Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Zenzanon-PG 50mm f/4.5

Zenza Bronica · Bronica GS · 1983

Also known as: Zenzanon-PG 50mm f/4.5 · Zenzanon PG 50mm F4.5 · Zenzanon-PG 50/4.5 · Bronica PG 50mm f4.5 · Zenza Bronica Zenzanon-PG 50mm · Bronica GS-1 50mm f/4.5 · Bronica GS 50mm F4.5 · ゼンザノン PG 50mm F4.5 · ゼンザブロニカ PG 50mm · ゼンザノンPG 50mm · ブロニカ GS-1 50mm

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Zenzanon-PG 50mm f/4.5 (1983–2002) Bronica GS 1983–2002 — About 6,000 (camera-wiki)
  1. Construction (11 elements in 8 groups), closest focus and filter thread are from カメラ年鑑'84 p.256 as quoted by Japanese Wikipedia, and agree with camera-wiki and Tamron Japan. Length, diameter and weight (74 × 98mm, 790g) are Tamron Japan's and camera-wiki's shared figures.
  2. Minimum aperture: Tamron Japan's table gives F4.5–22; Tamron USA's 2004 product page gives f/4.5–64, which the other PG wides do not reach and which looks like a copying slip. The 83° angle of view and the built-in hood are from the Tamron USA page; the same page advises against the G teleconverters on this lens.
  3. The production figure of about 6,000 is camera-wiki's and is not sourced on that page; no other count has been found.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • ZENZANON-PG on the front ring: PG is the GS-1 designation, as PS is the SQ's and PE the ETR's, and the four-claw GS bayonet fits no other Bronica body (camera-wiki)
  • No shutter-speed ring: the Seiko #0 shutter inside is set from the dial on the body (Tamron Japan)
  • The widest and, with the 500mm, the only PG lens not on a 72 or 82mm filter: 95mm thread on a 98mm front, with a built-in hood (Tamron Japan; Tamron USA)

Specifications

Construction
11 elements / 8 groups
Aperture range
f/4.5–f/22
Shutter
Seiko #0 electronic leaf shutter in the lens, 16s–1/500 plus T and B, timed from the GS-1 body; mechanical fallback of about 1/500 without a battery (Tamron Japan)
Min. focus
0.5 m
Dimensions
98 × 74 mm
Weight
790 g
Filter
95 mm
Years manufactured
1983–2002
Country
Japan
Original price
$2,265 (Tamron USA list, April 1996); $2,567 (Tamron USA, 2004) (today $4,530)

What reviewers say

History

The wide-angle of the GS-1 system from its launch in 1983, and the only wide Bronica made for it until the 65mm’s near neighbour, the 80mm, arrived fourteen years later. Eleven elements in eight groups focus to 0.5m, cover 83° across the 6×7 frame, which on this format works out near a 24mm on 35mm, and sit behind a 95mm filter thread on a 98mm front with a hood built into the barrel; the lens weighs 790g and, like every PG lens, carries its own Seiko #0 shutter timed by the body from 16 seconds to 1/500. Tamron’s American pages warned against using the G teleconverters on it.

It was the dearest of the regular PG lenses after the 500mm: $2,265 on Tamron’s April 1996 list, the same as the 110mm Macro and the 250mm, and $2,567 by 2004. About 6,000 were made, by camera-wiki’s count, which puts it level with the 65mm and well behind the 15,000 of the standard 100mm. Nothing changed in it over nineteen years of production; the sources record no second version.

No reviewer has written the lens up on its own. Laidric Stevenson owned one but had not yet shot it when he reviewed the GS-1 for Emulsive, expecting it to match his other three PG lenses, which he would put ‘up against any Mamiya RZ lens’; revdocjim carried one as the wide end of a five-lens kit and Ross Jukes as an occasional alternative to the 100mm, and neither says more than that the lenses are good. Used, Jukes finds lenses for the system sometimes under £150.

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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 wanted — shot with a Zenzanon-PG 50mm f/4.5? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $100 across 4 fixed-price listings on 2026-11-02 (middle half $90–$100). First day tracked.

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

Show 15 more listings

Buying from Yahoo! Auctions outside Japan. It is a domestic marketplace: sellers ship within Japan, and most will not register an overseas buyer. A proxy service bids on your behalf, receives the item and forwards it, for a fee and a wait. Buyee, Jauce and ZenMarket each accept a Yahoo auction number directly. Listed alphabetically for information — none is recommended over another, and none of these is an affiliate link.

Listings updated 2026-11-02. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Zenzanon-PG 65mm f/4 · Zenzanon-PG 100mm f/3.5 · Zenzanon 50mm f/3.5 (SQ) · Zenzanon 40mm f/4 (SQ)

Sources (6)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this lens, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.