lens hood (Topcon Club)

H-F Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f/1.8 (RS, 1962–63):

Chrome (white) barrel with the look of the RE Auto-Topcors, but the aperture ring turns the F Auto way, the opposite of an RE lens (Topcon Club)
Coating reflections mainly magenta and purple with a cyan layer, close to the F Auto-Topcor's, where the RE lenses look mainly amber (Topcon Club)
A thread at the mount end for a screw-in protector; with the protector fitted the mirror of an ordinary body strikes it (Topcon Club)

Auto-Topcor 1:1.8 f=5.8cm, semi-automatic (Topcon R): The standard lens of the Topcon R of 1957, sold in the United States as the Beseler Topcon B. Topcon Club describes the action: pushing the lever down opens the diaphragm and charges the spring, and pressing the stop-down button, which the body's shutter release works, closes it in an instant to the preset aperture. It stays shut after the exposure, so with the lens stopped down the finder goes dark despite the instant-return mirror. Maxifiche calls it the same principle as the Exakta's but with the release on the other side. Camera-wiki gives the R's buyer the choice of this lens or the Auto-Topcor 3.5cm f/2.8 at the same price.
Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f/1.8, all black (black Topcon R): Topcon Club pictures the all-black Topcon R and its lens. Production began around the end of 1958 in very small numbers. The Japanese text says that in Japan they were reportedly supplied mainly to the police (警視庁など, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police and others); the site's English text says the National Police Agency, adds that most were exported, and guesses only hundreds of sets. The lens is optically and mechanically the ordinary Auto-Topcor.
Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f/1.8, Autokinon type (1959): Topcon Club says this type was made in 1959 at the American side's request, because the semi-automatic lens left the finder dark after each exposure, and that it was sold in small numbers late in the R's life, mainly abroad. Maxifiche gives the name as AUTO TOPCOR AUTOKINON and calls the diaphragm fully automatic; it is worked by the release, not by a lever in the body. Two forum posters report 5.8cm f/1.8 lenses with serials beginning 63 (632468 and 6310..) without saying which type they are.
F.Auto-Topcor 1:1.8 f=5.8cm (Automatic R / RII, RIII, RS): Brought out with the Automatic Topcon R of July 1960 (the RII; the Beseler Topcon C in the United States), whose body carries the stop-down lever that makes the diaphragm fully automatic, and kept for the RIII of October 1961. Maxifiche also names it as the RS's lens. Topcon Club says the optics are unchanged from the 1957 lens. Camera-wiki describes the RS's early 5.8cm f/1.8 as having a red dot and a serial in 62xxxx.
H-F Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f/1.8 (RS, 1962–63): Topcon Club says the lens was made around the end of 1962 and the start of 1963, when the RS was sold ahead of the RE Super, and that its construction and its automatic-diaphragm mechanism are those of the F Auto-Topcor. Hagiya, a former editor-in-chief of Classic Camera Senka, told the site that the H-F name comes from a special order placed by Hitachi (日立製作所). Topcon Club believes it was fitted to the earliest RS bodies, while noting that many RS bodies turn up with RE Auto-Topcors and that how the RS was sold is not clear.

Serial-range notes

28xxxx: Auto-Topcor (semi-automatic): The code tables quoted on the MFlenses forum from Antonetto and Russo's Topcon Story give code 28B for the semi-automatic lens. Serials seen: 285xxx on the Wikimedia Commons Beseler Topcon B; 287586 reported by a forum poster and 287739 on a dealer listing linked in the thread; Topcon Club says the black lenses also begin 28.
63xxxx: Autokinon type: Code 63B in the same forum list. Forum posters report 632468 and 6310.. without saying whether their lenses are Autokinon or semi-automatic; no source dates the change.
62xxxx: F Auto-Topcor, H-F Auto-Topcor and the first RE Auto-Topcor: The forum list gives code 62B both to the F Auto-Topcor (62xxxx, 1960) and to the first RE Auto-Topcor 58mm f/1.8 'based on the F Auto-Topcor' (620001 to 625115, 1963), and camera-wiki gives 62xxxx for the RS's early lens. Topcon Club says the H-F lenses' serials are mixed in with the late F Auto-Topcors'. A 62xxxx serial therefore does not by itself say which of the three a lens is: read the name ring and check which way the coupling finger turns.

