Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

RE Auto-Topcor 200mm f/5.6

Topcon · Exakta · 1965

via machine translation — corrections welcome

Also known as: RE Auto-Topcor 200mm f/5.6 · RE Auto-Topcor 200mm f5.6 · RE Auto-Topcor 200mm F5.6 · RE Auto Topcor 200mm f5.6 · RE Auto Topcor 200mm f/5.6 · RE.Auto-Topcor 200mm f5.6 · RE. Auto-Topcor 200mm f5.6 · RE.Auto-Topcor 1:5.6 f=200mm · RE Auto-Topcor 1:5.6 200mm · RE Auto-Topcor 5.6/200 · RE-Auto Topcor 200mm f5.6 · Topcon RE Auto-Topcor 200mm f5.6 · Topcon RE Auto Topcor 200mm f/5.6 · Topcon 200mm f5.6 RE.Auto-Topcor · Topcon 200mm f5.6 RE Auto-Topcor · Topcon 200mm f/5.6 RE Auto Topcor · Topcon RE 200mm f5.6 · Topcon RE 200mm f/5.6 · Topcon RE Topcor 200mm f5.6 · Topcon Auto Topcor 200mm f5.6 · Topcon Auto-Topcor 200mm f/5.6 · Topcon Topcor 200mm f5.6 · Topcon 200mm f5.6 · Topcon 200mm f/5.6 · Topcon 200mm F5.6 · Topcor 200mm f5.6 · Topcor 200mm f/5.6 · Auto-Topcor 200mm f5.6 · Auto Topcor 200mm f/5.6 · Tokyo Kogaku RE Auto-Topcor 200mm f5.6 · Beseler Topcon RE Auto-Topcor 200mm f5.6 · REオートトプコール 200mm F5.6 · RE オートトプコール 200mm F5.6 · REオート トプコール 200mm F5.6 · オートトプコール 200mm F5.6 · トプコール 200mm F5.6 · トプコン REオートトプコール 200mm F5.6 · トプコン RE Auto-Topcor 200mm F5.6 · トプコン RE 200mm F5.6 · トプコン 200mm F5.6

