Mirotar T* 1000mm f/5.6 (C/Y)

Carl Zeiss · Contax/Yashica · 1975

Also known as: Carl Zeiss Mirotar T* 1000mm F5.6 · Contax Mirotar 1000mm f/5.6 · Contax Carl Zeiss Mirotar T* 1000mm f/5.6 C/Y · Mirotar T* 5,6/1000 · Mirotar 5.6/1000 T* Contax · Zeiss Mirotar 1000 f5.6 CY · Contax Mirotar 1000mm F5.6 AEG · コンタックスミロター 1000mm F5.6 · ミロター T* 1000mm F5.6 · CONTAX Carl Zeiss Mirotar T* 1000mm F5.6 ヤシカ

Variants & identification

Variant	Mount	Years	Serial ranges	Production
Mirotar 5,6/1000 in Contax/Yashica mount, special order (1975–)	Contax/Yashica	1975	6081383–6081388 (Leitz Auction: the last C/Y serial is 6081388)	22 made between 1976 and 1978 to special order in Contax/Yashica mount, the last serial 6081388 (Leitz Auction lot A01565, which does not name its source); Map Camera's video puts the total at about 22 to 28

Fixed aperture: there is no diaphragm. Leitz Auction describes the C/Y lens's built-in turret of ND filters as f/5.6, 8 and 11, and Contax UK's page on the 500mm f/4.5 states that Mirotar-type lenses have no built-in diaphragm and that exposure is set by shutter speed or ND filters. max_aperture and min_aperture are therefore both 5.6; the turret's two denser positions are neutral-density filters, not stops.
Dates and numbers: Japanese Wikipedia gives 1975 発売 for the C/Y lens, the year of the RTS. Leitz Auction says the 22 C/Y lenses were made between 1976 and 1978, which is compatible with a 1975 announcement and later delivery to special order, but it names no source; Map Camera's video (via SonyAlphaRumors) gives about 22 to 28. For the Contarex original the figures are 23 (Hartmut Theile, Deutsche Photooptik von A–Z, via Japan Camera Hunter; Pacific Rim Camera, 1964–1970) and 'around 28 between 1964 and 1970, mostly on special order', the first batch of 1964 being about 8 lenses (Leitz Auction lot A03165). English Wikipedia's Contarex list dates the Contarex lens to 1964. The end of C/Y sales is not documented; Contax UK's lens list of the 2000s carries both 500 mm Mirotars and no 1000 mm.
Weight and size: 16.5 kg from English Wikipedia and Map Camera's test; Don Zeitz gives 15 kg for his Contarex-mount lens as restored. Diameter 250 mm in both sources; length 420 mm from apotelyt against 470 mm in English Wikipedia's table, which cites Zeiss's datasheet (whose URL returned 404 in November 2026). apotelyt's figure is used in the table and the discrepancy left open; the difference may be the bellows unit or the handle. Angle of view 2.5° (Pacific Rim Camera, for the Contarex version).
Construction: 5 elements in 5 groups from Japanese Wikipedia (5群5枚), English Wikipedia and apotelyt. Leitz Auction describes the folded design, a concave primary mirror with a central hole and a convex secondary. Closest focus 12 m (Japanese and English Wikipedia).
Coating: the maker's designation is Mirotar T* (Kyocera, Japanese Wikipedia) and the table follows it; an owner of the 500mm f/4.5 asserts on mflenses that the big Mirotars lack T* coating, a claim nothing else consulted addresses.
Prices: no Contax/Yashica list price has been found. Prices on record are all for the Contarex-mount lens: $3,990 in 1968 (Pacific Rim Camera, which notes a Porsche 912 cost $3,925 that year; Japan Camera Hunter gives the same figure) and DM 12,925 in 1970 (a rangefinderforum thread), neither of which is used as this family's price. Recent sales: €19,200 with premium for the C/Y lens at Leitz Auction 46; a Contarex lens offered at €4,000 start at Leitz Auction 48; a Contarex lens adapted to Nikon offered at $30,000 by Roberts Imaging in 2016 and two consigned through Japan Camera Hunter in about 2017 at asking prices around $50,000 (Don Zeitz).

How to tell them apart (expand)

The largest lens in the Contax/Yashica line: 16.5 kg, 250 mm across, bellows focusing, a carrying handle, an ND turret and slide-in filters. The 500mm f/4.5 is the same construction at 4.5 kg and 151 mm; the 500mm f/8 is a 795 g lens with a filter thread
Front engraving Carl Zeiss Mirotar 5,6/1000. The Contarex original (Zeiss code 11.2422, 1964–1970, serials in the 49xxxxx range on the one example recorded) has the four-part Contarex bayonet; the C/Y lens carries its mount on an adapter and the 1978 example sold at Leitz came with Contax/Yashica and Hasselblad F adapters. Zeiss made no 1000 mm lens for Contax 645, Contax N or the ZF/ZE lines
Fits every Contax/Yashica body from the RTS of 1975 to the Aria and RX II. With no aperture signal the body shows its own wide-open f-number and meters the light that arrives, as owners of the 500mm f/8 describe

Mirotar 5,6/1000 in Contax/Yashica mount, special order (1975–):

A 16.5 kg barrel 250 mm across with a bellows unit between the lens and the body: focusing is done by moving the body on the bellows, not by a ring on the lens (Japanese Wikipedia; Map Camera's test as reported by SonyAlphaRumors)
No aperture ring; a built-in turret of neutral-density filters marked f/5.6, 8 and 11 sets exposure, and five colour filters in holders slide in (Leitz Auction lot A01565)
The mount is an adapter: the Leitz Auction lens came with both Contax/Yashica and Hasselblad F adapters and a Hasselblad rear cap, so a C/Y Mirotar 1000 may turn up wearing another mount
Supplied in a wooden transport box bearing the lens's serial number, with a bayonet front cap (Leitz Auction, both lots)

Mirotar 5,6/1000 in Contax/Yashica mount, special order (1975–): The one C/Y version of the 1000 mm Mirotar Zeiss built for the Contarex from 1964 (product code 11.2422). It has no diaphragm, so the AE and MM generations of the rest of the line do not apply, and no change to the lens is recorded. The Contarex-mount original is a separate product: Hartmut Theile's count of 23 lenses, all for Contarex, and Pacific Rim Camera's 1964–1970 run of 23 describe that lens, not this one².