Specifications

Construction: 6 elements
Aperture range: f/1.8–f/22
Min. focus: 0.5 m
Filter: 49 mm
Years manufactured: 1957–1963
Country: Japan

What reviewers say

Topcon Club (topgabacho.jp) (blog) — Of the F Auto-Topcors: lenses from the period when Tokyo Kogaku was trying hardest, ranking near the top of all Topcors for rendering, though hard to find and of little interest to collectors without an RII to put them on. via machine translation — corrections welcome

History

The Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f/1.8 was the standard lens of the Topcon R, the reflex Tokyo Kogaku announced in December 1957. It was the third Japanese pentaprism SLR with a focal-plane shutter, after the Miranda T and the Asahi Pentax AP, by Topcon Club’s count. The mount is the Exakta bayonet. Maxifiche, the French collectors’ sheet, calls it fully compatible. Topcon Club adds that Topcon put its release on the other side, so a lens worked by an external arm loses that function when it is moved between Topcon and Exakta bodies. Maxifiche gives six elements, an angle of view of 41°, f/1.8 to f/22, focusing to 0.5 m and a 49 mm filter. It gives the same figures for the F Auto-Topcor that followed. No source found gives the groups, the blades or the weight. Topcon Club says the lens held the best result in Asahi Camera’s “New Face” test clinic until the test method changed.

The lens went through four versions in six years, and the name ring and the outside of the barrel tell them apart. The first lens is semi-automatic. An arm on the side of the barrel is pushed down to open the diaphragm and charge it, and the body’s release, pressing a plunger on the lens, closes it to the set aperture for the exposure. It then stays closed until the arm is pushed again. A silver cover round the plunger marks the 5.8cm; the 3.5cm’s is emerald green and the 10cm’s gold. A very few all-black lenses, with a black cover, came with the black R made from about the end of 1958. Topcon Club’s Japanese text says these were reportedly supplied in Japan mainly to the police; its English text adds that most were exported. In 1959, at the request of the American side, Tokyo Kogaku made an Autokinon type without the lever, whose diaphragm closes as the plunger is pressed and opens as it is let go. Topcon Club says it was sold in small numbers late in the R’s life, mainly abroad. In the United States the R was the Beseler Topcon B, and the lens came with it.

The Automatic Topcon R of July 1960, the RII, moved the diaphragm mechanism into the body, a lever in the bayonet that stops the lens down at the moment of exposure. Its lens is the F.Auto-Topcor 1:1.8 f=5.8cm. It has no arm, a rubber-covered focusing band (Topcon Club calls it the first in the world) and a distance scale under a clear window. Topcon Club says the optics are unchanged. The same lens served the RIII of October 1961, and Maxifiche names it for the RS too. Topcon Club instead gives the RS the H-F Auto-Topcor of late 1962 and early 1963. That lens has the chrome barrel of the coming RE Auto-Topcors, but it has the F Auto’s mechanism and its aperture ring turns the F Auto way. Its name, Topcon Club was told, comes from a special order placed by Hitachi. Maxifiche says the F Auto-Topcor already carried a coupling finger for a through-the-lens meter that no body yet had, and that it turns the opposite way to the finger on the RE lenses made for the RE Super of 1963. Maxifiche warns that F Auto-Topcors must not be used on the RE Super, RE-2, Super D or Super DM. Topcon Club says that an unmodified one meters stopped down on an RE Super, and concludes from a chrome-barrelled F Auto-Topcor 13.5cm it has seen that the factory converted F Autos to RE for a fee. The original R has no diaphragm mechanism in the body, so nothing on it stops an F Auto or H-F lens down.

When buying, read the name ring first. A 58mm f/1.8 engraved RE.Auto-Topcor, or a black one engraved AUTO-TOPCOR 1:1.8 f=58mm, is the later RE lens, which has its own page. Serial numbers help less than they seem to. The code list quoted on the MFlenses forum from Antonetto and Russo’s Topcon Story gives 28xxxx for the semi-automatic lens, 63xxxx for the Autokinon and 62xxxx for the F Auto, but it gives 62xxxx to the first RE lens too, and Topcon Club says H-F serials are mixed in with the late F Autos’. On a semi-automatic lens, cock the arm and fire the plunger by hand: the blades should snap to the set aperture and stay there until the arm is pushed again. On an F Auto, press the lever at the rear and watch the blades close and reopen. Owners on the MFlenses thread, writing mostly about the later RE lenses, report the rubber focusing grips of 58mm f/1.8 Topcors expanding and coming loose with age, so check an F Auto’s band. Before mounting an F Auto or H-F lens on an RE body, check which way its coupling finger turns: Maxifiche’s warning and Topcon Club’s account do not agree on whether the combination is safe. The leaf-shutter Topcons of the period, from the PR to the Wink Mirror, Uni and Unirex, are a separate system, and their UV Topcors are different lenses.

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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-Topcor and F Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f/1.8 — Semi-automatic Auto-Topcor 1:1.8 f=5.8cm (serial 285xxx) on a Beseler Topcon B, with the cocking arm and release plunger standing out to the left of the lens — s58y, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

More sample photos elsewhere

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

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Auto-Topcor and F Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f/1.8? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Topcor F. Auto 5.8cm ,f1.8 lens, CLA'd, very good user, new focus ring — £134.86 · eBay

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