Noritar 70mm f/3.5 (leaf shutter)

Norita Kogaku · Norita 66 · 1972

single source, unconfirmed our own finding

Also known as: Noritar 70mm f/3.5 · Noritar 70mm f3.5 · Noritar 70mm · Noritar 70mm F3.5 leaf shutter · Noritar 3.5/70mm · 70/3,5 Noritar · Norita Noritar 70mm f/3.5 · Norita 70mm f3.5 Noritar · Norita Kogaku Noritar 70mm f/3.5 · Norita 66 Noritar 70mm f/3.5 · Graflex Noritar 70mm f/3.5 · Graflex Norita 70mm f/3.5 · Noritar Professional 70mm f/3.5 · NORITAR 1:3.5 f=70mm · ノリタール 70mm F3.5 · ノリタール70ミリF3.5 · ノリタ 70mm F3.5

Variants & identification

Variant	Mount	Years	Serial ranges	Production
Noritar 70mm f/3.5 with front leaf shutter (1972)	Norita 66	1972–1976	—	—

Construction, aperture range, closest focus, angle of view (59° diagonal, 44° horizontal and vertical), filter, dimensions and weight are from the lens table of Norita's May 1972 brochure; pentaconsix gives the same construction, aperture range, closest focus, filter and weight (it gives no angle of view or dimensions). The diaphragm is listed there as automatic with manual control and equidistant settings. The later Operator's Manual adds "X" sync to 1/500 s on the leaf shutter.
Shutter speeds: 1/2 to 1/500 s in Norita's ©1972 Japanese catalogue (ストロボが½秒から1/500秒までの…) and from the owner who posts as れんずまにあ; the speed ring photographed in the 1972 brochure reads 500 down to 2. collection-appareils' English rendering of a 1972 Photo Argus advertorial gives 1 s to 1/500. No source mentions a B setting on the lens.
The Seiko identification rests on one line of the Japanese catalogue, which runs off the edge of the auction photograph: レンズシャッターはセイコー0… The 0 may begin a size designation, but the rest is not visible. No other source names the shutter's maker or size.
Filter: 77 mm screw-in, pitch 0.75, in the 1972 brochure table and on the Japanese price list (フィルターサイズ77φネジ込); the same brochure lists 77 mm filters (Cat. No. 1011) 'for 40-70-240mm Lens' and a 77 mm lens hood (Cat. No. 1018) for the 70 and 240mm, and pentaconsix gives 77 mm × 0.75. One owner (れんずまにあ) says the filter is 67 mm and the cap a 77 mm push-on. The weight of documents favours 77 mm, but the owner's report is not explained, so the conflict stays open.
Dates: the 1972 start is inferred from the documents listed under the variant; no source states when the lens went on sale. 'May 1972' and 'October 1970' are readings of the print codes 0572 (on a ©1972 brochure) and 1070 (Graflex Form 11143/1070) as month and year. Coeln Cameras' listing dates its example 'c.1970', without giving a reason. 1976 is the year Norita ended Norita 66 production and left the consumer camera and lens business (ja Wikipedia); Topcon Club calls 1977 the last year the system was sold.
Price: ¥54,000 list (¥49,300 tax-free) on an undated Norita price list sold with the ©1972 Japanese catalogue in a 2026 Yahoo! Auctions lot. The rows were checked against the outfit price on the same list (body ¥71,400 + pentaprism ¥12,000 + 80mm ¥25,200 = ¥108,600). Topcon Club gives ¥113,400 for the Norita 66 with standard lens in 1977, so the list is from some other year. No US price for the 70mm was found.
No production figure is given in any source read. One eBay listing (item 387110519451) claims 'only about 500 lenses built' without giving a source; it is not used here.
The single-source flag on this page covers the Seiko shutter, Topcon Club's 1/8 s threshold for the body's focal-plane shutter, and the 67 mm filter figure.

How to tell them apart (expand)

The only Noritar with a shutter of its own: a lever standing out from the barrel, a speed ring from 500 to 2, and a PC flash socket marked X on the barrel. Every other Noritar relies on the body's focal-plane shutter, which syncs electronic flash at X, a nominal 1/40 s, or slower
Bulk is the quickest tell: 93 mm across, 89 mm long and 980 g, against 76 × 62 mm and 440 g for the 80mm f/2 (1972 brochure table)
An uncocked lens shows a black finder: the leaf shutter stays closed until the lever on the lens is worked, which opens it for viewing (れんずまにあ). A dark finder on a lens offered for sale is not by itself a fault
Engraved NORITA KOGAKU JAPAN on the lens in the 1972 brochures, on Procam's example, which came with a Graflex Norita body, and on GearFocus's, which came with a GRAFLEX NORITAR front cap; no Graflex-engraved barrel and no MC version is reported
Breech-lock mount with the locking ring on the lens, the mount the Norita 66 kept from the Rittreck 6×6

