Mirotar T* 500mm f/4.5 (C/Y)
Carl Zeiss · Contax/Yashica · 1975
Also known as: Carl Zeiss Mirotar T* 500mm F4.5 · Contax Mirotar 500mm f/4.5 · Contax Carl Zeiss Mirotar T* 500mm f/4.5 C/Y · Mirotar T* 4,5/500 · Mirotar 4.5/500 T* Contax · Zeiss Mirotar 500 f4.5 CY · Contax Mirotar 500mm F4.5 AEG · コンタックス ミロター 500mm F4.5 · ミロター T* 500mm F4.5 · CONTAX Carl Zeiss Mirotar T* 500mm F4.5 ヤシカ
Variants & identification
| Variant | Mount | Years | Serial ranges | Production |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mirotar 4,5/500 in Contax/Yashica mount, special order (1975–) | Contax/Yashica | 1975 | — | Special order from Zeiss in West Germany (English Wikipedia); owners put the total at about 200 across both mounts (mflenses), against Pacific Rim Camera's 200 for the Contarex version alone |
- Fixed aperture: there is no diaphragm. Contax UK's page states that lenses of this type 'do not have built-in diaphragms' and that exposure is adjusted by shutter speed or neutral-density filters, which is what the built-in three-position turret is for; its f-stop scale reads f/4.5 only. max_aperture and min_aperture are therefore both 4.5. One owner on mflenses puts the turret's effect as a choice between f/4.5 and f/11; on the 1000mm f/5.6 Leitz Auction describes the same turret as f/5.6, 8 and 11.
- Dates: Japanese Wikipedia gives 1975 発売 for the C/Y lens, the year of the RTS; owners on mflenses recall it listed through the late 1970s and 1980s, and Contax UK's website still carried a page for it in 2011. No end date has been published. The design is older: Pacific Rim Camera and English Wikipedia's Contarex lens list date the Contarex-mount Mirotar 500mm f/4.5 (product code 11.2420) to about 1964, and English Wikipedia's Contax table calls the C/Y lens a 'mirror lens developed in the Contarex era', a special-order item from Zeiss Germany.
- Weight and size: 4,500 g and 151×225 mm from Contax UK, English Wikipedia and apotelyt. LensTip's specification page instead gives 235×193 mm, which does not match any other source and may describe the lens with its bellows unit; Contax UK's figure is used. Angle of view 5° (Contax UK, Pacific Rim).
- Filters: Contax UK lists exclusive insert filters UV, Y, O and IR plus the ND turret; an owner on mflenses lists the four as IR, UV, red and yellow, says no polariser was made and that the carrier is specific to the lens. Pacific Rim Camera gives the Contarex version's filter size as S49 and LensTip gives 49 mm, presumably the insert size; the lens has no front thread, so the filter_diameter field is left empty and the arrangement is described in filter_note.
- Coating: Contax UK, Kyocera and Japanese Wikipedia all call it Mirotar T*, and the table follows the maker's designation. An owner on mflenses asserts that the big Mirotars lack Zeiss's T* coatings; nothing else consulted addresses the point.
- Prices: no Contax/Yashica list price has been found in yen, dollars or marks. Pacific Rim Camera gives $1,312 in 1968 for the Contarex-mount lens, which is a different product in a different decade and is not used as this family's price.
- Construction: 5 elements in 5 groups from Contax UK, Japanese Wikipedia (5群5枚), English Wikipedia and apotelyt; Pacific Rim Camera does not give the count for the Contarex version. The compact 500mm f/8 Mirotar of the 1990s is a 6-element, 4-group design with no relation to this one.
