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

RE Auto-Topcor 500mm f/5.6

Topcon · Exakta · 1967

via machine translation — corrections welcome

Also known as: RE Auto-Topcor 500mm f/5.6 · RE Auto-Topcor 500mm f5.6 · RE Auto Topcor 500mm f5.6 · RE Auto Topcor 500mm f/5.6 · RE.Auto-Topcor 500mm f5.6 · RE.Auto-Topcor 1:5.6 f=500mm · RE Auto-Topcor 1:5.6 500mm · Topcon RE Auto-Topcor 500mm f5.6 · Topcon RE Auto Topcor 500mm f/5.6 · Tokyo Kogaku RE Auto-Topcor 500mm f5.6 · Tokyo Kogaku Topcor 500mm f5.6 · Topcon 500mm f5.6 · Topcon 500mm f/5.6 · Topcon 500mm 1:5.6 · Topcon 500 5.6 · Topcor 500mm f5.6 · Topcor 500mm f/5.6 · Topcor 5.6/500 · Topcor 500 5.6 · Auto Topcor 500mm f5.6 · Auto-Topcor 500mm f5.6 · Topcon Topcor 500mm · Topcon 500mm Topcor · Beseler Topcon 500mm f5.6 · REオートトプコール 500mm F5.6 · RE オートトプコール 500mm F5.6 · オートトプコール 500mm F5.6 · トプコール 500mm F5.6 · トプコン 500mm F5.6 · トプコン RE Auto-Topcor 500mm F5.6 · トプコン トプコール 500mm

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
RE.Auto-Topcor 1:5.6 f=500mm Exakta 1967 — —
  1. Construction: 5 elements per Maxifiche and the Paillard catalogue. Topcon Club gives '5群6枚' (6 elements in 5 groups) but adds that one of the six is the slide-in UV filter, so the lens is strictly five elements; no source gives the groups for the glass alone, so none is set here.
  2. Closest focus: 8 m per Maxifiche and per Tokyo Kogaku's own RE300/RE200 instruction book, which prints it as '8 m (20 ft.)'; Paillard gives 20 ft (about 6.1 m). 8 m is about 26 ft, so the book's own pairing shows the 20 ft figure as a loose conversion of the maker's 8 m rather than a separate measurement; the maker's metric figure is set. Angle of view 5° on both. Aperture f/5.6 to f/22 (Maxifiche; the instruction book).
  3. Weight: 2,100 g per Maxifiche and Paillard (4.6 lb); Topcon Club gives 2.2 kg. Size: Topcon Club gives 38 cm long with front and rear caps fitted and 11 cm in diameter. Filters: Topcon Club says yellow, orange, red and other filters were made for the slot, and that the front of the barrel is threaded for a 94 mm filter; Paillard lists the slot filter as the lens's filter size.
  4. Dates: Topcon Club's 500mm article says the lens came out in 1967, together with the long-delayed 28mm, after the 200mm f/5.6 of 1965 and before an RE version of the 300mm f/5.6. Its lens page says 'late 1960s'. English Wikipedia gives 1969 without a specific citation. Maxifiche dates the RE Auto-Topcor series as a whole 1963–1976, and the lens is still in Paillard's undated catalogue, which lists the Super DM (1973 per Maxifiche) and the IC-1. No end date for the lens itself is known.
  5. Price: Topcon Club gives the launch price as ¥99,000 with its case, which it says was ¥40,000 more than an RE Super with the f/1.8 standard lens (list price, as reported by Topcon Club). The Paillard Incorporated catalogue, from when Paillard was Topcon's US distributor, lists it as no. 80620 at US$887.20 with UV filter, built-in hood and leather case (US list price; the catalogue is undated but includes the Super DM, so 1973 or later).