Noritar 70mm f/3.5 with front leaf shutter (1972):

Front ring engraved NORITAR 1:3.5 f=70mm with the serial number, and NORITA KOGAKU JAPAN; the same engraving on the lens Norita photographed for its 1972 brochures (no. 4260051), on Procam's example 4260386 and on GearFocus's 4260353
A lever standing out from the shutter section of the barrel (taken here to be the cocking lever; no source labels it in a photograph), a speed ring reading 500 250 125 60 30 15 8 4 2, and a PC flash socket marked X on the side of the barrel, all visible in the 1972 brochure photographs and in Procam's and GearFocus's listing photos
Listed as Cat. No. 2003 in Norita's May 1972 brochure, on the page that names the body-and-lens outfit NORITA 66 PROFESSIONAL

Noritar 70mm f/3.5 with front leaf shutter (1972): The only version reported. It is not in the Graflex brochure printed as Form 11143/1070 (read as October 1970) or the early Norita manual, both of which list five lenses, and it was not among the lenses Amateur Photographer reviewed on 3 November 1971, a week after the body (pentaconsix); Norita's English brochure and Japanese catalogue coded 0572 (read as May 1972) are the first documents found to carry it, and collection-appareils' rendering of a 1972 Photo Argus advertorial describes it too. An undated Graflex Norita brochure described by a pentaconsix reader lists it with the 40, 55, 80, 160 and 240mm lenses, so Graflex offered it, but no Graflex-engraved barrel has been found; GearFocus's example came with a front cap reading GRAFLEX NORITAR. Unlike the 55, 80 and 160mm, no Rittron forerunner is recorded, and pentaconsix's account of the late multicoated (MC) Noritars covers every focal length except this one and the 400mm. English Wikipedia's "75mm f/3.5 lens with built-in shutter" is this lens under a wrong focal length. The 1976 end date is the year Norita stopped making cameras and consumer lenses, not a record for this lens.

Serial-range notes

4260051, 4260296, 4260353, 4260386 (examples seen; no published range): 4260051 is the lens in the photographs of Norita's English brochure and Japanese catalogue of May 1972; 4260296 was sold by Coeln Cameras; 4260386 came with a Graflex Norita body (7136021) at Procam in 2026. 4260353 is engraved on the front ring in a GearFocus listing's photos (2025) and is also the tail of that listing's SKU. All four are seven digits beginning 4260. Four numbers are not enough to say anything about how many were made.

Specifications

Construction: 7 elements / 5 groups
Aperture range: f/3.5–f/22
Shutter: Leaf shutter in the lens, Seiko (the 1972 Japanese catalogue's line, as photographed, breaks off at セイコー0), 1/2–1/500 with X sync at every speed through the lens's own PC socket; cocked on the lens and fired while the body's focal-plane shutter is held open
Min. focus: 0.8 m
Dimensions: 93 × 89 mm
Weight: 980 g
Filter: 77 mm (0.75 mm pitch)
Years manufactured: 1972–1976
Country: Japan
Original price: ¥54,000 list, ¥49,300 tax-free, on an undated Norita price list sold with the ©1972 Japanese catalogue. No US price found. (today ¥170,000)

What reviewers say

Topcon Club (Norita Club 2) (blog) — A collector's lens-by-lens survey of the Noritars. It calls the 70mm an unusual idea that turns the Norita into a leaf-shutter SLR with a working automatic diaphragm, provided the body is set to 1/8 s or slower and the lens's own charge lever has been pulled. In 35mm terms it is about a 42 mm normal, but it is as fat as a compact 500mm mirror lens. Unlike its entries for the 40, 80 and 240mm, it gives no verdict on image quality.

Optical formula

No cross-section found: Norita's 1972 English brochure and Japanese catalogue, the Operator's Manual and the Topcon Club survey give only the 5-group / 7-element count, and no Norita Kogaku patent for the design turned up.

