Rittron / Noritar 80mm f/2

Variants & identification

1. Construction, aperture range, closest focus, angle of view, filter, dimensions and weight are Norita's own (1972 catalogue table, Cat. No. 2004) and match Singer Graflex's brochure, form 11143/1070 (15.5 oz / 440 g, 62 mm × 76φ). The Revue Rittreck Six manual gives the Rittron the same 4 groups / 6 elements, f/2–22, 0.85 m and 62 mm, with a 53° angle of view against Norita's 54°. Kamerastore lists an example at 78 × 51 mm and 449 g.
2. The six-blade diaphragm is from Kamerastore's listing alone; no maker document gives a blade count.
3. Dates: the Rittron from the Rittreck 6×6's launch in March 1968 (Hayata Camera Lab). The Noritar by October 1970, from the Graflex brochure's form number (an inference: see original research), Norita's US Noritar trademark filing of 25 February 1970 (camera-wiki) and Norita's own manual, against camera-wiki's 'renamed Noritar in 1972'. The end with Norita's withdrawal from cameras in 1976 (Japanese Wikipedia, camera-wiki); Topcon Club instead gives 1977 as the last year the Norita 66 was sold. No end date for the Rittron and no dates at all for the MC version were found.
4. Coating: Topcon Club calls the 80 multicoated and says the Rittron's coating is the same; pentaconsix.com's author says none of the Norita lenses was multicoated when he was looking at the system in the mid-to-late 1970s, his correspondent Selmar Meents calls the metal-ringed lenses 'the single coated version', and LensRetro calls the lens single-coated. The MC version rests on one report (pentaconsix.com, from a photograph). The single-source flag on this page is for that version and for the blade count.
5. Price: the only lens-alone price found is ¥25,200 (¥23,000 tax-free) on an undated Norita Japanese price list sold with a ©1972 Japanese catalogue (Yahoo! Auctions lot), so 1972 is assumed for it. No lens-alone US or European price was found.

• Rittron 80mm f/2 (1968, chrome, for the Rittreck 6×6): The standard lens of Musashino Kōki's Rittreck 6×6, which Hayata Camera Lab says went on sale in March 1968 at ¥78,500 with this lens, and of its export forms: the Warner 66 (Mike Eckman), the Revue Rittreck Six, whose German manual calls the lens Rittron, and a 'Graphic 6×6' that only Hayata reports. Norita designed and made it (Hayata). Topcon Club says it is 'certainly' Norita's work and the same as the Noritar in everything 'from construction to coating', the only difference being where the preview ring sits. Asahi Camera's New Face column tested it on the Rittreck in April 1969. No end date was found; the Noritar engraving was in use by October 1970 if the Graflex brochure's form number is read as a date (see the Noritar version).
• Noritar 80mm f/2 (1970–1976, black): The Rittron under Norita's own name after Norita took the camera over, optically unchanged (English Wikipedia, citing Hagiya; Topcon Club). Camera-wiki dates the renaming to 1972, but the NORITAR engraving is already on the lens on the cover of Graflex's Norita 66 brochure, form 11143/1070 (read as October 1970; no date is printed), Norita filed its US trademark for the Noritar name on 25 February 1970 (camera-wiki), and Norita's own operator's manual, an edition that already lists seven lenses and the new meter prism, opens '1970 was the year NORITA introduced...'. Norita's 1972 table gives 4 groups / 6 elements, F2–22, 0.85 m, 54° diagonal, a 62 mm × 0.75 filter, 76 × 62 mm and 440 g (15 oz); Graflex's brochure the same, with 15.5 oz. An undated Norita Japanese price list gives ¥25,200 for the lens alone. Asahi Camera's New Face column tested it with the Norita 66 in May 1972. Production ended with the camera in 1976 (Japanese Wikipedia, camera-wiki); Topcon Club calls 1977 the last year the Norita 66 was sold.
• MC Noritar 80mm f/2 (late, multicoated; one report): Known from one report. Pentaconsix.com's correspondent Selmar Meents described the MC 40 mm lenses he owned as marked MC, with diamond-grid rubber focusing rings, and thought the MC lenses were made in small numbers at the end of Norita 66 production; the site's author then found an MC 160 mm and saw a picture of an MC 80 mm. The same author says that when he was looking at the Norita in the mid-to-late 1970s none of its lenses was multicoated, and that the system had virtually ceased production before multicoating came in. A Rangefinder Forum post calls the late multicoated 55, 80 and 160 lenses improvements on the originals. No dated example, serial number or listing of an MC 80 was found for this page.

Specifications

Formula

Gauss type, 6e/4g

Construction

6 elements / 4 groups

Aperture range

f/2–f/22

Diaphragm blades

6

Min. focus

0.85 m

Dimensions

76 × 62 mm

Weight

440 g

Filter

62 mm (0.75 mm pitch)

Years manufactured

1968–1976

Country

Japan

Coating

Disputed: single-coated by pentaconsix.com's and LensRetro's accounts, multicoated by Topcon Club's (amber with cyan and magenta, the same on the Rittron); a late version marked MC is reported

Material

Metal barrel and rings: chrome on the Rittron, black on the Noritar

Original price

¥25,200 (¥23,000 tax-free) for the lens alone, on an undated Norita Kōgaku Japanese price list sold with a ©1972 Japanese catalogue; the same list gives ¥108,600 for the black Norita 66 with this lens and the prism finder. Otherwise only outfit prices are known: ¥78,500 for the Rittreck Six with the Rittron at its March 1968 launch (Hayata Camera Lab), $650 for the Norita with this lens in Modern Photography's December 1974 SLR roundup (Mike Eckman), and ¥113,400 for the Norita 66 with its standard lens in 1977 (Topcon Club). (today ¥79,000)

What reviewers say

• Topcon Club (Norita Club 2) (blog) — Puts the Noritar 80 level with Topcon's Super Topcor 105mm f/4.5 for the Horseman: a slightly cool but accurate colour on negative film, edges a touch soft wide open as usual for a Gauss but hard to see on 120, and, unexpectedly for f/2, a rather weak background blur, which he allows may be down to his subjects. Reports Asahi Camera's New Face column finding very little spherical aberration or focus shift and calling the resolution extremely sharp. via machine translation — corrections welcome
• Mike Eckman (blog) — Two rolls of expired Ektacolor 160 through a Graflex Norita 66 gave sharp, clear frames that he rates as good as any fast medium-format prime from an A-list maker; the fast lens is what drew him to the camera, and he recommends the system for its handling and its optics.
• Aivaras (35mmc), on a Pentax MZ-S (blog) — Bought the Norita for the 80/2's dreamlike rendering. Adapted to a 35mm Pentax it is sharp from wide open with soft, dreamy bokeh and its own colour, though the look differs from what it gives on 120, and the adapter means metering and focusing stopped down with a fiddly aperture coupling. Not worth the fuss, he says, but great fun.
• luisalegria (MFLenses forum) (blog) — A dropped example rebuilt as a manual-diaphragm M42 lens: reasonably sharp at f/2 and a natural portrait lens, but no match for his Zeiss Biotar wide open. He warns that the short flange distance makes Noritars hard to adapt to other medium-format SLRs.
• Hayata Camera Lab (Rittron version) (blog) — A repair shop's sample photographs with a Rittreck Six and its Rittron at f/5.6–f/8 showed, in its words, a lens of very fine rendering, the fastest 6×6 SLR lens in the world when it was new; the piece is mostly about the camera. via machine translation — corrections welcome

History

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 Rittron / Noritar 80mm f/2? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

The listings collector hasn't run for this family yet — check back soon, or search the marketplaces directly meanwhile.