  6. The Topcon R (1957): Topcon Club states that the R body has no automatic-diaphragm mechanism, which lived in the semi-automatic lenses of that camera. The RE Auto-Topcor fits the R's Exakta-type bayonet, but its diaphragm is closed by a lever in the body, which the R lacks. Nothing then stops the lens down, and no source describes using it on an R. The link is kept with that limit.
  7. The Automatic R (RII), RIII and RS (1960–62): from the RII the body has an internal stop-down lever for the fully automatic diaphragm of the F Auto-Topcors (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, so the lens's meter coupling does nothing on them. Maxifiche notes that the F Auto-Topcors' meter-coupling finger turns the opposite way to the RE Auto-Topcors', and Topcon Club that many RS bodies are found with RE Auto-Topcors fitted. No source says outright that the RE Auto diaphragm works on the RII or RIII, or describes the 500mm on any of these bodies, so the links are kept with that caveat.
  8. RE Super, RE-2, Super D and Super DM: open-aperture TTL metering through the lens's meter coupling (Maxifiche: all RE Auto lenses focus and meter at full aperture). The Topcon Club author used the lens on a Super DM with a Vivitar (Kenko) 2× teleconverter for Topcon RE. RE200 and RE300 (1977–78): Topcon Club says they use the RE mount of the RE Super line, with CdS TTL metering, and describes the RE300 (as the Exakta EDX3) as an open-aperture TTL body, and the cameras' own instruction book lists the RE Auto-Topcor 500mm f/5.6 in its table of Topcor lenses, with automatic diaphragm and full-aperture metering.
  9. Exakta bodies: Topcon Club says Topcon's release sits on the opposite side to the Exakta's, so lenses with an external release arm lose their function when moved between the two. Maxifiche covers Exakta lenses on Topcon bodies only. No source says whether the RE Auto-Topcor 500mm's diaphragm can be worked on an Ihagee Exakta, so this page makes no claim about it.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • 500mm f/5.6 in the RE Auto-Topcor line, the longest lens Topcon actually sold. The Reflector-Topcor 1000mm f/7 (in the 1958 catalogue, gone by 1959) and the RE Auto-Topcor 1000mm f/11 (about 1970 catalogue, price to be announced) were never sold, so a 1000mm Topcor is a prototype or a mistitled listing
  • A refracting lens with a large front element, not a mirror lens: no central obstruction and no fixed f/8 aperture
  • Exakta-type Topcon RE bayonet. Not the R Topcor 300mm f/5.6 or f/2.8 (preset, longer and heavier in the case of the f/2.8), and not a third-party 500mm in Topcon mount