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
RE Auto-Topcor 200mm f/5.6, chrome Exakta 1965 983xxxx —
RE Auto-Topcor 200mm f/5.6, black Exakta — 984xxxx About 700 (Topcon Club)²
  1. Launch date. Topcon Club's article on the RE Auto-Topcor 500mm says the 200mm f/5.6 was produced in 1965 (65年にREオート・トプコール200mm F5.6が生産されて), after which an automatic 300mm was expected but the 500mm and 28mm came first in 1967. Its lens page places the 200mm in the mid-1960s or later (60年代半ば以降), a little after the other RE lenses, and its 200mm test report says Topcon brought out each of its 200mm lenses a little later than its other focal lengths. English Wikipedia's lens list gives 'introduced 1966' without a citation for that line. This page uses 1965.
  2. Production. Topcon Club's figure of about 700 comes in its paragraph on the black lens and reads, in context, as the output of the black version; it gives no figure for the chrome lens. No source says the 700 is a factory record.
  3. End date. Paillard's US catalogue (1973 or later) lists the lens, and the RE300/RE200 instruction book (1977–78) still has it in its table of Topcor lenses beside the new RE Topcor 200mm f/3.3. Topcon Club dates the N series to 1977 and says that for the five years from 1973 the f/5.6 was in effect only kept in the catalogue. No final year is set.
  4. Specifications. Five elements, 12°30', f/5.6–22, 3 m closest focus, 49 mm filter and 440 g in both the Maxifiche and the RE300/RE200 instruction book. Paillard gives 12°, 10 ft (about 3.05 m) and 16¼ oz (460 g). The blade count, the number of groups and the dimensions were not found. Topcon Club says the preset R Topcor 200mm f/4 has more blades than the automatic 200mm lenses, without giving numbers.
  5. Topcon R (1957): Topcon Club says the R body has no automatic-diaphragm mechanism; the semi-automatic lenses of that camera carried it themselves. The lens fits the R's Exakta-type bayonet and focuses, but no source describes how its diaphragm is closed on an R, which lacks the body lever that closes it. Topcon Club lists a Topcon R as the camera for its 200mm comparison, which included this lens, but does not say which body each lens was shot on. The link is kept with that limit.
  6. Automatic R (RII), RIII and RS (1960–63): from the RII the body has the internal lever that closes an automatic diaphragm (Topcon Club, Maxifiche). None of these bodies meters through the lens; the RIII and RS take clip-on meters coupled only to the shutter speed (Maxifiche), so the lens's meter coupling does nothing on them. Topcon Club notes that many RS bodies are found with RE Auto-Topcors fitted. No source describes the 200mm on these bodies specifically.
  7. RE Super, RE-2, Super D and Super DM: full-aperture TTL metering (Maxifiche: every RE Auto-Topcor focuses and meters at full aperture; Paillard: 'Focusing and exposure measurement are done at full aperture').
  8. RE200 and RE300 (1977–78): the cameras' instruction book lists the RE Auto-Topcor 200mm f/5.6 among the lenses for them, with automatic diaphragm and full-aperture metering.
  9. Ihagee Exakta bodies: Topcon Club says Topcon put the release on the opposite side to the Exakta's, so lenses with a protruding preset arm lose their function when moved between the two makes. The Maxifiche covers Exakta lenses on Topcon bodies only. No source says whether this lens's diaphragm can be worked on an Ihagee Exakta, so no claim is made. The Maxifiche's warning that the F Auto-Topcors of 1960–62 must not be used on RE bodies, because their coupling finger turns the other way, does not concern this lens.
  10. ⁰ Earlier black lenses. Topcon Club's Super D page says that before 1972 even black RE Auto-Topcor barrels of 28mm to 200mm had a plated ring at the front, and that in the RE Super years the white barrels were dropped for lenses supplied with black bodies. Read literally, that allows a black 200mm f/5.6 with a plated front ring before the Super D, but no source shows one or says which serial prefix it would carry, so it is not listed as a variant.
  11. ¹ IC-1: Paillard's catalogue says that with the RE Macro Mount Adapter (#83734) all RE Auto-Topcor lenses can be used on the IC-1, but the RE lenses will not focus at infinity. The IC-1 is not a Topcon RE-mount body and is not linked.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • RE Auto-Topcor and f/5.6 on the front ring. The preset R Topcor 200mm f/4 (heavier, manual preset diaphragm) and the short, fairly heavy RE Topcor 200mm f/3.3 of 1977 are the other Exakta-mount 200mm Topcors (Topcon Club)
  • One aperture ring, 5.6 to 22, and no preset ring: the diaphragm stays open for viewing and the body closes it at the moment of exposure
  • Slim, light barrel with a built-in single-section hood that slides forward; 49 mm front filter thread, 'the same as most other Topcor lenses' (Paillard)
  • Topcon RE (Exakta-type) bayonet. Not the UV Topcor 200mm f/4 of the UV-mount Topcons (Paillard lists it for the IC-1), a different lens in a different mount

RE Auto-Topcor 200mm f/5.6, chrome:

  • Satin-chrome barrel: Topcon Club describes the RE Auto-Topcor 'white' barrels as a fine sand-finish plating matched to the chrome body, and photographs this lens beside the black copy
  • Serial number beginning 983 (Topcon Club)
  • Long, slim barrel with a single-section hood built in that slides forward over the front element

RE Auto-Topcor 200mm f/5.6, black:

  • Black barrel, otherwise identical: Topcon Club found no change other than the colour
  • Serial number beginning 984 (Topcon Club)

Serial-range notes

983xxxx chrome, 984xxxx black
Topcon Club gives the two prefixes (捨番, the leading code digits) and says the black lens differs from the chrome only in colour. The number of digits after the prefix is not stated; seven-digit numbers are written here on the pattern John Shriver describes on the MFlenses forum, where the first digits of a Topcor serial are the lens code. No serial-to-date table exists.

Specifications

Construction
5 elements
Aperture range
f/5.6–f/22
Min. focus
3 m
Weight
440 g
Filter
49 mm
Years manufactured
1965
Country
Japan
Original price
US$205.20 list with built-in hood and leather case, catalogue no. 80600 (Paillard Incorporated's undated US Topcon catalogue, which also lists the Super DM and the IC-1, both of 1973, so 1973 or later). No Japanese list price found.