Serial-range notes

6081383–6081388: Leitz Auction's lot A01565 is serial 6081383 and its description gives 6081388 as the last Contax/Yashica serial, which with its figure of 22 lenses would put the C/Y run in the 60813xx block. The auction house names no source for either figure. The Contarex lens restored by Don Zeitz and described on Japan Camera Hunter is serial 4954789, a different block from a different decade.

Specifications

Formula: Catadioptric (mirror) telephoto of Contarex ancestry: a concave primary mirror with a central hole and a convex secondary, 5 elements in 5 groups, no diaphragm, focused by a bellows between lens and body, with slide-in filters and a turret of neutral-density filters
Construction: 5 elements / 5 groups
Aperture range: f/5.6–f/5.6
Min. focus: 12 m
Dimensions: 250 × 420 mm
Weight: 16500 g
Filter: Slide-in colour filters of its own (five, with holders) and a built-in ND turret marked f/5.6, 8 and 11; no front thread
Years manufactured: 1975
Country: West Germany
Coating: T*

What reviewers say

SonyAlphaRumors (Andrea Pizzini), reporting Map Camera's video test (blog) — Map Camera's team put a C/Y lens on a Sony α7R V through an adapter and, despite fog inside the glass of their example, found excellent contrast and sharp focus, with the ring bokeh and vignetting giving an "oil painting-like", cinematic rendering; at 16.5 kg on a bellows it is hard to handle and needs a heavy-duty tripod, and the APS-C crop makes it a 1500 mm equivalent.

History

The Mirotar 5,6/1000 is the largest and rarest lens in the Contax/Yashica line, a 16.5 kg mirror telephoto a quarter of a metre across that Zeiss supplied to special order from West Germany. It is a Contarex lens by origin: Zeiss Ikon listed it for the Contarex from 1964 under product code 11.2422, at $3,990 in 1968 (Pacific Rim Camera notes that a Porsche 912 cost $3,925 the same year) and DM 12,925 in 1970, and it had the lowest production of any Contarex lens that was serially made, 23 by Hartmut Theile’s count, around 28 by Leitz Auction’s, the first batch of 1964 amounting to about eight. When the Contarex died Zeiss carried the design to the Contax RTS mount, Japanese Wikipedia dating the C/Y release to 1975; Leitz Auction, selling serial 6081383, says 22 were made between 1976 and 1978 to special order and that the last serial is 6081388. The auction house names no source for those figures, but they are the only ones that exist for the C/Y lens.

It is a 1000 mm lens at f/5.6 when, as Pacific Rim Camera puts it, most 1000 mm mirror lenses were f/11 and Nikon’s was f/6.3, and the speed is what the bulk buys. Five elements in five groups, a concave primary mirror with a central hole and a convex secondary, fold the light into a barrel 250 mm across and, depending on the source, 420 or 470 mm long; the closest focus is 12 m. There is no focusing ring: a bellows unit between the lens and the body moves the camera behind the fixed optics (Japanese Wikipedia; Map Camera’s test). There is no diaphragm: exposure is set with the shutter and with a built-in turret of neutral-density filters marked f/5.6, 8 and 11, and five colour filters in holders slide into the barrel. The mount is an adapter, and the lens sold at Leitz came with both Contax/Yashica and Hasselblad F adapters, a Hasselblad rear cap and the wooden transport box bearing its serial. Because there is no aperture ring, the AE and MM barrel generations of the rest of the Zeiss C/Y line do not apply, and no change to the lens is recorded. When it left the Contax catalogue is not documented; Contax UK’s lens list of the 2000s carries both 500 mm Mirotars and no 1000 mm.

Almost nobody has used one and written it up. The one account found is Map Camera’s video of August 2026, reported in English by SonyAlphaRumors, in which the Tokyo dealer’s staff put a C/Y lens from their anniversary collection on a Sony α7R V and found, despite fog inside the glass, excellent contrast and sharp focus, with the ring-shaped bokeh and vignetting of a mirror lens producing what they called an oil-painting-like, cinematic image; handling it needed a heavy-duty tripod, and in APS-C crop it became a 1500 mm equivalent. Don Zeitz’s piece on Japan Camera Hunter tells the other kind of story, of a Contarex-mount lens that passed through auction with a Canon T-mount glued to its back and was returned to its original mount with parts from a donor Sonnar; the restored lens weighs 15 kg.

The lens is bought and sold as an object. The C/Y example at Leitz Auction 46 made €19,200 with premium against an estimate of €14,000 to €16,000; a Contarex-mount lens from the 1964 batch opened at €4,000 at Leitz Auction 48; a Contarex lens adapted to Nikon was offered at $30,000 by Roberts Imaging in 2016, and two consigned through Japan Camera Hunter in about 2017 carried asking prices around $50,000. Completeness is the whole value: the bellows unit, the ND turret, the filter holders, the mount adapters, the bayonet front cap and the serial-numbered box were made for the one lens and cannot be found separately.

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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.

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