How to tell them apart
- The big 500 Mirotar: 4.5 kg, 151 mm across, bellows focusing, slide-in filters and an ND turret, against 795 g, an 82 mm filter thread and a focusing ring on the 500mm f/8. A Mirotar with bellows and no front thread is this lens or the 1000mm f/5.6, which is 250 mm across and 16.5 kg
- Front engraving Carl Zeiss Mirotar 4,5/500; the Contarex-mount original (Zeiss code 11.2420, from about 1964) carries the four-part Contarex bayonet ring where the C/Y lens has the Contax/Yashica bayonet. Apart from the Contarex original, Contax/Yashica is the only mount this lens is recorded in by the sources consulted
- 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 in the finder and meters the light that actually arrives, as owners of the 500mm f/8 describe for that lens
Mirotar 4,5/500 in Contax/Yashica mount, special order (1975–):
- A 4.5 kg, 151 mm wide barrel with a bellows unit between the lens and the body: focusing is done by cranking the body back and forth on the bellows, not by a ring on the lens (Japanese Wikipedia; owners on mflenses)
- No aperture ring and an f-stop scale reading f/4.5 only; a three-position turret for ND filters and a slot for the lens's own insert filters (Contax UK's product page). Owners describe the turret as giving a choice of f/4.5 or an f/11 equivalent (mflenses)
- A carrying handle with a sighting device machined into it, and three metal stubs inside the front of the barrel for accessories that were never listed (mflenses); a 151 mm slip-on front cap and a fitted case for lens and filters (Contax UK)
- Mirotar 4,5/500 in Contax/Yashica mount, special order (1975–): The one C/Y version of a design Zeiss first sold for the Contarex in about 1964 (Zeiss product code 11.2420). It has no diaphragm, so the AE and MM barrel generations of the rest of the line do not apply to it, and nothing consulted records a change to it between 1975 and the end of Contax. Contax UK still listed it beside the 500mm f/8 in 2011, with no mention of the 1000mm.
Specifications
- Formula
- Catadioptric (mirror) telephoto of Contarex ancestry: 5 elements in 5 groups, no diaphragm, focused by a bellows between lens and body, with slide-in filters and a three-position turret for neutral-density filters
- Construction
- 5 elements / 5 groups
- Aperture range
- f/4.5–f/4.5
- Min. focus
- 3.5 m
- Dimensions
- 151 × 225 mm
- Weight
- 4500 g
- Filter
- Slide-in filters of its own (UV, yellow, orange, infrared) and a 3-position ND turret; no front thread
- Years manufactured
- 1975
- Country
- West Germany
- Coating
- T*
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 Mirotar 4,5/500 is the older and larger of the two 500 mm mirror lenses Zeiss offered for the Contax/Yashica mount, and the only one with any claim to be fast: f/4.5 at 500 mm when, as Pacific Rim Camera puts it, most mirror lenses of the length were f/8 and Nikon’s was f/5. It is a Contarex lens by origin. Zeiss built it for Zeiss Ikon’s Contarex system in about 1964 under product code 11.2420, selling it at $1,312 in 1968, and when the Contarex died it carried the design over to the new Contax RTS mount in 1975, with the RTS itself, as a special-order item from Oberkochen. Japanese Wikipedia gives the C/Y release as 1975 and adds that it was very expensive for its time and so awkward to use and carry that few were sold; owners put the total made, across both mounts, at a couple of hundred.
It is built like no other C/Y lens. Five elements in five groups sit in a barrel 151 mm across and 225 mm long weighing 4.5 kg; there is no focusing ring, because focusing is done by a bellows unit between the lens and the camera, the body being cranked back and forth behind the fixed optics (Japanese Wikipedia; owners on mflenses). There is no diaphragm either: Contax UK’s product page states that lenses of this type have none and that exposure is set by shutter speed or by neutral-density filters, for which the lens carries a three-position turret, and its f-stop scale reads f/4.5 only. An owner describes the turret as a choice between f/4.5 and an f/11 equivalent. Colour and UV filters go in a slot of their own (UV, yellow, orange and infrared in Contax UK’s list), with no provision for a polariser and no hood ever offered; a carrying handle with a sighting device machined into it and three unused metal stubs inside the front of the barrel suggest accessories that never came.
Because it has no aperture ring, the AE and MM barrel generations that divide the rest of the Zeiss C/Y line do not apply, and nothing consulted records any change to the lens between 1975 and the end of Contax. How long it stayed on sale is unclear: owners recall it listed through the late 1970s and 1980s, and Contax UK’s website still carried a page for it, next to the compact 500mm f/8, in 2011, long after the 1000mm had gone from the same list. No C/Y list price has been found in any currency.
The one owner’s account found, on mflenses, is of a lens that “can really pull in distant objects” with results that do credit to the optics, but that is bulky and heavy and hard to focus, the depth of field at f/4.5 being shallow and the bellows slow, so that focusing on a monopod in hazy light was “a real pain”; a home-made foam hood helped contrast only marginally in bright directional light. The same owner doubts the big Mirotars carry Zeiss’s T* coating despite the name, a claim nothing else consulted addresses. It is a lens bought now for what it is, and when one appears it should be complete: the bellows unit, the ND turret, the slide-in filters, the 151 mm slip-on cap and the fitted case that held lens and filters together were all specific to it and none can be replaced.
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 Mirotar T* 500mm f/4.5 (C/Y)? We'd love to feature it (with credit).
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