Zenzanon MC / E 200mm f/4.5 (ETR)
Zenza Bronica · Bronica ETR · 1982
Also known as: Zenzanon MC 200mm f/4.5 · Zenzanon MC 200mm F4.5 · Zenzanon-E 200mm f/4.5 · Zenzanon E 200mm F4.5 · Bronica ETR 200mm f/4.5 · Bronica ETRS 200mm F4.5 MC · Bronica ETRSi 200mm f4.5 Zenzanon · Zenza Bronica Zenzanon MC 200mm f4.5 · ゼンザブロニカ ゼンザノン MC 200mm F4.5 · ゼンザノン E 200mm F4.5 · ブロニカ ETR 200mm F4.5
Variants & identification
| Variant | Mount | Years | Serial ranges | Production |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zenzanon MC 200mm f/4.5 | Bronica ETR | — | — | — |
| Zenzanon-E 200mm f/4.5 (5 elements, 5 groups) | Bronica ETR | — | — | — |
- Elements, groups, angle of view (20°), aperture range, closest focus, filter thread, 80 × 112 mm and 720 g are from Bronica's Zenzanon lens brochure E810588 as transcribed on the medfmt.8k.com ETR page; Japanese Wikipedia, citing Camera Yearbook '82 p.222, gives the same 5 groups / 5 elements, 2.0 m and 62 mm. Both describe the E-badged lens. No source gives a formula for the lens engraved MC; its five elements are assumed, not shown.
- Year. The lens is absent from the 1976 ETR manual's lens list (40, 50, 75, 150, 250) and from the 1979 Camera & Lens White Paper's old-lens entries, and first appears in Camera Yearbook '82; 1982 is therefore the earliest dated listing found, not a launch date. The MC-engraved lens predates it by an unknown margin. No end date is published; Tamron USA's 2004 ETRSi list carries only the PE 200, so the MC/E lens had gone by then.
- Blades, a list price and a serial table were not found in any source; the fields are left empty. Period prices on the medfmt page (1978, in US dollars) cover the 50, 75 and 150 only.
How to tell them apart
- A 200 mm telephoto in the four-claw Bronica ETR bayonet with its own Seiko #0 leaf shutter, a 62 mm front thread and a T slide on the barrel; the name ring reads ZENZANON MC or ZENZANON-E, never PE
- Full-stop aperture clicks: the half-stop detents and the AE-II/AE-III prism coupling belong to the PE 200 that replaced it
- Not the Zenzanon-S or PS 200mm f/4.5 for the 6×6 SQ bodies, nor the Zenzanon-PG 200mm f/4.5 for the GS-1: those carry S, PS or PG on the ring and a different bayonet
Zenzanon MC 200mm f/4.5:
- Engraved ZENZANON MC 1:4.5 f=200mm on the name ring; full-stop aperture clicks and the T slide with its locking screw on the barrel
Zenzanon-E 200mm f/4.5 (5 elements, 5 groups):
- Engraved ZENZANON-E; the brochure E810588 draws it with the electronic Seiko #0 and a 62 mm filter thread, 80 mm across and 112 mm long
- Zenzanon MC 200mm f/4.5: The lens engraved MC. camera-wiki lists a 200mm f/4.5 MC among the original ETR lenses and dealers sell them under that name, but no period document found gives its formula: the 1976 ETR manual's lens list stops at 250mm and has no 200, and Japanese Wikipedia's quotation of the 1979 Camera & Lens White Paper names no 200 among the old-generation lenses either. Whether its glass matches the five-element lens below is unverified.
- Zenzanon-E 200mm f/4.5 (5 elements, 5 groups): The lens Bronica's Zenzanon lens brochure E810588 specifies at five elements in five groups, 20° angle of view, f/4.5–32, 6.6 ft (2 m) closest focus, 62 mm filters and 720 g, with the comment that it suits full-length portraits, landscape and close-up work and gives a hand-held 400 mm with the Tele-Converter E. Camera Yearbook '82 lists the same five-element 200 mm as 'equivalent to the new lenses'.
Specifications
- Construction
- 5 elements / 5 groups
- Aperture range
- f/4.5–f/32
- Shutter
- Seiko #0 electronically controlled between-lens leaf shutter, 8s–1/500 + T; B only on an ETRSi body; mechanical 1/500 without battery; the speed is set on the body
- Min. focus
- 2 m
- Dimensions
- 80 × 112 mm
- Weight
- 720 g
- Filter
- 62 mm
- Years manufactured
- 1982
- Country
- Japan
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 200mm f/4.5 was the gap-filler between the 150 and the 250 in Bronica’s 6×4.5 ETR line, a 20° telephoto that the maker’s own brochure compares to a 135 mm on 35 mm film. It was not among the five lenses the ETR was launched with in March 1976: the camera’s first manual lists 40, 50, 75, 150 and 250 mm, and the 200 is first found in Camera Yearbook ‘82, where Japanese Wikipedia reads it as “equivalent to the new lenses”, five elements in five groups, focusing to 2 m, with a 62 mm thread. Bronica’s Zenzanon brochure E810588 gives the same construction and adds the rest: f/4.5 to f/32, a fully automatic diaphragm, 80 mm across, 112 mm long and 720 g, which made it the lightest of the ETR telephotos beyond 150 mm.
Like every ETR lens it carries its own Seiko #0 leaf shutter, electronically timed from 8 s to 1/500 with the speed set on the body, a T slide on the barrel for longer exposures, and a mechanical 1/500 when the battery is flat; B arrived only with the ETRSi of December 1988. Two engravings exist. Lenses marked ZENZANON MC are the earlier ones, from the ETR and ETRS years, and dealers list the 200 in that form; lenses marked ZENZANON-E are what the brochure and the yearbook describe. A contributor to the medfmt page, writing in 2001, explains that some ETR lenses were redesigned without a name change and others gained an E-II suffix, before the PE series brought half-stop detents, AE-prism coupling and an easier T setting. Whether the MC-engraved 200 shares the five-element formula is not recorded anywhere found; the counts on this page belong to the E lens.
In use the lens drew little comment, which is its own verdict. Ted Brownlee, posting to the Medium Format Digest in 1998, used the MC 200 “almost exclusively” on an ETRSi alongside a PE 75 and a rented PE 250, could not find a difference between the generations, and had only heard that the longer MC telephotos did not match the PE lenses. Another poster the same month, Simon Ogilvie, held that the P-series lenses were reformulated on MTF theory and were higher in contrast and resolution than the MC, E and E-II lenses they replaced. Both opinions come from users rather than published tests, and no blog or video review of the 200 in any generation has been found.
Buying one means checking the shutter first: the Seiko #0 in the lens is what fires, so a lens that will not cock or that sticks at slow speeds is a repair, and the lens can only be mounted with the shutter cocked. Look for the MC or E engraving to tell it from the PE 200, which has half-stop clicks and was still on Tamron USA’s price list in 2004 at $1,835 while the older lens had long gone; the older lens today sells for a fraction of that, with recent dealer and auction asking prices in the low hundreds of dollars.
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 wanted — shot with a Zenzanon MC / E 200mm f/4.5 (ETR)? We'd love to feature it (with credit).
Live listings
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