What reviewers say

History

The RE Auto-Topcor 200mm f/5.6 was the automatic long telephoto of the Topcon RE system, the line of Exakta-bayonet reflexes Tokyo Kogaku built from the RE Super of 1963. It has five elements (Maxifiche, Paillard and the RE300/RE200 instruction book all agree), stops down from f/5.6 to f/22, focuses to 3 m (10 ft), and takes 49 mm filters, which Paillard notes is the size of most other Topcor lenses. Its hood is built into the barrel and slides forward over the front element. Paillard Incorporated, Topcon’s exclusive US distributor in the 1970s, called it a “4 power compact, lightweight telephoto lens” and listed it at US$205.20 with hood and leather case. That is a US list price from an undated catalogue that also lists the Super DM and IC-1 of 1973, so it dates from 1973 or later. The Maxifiche and the instruction book give 440 g, Paillard 460 g.

It was not simply the old preset lens with an automatic diaphragm. In the Topcon R years Tokyo Kogaku had made the R Topcor 200mm f/4, a preset lens. Topcon Club, the Japanese collectors’ site, notes that Topcon did not make that design fully automatic. Instead it built this separate, slower lens, and Topcon Club’s English text asks why the aperture went down from f/4 to f/5.6. In return the lens is slim and much lighter than the f/4. Its article on the 500mm dates the 200mm to 1965. Its lens page puts it in the mid-1960s, a little after the other RE lenses, and English Wikipedia gives 1966. Paillard still listed it in 1973 or later, and the RE300/RE200 instruction book of 1977–78 still has it in its lens table, next to the new RE Topcor 200mm f/3.3. Topcon Club dates the N-series f/3.3 to 1977 and says that for the five years before it the f/5.6 was in effect only kept in the catalogue.

There are two versions, told apart by finish and serial number. The chrome lens of the RE Super years has serials beginning 983. When the RE Auto-Topcors went over to black barrels in the Super D years from 1972, the 200mm was the last to change, apart from the 20mm and 25mm, which never did. The black lens has serials beginning 984. Topcon Club found no other difference. It also says that by then Topcon’s cameras were no longer competitive and the lens hardly sold, and puts the number made at about 700. In its 2001 test of every Topcor 200mm, Topcon Club found this lens a step behind the R Topcor f/4 when shot wide open at f/5.6, but good at f/8. On its lens page it still rates the f/5.6 the best of the three Exakta-mount 200mm lenses for sharpness, while preferring the f/4’s softer out-of-focus rendering.

The mount is Topcon’s RE bayonet, the Exakta bayonet as Tokyo Kogaku modified it. The lens focuses and meters at full aperture on the RE Super, RE-2, Super D and Super DM, and the RE200 and RE300 instruction book lists it with full-aperture metering. The Automatic R (RII), RIII and RS have the body lever that closes an automatic diaphragm but no through-the-lens meter, so on them you use the clip-on or a hand-held meter. The original Topcon R has no diaphragm mechanism in the body. The lens fits it, but no source says how its diaphragm would be closed there. Topcon put its release on the opposite side to the Exakta’s, and no source says whether this lens’s diaphragm works on an Ihagee Exakta. It does not mount directly on the leaf-shutter Topcons or on the UV-bayonet IC-1 of 1973, whose UV Topcor 200mm f/4 is a different lens. Paillard did sell an RE Macro Mount Adapter (#83734) that lets every RE Auto-Topcor be used on the IC-1, but warns that with it the RE lenses no longer focus at infinity.

When buying, read the front ring. Sellers often write only “Topcon 200mm”, and the R Topcor f/4 and the RE Topcor f/3.3 are different lenses. Work the diaphragm lever at the mount: the blades should close to the set aperture and spring back open at once. Check that the hood slides freely and stays where it is put, that focus reaches infinity, and that the rear element is free of haze. Topcon Club says that of the three Exakta-mount 200mm Topcors this is the only one seen often on the used market. Its figure of about 700 made comes in its paragraph on the black version, with its 984 serial, and reads as applying to that; it gives none for the chrome.

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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.

Example photos

More sample photos elsewhere

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Sample photo wanted — shot with a RE Auto-Topcor 200mm f/5.6? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $75 across 8 fixed-price listings on 2026-11-10 (middle half $65–$100). First day tracked.

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

Buying from Yahoo! Auctions outside Japan. It is a domestic marketplace: sellers ship within Japan, and most will not register an overseas buyer. A proxy service bids on your behalf, receives the item and forwards it, for a fee and a wait. Buyee, Jauce and ZenMarket each accept a Yahoo auction number directly. Listed alphabetically for information — none is recommended over another, and none of these is an affiliate link.

Listings updated 2026-11-10. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Sources (10)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this lens, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.