RE.Auto-Topcor 1:5.6 f=500mm:

  • Black barrel throughout, with a wide ribbed rubber focusing band and a knurled front ring. Front ring engraved RE.Auto-Topcor 1:5.6 f=500mm and Tokyo Kogaku (Topcon Club's photographs)
  • Rotating tripod collar, locked by a round knob just behind the focusing ring. The whole lens barrel turns inside the collar for upright frames, with the camera still on it
  • Telescoping hood built into the front of the barrel, pulled out in one stage (not two, as on the 135mm). Slot near the mount for slide-in filters, the same way the R Topcor 300mm f/2.8 takes them
  • Automatic diaphragm (Paillard): the body closes it at the moment of exposure

Specifications

Construction
5 elements
Aperture range
f/5.6–f/22
Min. focus
8 m
Dimensions
110 mm diameter
Weight
2100 g
Filter
Slide-in rear filter (UV supplied); 94 mm front thread per Topcon Club
Years manufactured
1967
Country
Japan
Original price
¥99,000 with case at launch (list price, as reported by Topcon Club); US$887.20 with UV filter, hood and case in the undated Paillard Incorporated catalogue of the Super DM era (US list price) (today ¥406,000)

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 RE Auto-Topcor 500mm f/5.6 was the only super-telephoto Tokyo Kogaku ever sold for its Topcon reflexes. Before it, the longest Topcors were the preset R Topcor 300mm lenses of the Topcon R years, the f/2.8 of 1957 and a cheaper f/5.6. Topcon Club’s article on the lens points out that other makers had long offered 500, 800 or 1000mm lenses, and that among the major makers only Topcon lagged. Tokyo Kogaku added the 500mm in 1967, the article says, alongside the long-delayed 28mm and ahead of an automatic version of the 300mm f/5.6. Topcon Club’s lens page puts the debut more loosely in the late 1960s, and English Wikipedia gives 1969. At launch it cost ¥99,000 with its case, as Topcon Club reports, which was ¥40,000 more than an RE Super with the f/1.8 standard lens. In the United States, Paillard’s undated catalogue from the Super DM years lists it at $887.20. Both are list prices. Topcon Club adds that the 500mm hardly sold. That helps explain why a companion RE Auto-Topcor 1000mm f/11, shown without a price in a catalogue of about 1970, never reached the shops.

It is a refracting lens, not a mirror. Maxifiche and Paillard both give five elements, a 5° angle of view and 2,100 g, and Maxifiche an aperture range of f/5.6 to f/22. Topcon Club’s figure of six elements in five groups counts the slide-in UV filter, which it treats as part of the optical design. It gives 2.2 kg and a length of 38 cm with both caps on. Filters slide into a slot near the mount, as on the R Topcor 300mm f/2.8: Topcon Club lists yellow, orange and red as well as the UV, and says the front of the barrel is also threaded for a 94 mm filter. The hood telescopes out of the barrel. The lens rotates in its tripod collar, locked by the knob behind the focusing ring, and the camera turns with it. Topcon Club’s lens page explains why the R Topcor 300mm f/2.8 could rotate only its mount while this lens cannot: the automatic diaphragm and meter coupling need the body’s levers to stay in line with the lens. The same linkage means the barrel cannot be split for carrying, as preset teles could. The sources disagree on closest focus, 8 m in Maxifiche against 20 ft in Paillard.

Only one version is recorded. Every example Topcon Club photographs is black, engraved RE.Auto-Topcor 1:5.6 f=500mm on the front ring, with a ribbed rubber focusing band. The cases do change: early ones are glossy black leather with a leather strap, later ones grained leather with a synthetic strap. Both have a compartment under the lid for the spare filters. Topcon Club’s author used his lens on a Super DM, with a Vivitar (Kenko) 2× converter for Topcon RE. He found the 500mm alone sharp and even to the corners, with some fall-off in the corners wide open, and warmer in colour than other Topcors. He also reports that Camera Mainichi’s notoriously severe ‘Lens Hakusho’ tests of the 1970s rated it well.

The lens takes Topcon’s RE bayonet, the Exakta bayonet as Tokyo Kogaku modified it. It meters at full aperture on the RE Super, RE-2, Super D and Super DM, and on the later RE200 and RE300, which keep the RE mount and whose instruction book lists the 500mm with full-aperture metering. The Automatic R (RII), RIII and RS have the internal body stop-down lever introduced for the F Auto-Topcors, and Topcon Club notes that many RS bodies turn up with RE Auto-Topcors fitted, but none of the three meters through the lens and no source describes the 500mm on them. The original Topcon R has no diaphragm mechanism in the body, so nothing in that body is described as closing this lens’s diaphragm. No source says whether the diaphragm can be worked on an Ihagee Exakta, whose release sits on the other side. Do not confuse this lens with the UV Topcors of the leaf-shutter PR, Wink Mirror and Unirex and the focal-plane IC-1: their mount is a different one, and Topcon Club calls this 500mm Topcon’s only super-telephoto.

When buying, check that the diaphragm closes and springs open when the lever at the mount is worked. Check that the collar knob locks and that the barrel turns smoothly in the collar. Make sure the slot filter is present: Topcon Club treats the UV as part of the optics, and Paillard lists it with the lens. A complete outfit includes the leather case with its filter compartment.

Expand Collapse

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

These photographers keep all rights to their work — enjoy it at the source.

Sample photo wanted — shot with a RE Auto-Topcor 500mm f/5.6? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

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

Sources (9)

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.