Noritar 400mm f/4.5

The Noritar 400mm f/4.5 was the longest lens Norita Kōgaku made for the Norita 66 and the only super-telephoto in the range. Norita’s catalogue printed in 1972, with the print code 0572, lists it as Cat. No. 2009, “the longest focal length in the present range, supplied with a tripod mount support”, with its own hood built in. Its table gives 7 elements in 6 groups, f/4.5 to f/22, a closest focus of 21 ft (6 m), 12° on the diagonal, a 95 mm × 0.75 filter, 107 × 282 mm and 2,300 g. Japanese Wikipedia and Topcon Club give the same construction and filter. On 6×6 it frames about what a 205 mm lens does on 35mm (Topcon Club). Norita’s Japanese price list put it at ¥106,700, or ¥97,400 tax-free. That made it the dearest lens on the list, and nearly the price of the camera with its 80mm f/2 and pentaprism at ¥108,600.

The lens came after the camera. Graflex’s Norita 66 brochure of form 11143/1070 and Norita’s early operating manual both list five lenses from 40 to 240mm. The lenses Amateur Photographer tested on 3 November 1971 were the 40, 55, 160 and 240mm, according to pentaconsix. The 1972 catalogue is the first document found to carry the 400. Its introduction says “a full range of lenses … from the super-wide 40mm to the telephoto 400 mm lens”. The later Operator’s Manual lists it among seven Noritars, and the TTL metering prism leaflet printed in 1973 tells the owner to set the meter at f/4.5 for it. Outside Japan the record is thin. No Graflex document found shows the lens. Another Graflex Norita brochure, as a pentaconsix reader transcribed it in 2017, lists six Noritars from 40 to 240mm, the 70mm among them, and beyond them only Graflex/Zoomar lenses of 90, 300, 500 and 1000mm. Since it includes the 70mm, it is probably later than form 11143/1070, but it is undated. Mike Eckman writes that most advertisements showed the same six lenses, with a 400 “reportedly available, but made in very small numbers”. Pentaconsix found it advertised by a German supplier in 1975/6, and says it is missing from most of the Norita literature the site’s author owns, though a recently acquired brochure mentions it. It ended with the system: Japanese Wikipedia puts the end of Norita 66 production in 1976, while Topcon Club gives 1977 as the last year the camera was sold. No separate end date for the lens is recorded.

Only one version is reported. Hagiya’s history, as English Wikipedia gives it, says the Rittreck 6×6 had three Norita-made lenses, 55, 80 and 160mm, and that the range grew to 400mm only for the Norita 66. Mike Eckman says the Rittreck and its Warner export version had lenses from 40 to 400mm, and camera-wiki’s page on the two cameras gives the same span without separating them, but no Rittron 400 has been found. Pentaconsix’s account of the late MC Noritars names every focal length except the 70mm and this one. The front ring carries NORITAR, 1:4.5 and f=400mm with NORITA KOGAKU JAPAN and the serial. The hood slides forward out of the front of the barrel, and the aperture ring, 4.5 to 22 on equidistant stops, sits ahead of the ribbed focusing grip. Norita’s table gives the diaphragm as automatic with manual control, and Topcon Club describes a lever mechanism working it. The tripod support is a separate part. Topcon Club describes a slim plate fixed to the camera’s tripod socket, running forward to a ring that clamps round the barrel, with a tripod seat between the two. The barrel slides through the ring as it focuses, and the ring can slide along the plate. On the example Coeln Cameras sold, the only one found photographed in detail, the ring is engraved NORITAR 400T. Norita’s own accessory pages leave the lens out. The extension tubes are for the six other Noritars, there is no leather case for it, and the Japanese price list sells filters only in 62, 72 and 77 mm.

No test of the lens has been found. Amateur Photographer’s lens tests of November 1971 did not include it, and no Asahi Camera or other magazine report on it turned up. The catalogue claims that “chromatic aberrations have been eliminated bringing excellent resolution and image contrast”, and no independent source confirms or denies this. Topcon Club, whose page illustrates one, judges it very well made for a medium-format super-telephoto of its time. Given its 282 mm and 2.3 kg, heavier than Topcon’s RE Auto-Topcor 500mm, the author doubts many people ever used it. The only sample photographs found are four that one Flickr user posted in 2011 under the tag noritar400mmf45, three of them also tagged Rittreck 6×6. One, “Tulipe - 1”, is captioned as taken wide open at 1/500 without a tripod.

The sources that comment on its availability all call it rare. Topcon Club says it seldom appears used, and pentaconsix calls it super-rare and hyper-expensive. Pentaconsix recorded eBay sales at US$966.56 in June 2006 and US$799 in February 2010, and Coeln Cameras listed number 4250030 at €1,400 with its rear cap and bracket, now marked sold. A buyer should make sure the tripod support comes with the lens. Without it, 2.3 kg hangs from the breech-lock mount, and the support is not offered as a separate item on any list found. Also check that the hood slides freely, that the diaphragm closes and reopens briskly when its lever is worked, and that the large front element is free of haze and scratches. The lens fits every body with the Norita breech-lock mount, which takes in the Norita 66 and the Graflex Norita. Topcon Club finds the Rittreck 6×6 the same “including the mount”, and a Flickr user’s photographs with this lens are captioned or tagged Rittreck 6×6.

Left open by the sources consulted here: the exact date the lens went on sale, whether Graflex ever sold it in North America, the German supplier’s name, any production figure or serial range, the diaphragm blade count, the coating, and who designed it. Hagiya Takeshi’s chapter on the Norita 66 is known here only through the sources that cite it.