History

The Noritar 70mm f/3.5 was the only lens in the Norita 66 system with a shutter of its own. The body’s cloth focal-plane shutter synchronises electronic flash no faster than its X setting, which the Operator’s Manual gives as 1/40 s. This lens carries a leaf shutter that syncs at every speed to 1/500. Norita’s May 1972 brochure gives it a page under the outfit name NORITA 66 PROFESSIONAL, Cat. No. 2003: “a precise front leaf shutter capable of electronic (strobe) flash synchronization up to 1/500 of a second at all shutter speeds, and a minimum distortion NORITAR 70mm F3.5”, for “news, magazines and professional illustrative reporting”. The later Operator’s Manual recommends it for daylight fill flash, and Topcon Club adds photographing television screens. Its 59° diagonal is a little wider than the 54° of the 80mm standard lens. One owner calls it slightly wide, while Topcon Club calls it a normal lens of about 42 mm in 35mm terms.

The brochure table gives 7 elements in 5 groups, f/3.5 to f/22, closest focus 0.8 m, an automatic diaphragm with equidistant stops, and a 77 mm filter. It also gives 93 × 89 mm and 980 g, which is more than twice the 440 g of the 80mm f/2. Topcon Club compares its girth to a compact 500mm mirror lens, and the same owner calls it large and fat beside rival lenses of its class. Norita’s ©1972 Japanese catalogue names the shutter as a Seiko, but in the only photograph of that page the line runs off the edge after “セイコー0”, so the full designation is not visible. The same catalogue gives the synchronised range as 1/2 to 1/500 s, which matches the same owner’s account and the speed ring photographed in the brochure, reading 500 down to 2. Collection-appareils’ English rendering of a 1972 Photo Argus advertorial says 1 s to 1/500. No source mentions a B setting on the lens.

It came after the camera. The Graflex brochure printed as Form 11143/1070, probably October 1970, and the early Norita manual both list only the 40, 55, 80, 160 and 240mm lenses. Amateur Photographer’s lens reviews of November 1971 covered the 40, 55, 160 and 240mm, according to pentaconsix. The first documents found that include the 70mm are Norita’s English brochure and Japanese catalogue, both ©1972 and coded 0572, which reads as May 1972. An undated Graflex Norita brochure, described by a pentaconsix reader, lists it alongside the 40, 55, 80, 160 and 240mm. An undated Japanese price list sold with the 1972 catalogue gives ¥54,000, close to the 240mm’s ¥56,200 and more than twice the 80mm f/2’s ¥25,200. Only one version is known. No Rittron predecessor is recorded, and pentaconsix’s account of the late multicoated Noritars covers every focal length except this one and the 400mm. The lens in Procam’s Graflex Norita outfit carries the same NORITA KOGAKU engraving, and on the examples seen the Graflex name appears only on a GRAFLEX NORITAR front cap sold with GearFocus’s lens. English Wikipedia’s “75mm f/3.5” leaf-shutter lens is this lens with the wrong focal length.

The detailed accounts agree that the leaf shutter makes the exposure while the focal-plane shutter is held open, but they describe the procedure differently. Topcon Club says that with the body set to 1/8 s or slower the automatic diaphragm works normally and the lens behaves as on a leaf-shutter SLR, but only once its charge lever has been pulled. That owner, who posts as れんずまにあ, gives the sequence in more detail. Until the lens is cocked its shutter is closed and the finder is black, and working the lever opens it for viewing. The speed is set on the lens and the body on B, ideally held open with a locking cable release. The leaf fires a moment after the release is pressed, so the lens is no tool for quick work, and the body’s shutter is closed once the leaf has fired. Photo Argus describes the leaf shutter as “coupled with the camera’s focal-plane shutter”, and Mike Eckman says it “could be used in place of” it.

When buying one, the leaf shutter is the part to check. Fire it at every speed, the slow end especially, and try a flash on the barrel’s own X socket. A black finder on an uncocked lens is normal, not a fault. Norita’s brochure table, its filter and hood listings and the price list all give 77 mm, but the same owner says it takes 67 mm filters with a 77 mm push-on cap, so measure before buying filters. The serial numbers seen are seven digits beginning 4260, from 4260051, the lens in the 1972 brochure photographs, to 4260386.

Several things remain open in the sources consulted here. The shutter’s full Seiko designation is not legible, and no source says whether the lens has a B setting. The filter conflict is unresolved. There is no production figure: an “about 500 built” attributed to an eBay.de listing could not be checked and may be a confusion with that listing’s US$500 asking price. Neither the date the lens went on sale nor the date it ended is recorded. Topcon Club credits the Noritar lenses as a group to 丸山修治, 岸本匡 and 岡崎正義 (probably Maruyama Shūji, Kishimoto Tadashi and Okazaki Masayoshi; the site gives no readings), designers known for their work at Tokyo Kogaku, but does not tie this lens to any one of them. No review found judges its image quality.

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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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