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

RE Auto-Topcor 85mm f/1.8

Topcon · Exakta · 1972

via machine translation — corrections welcome

Also known as: RE Auto-Topcor 85mm f/1.8 · RE Auto-Topcor 85mm f1.8 · RE Auto Topcor 85mm f1.8 · RE Auto Topcor 85mm f/1.8 · RE.Auto-Topcor 85mm f1.8 · RE.Auto-Topcor 1:1.8 f=85mm · RE Auto-Topcor 1:1.8 85mm · RE Auto-Topcor 85mm 1:1.8 · Auto-Topcor 85mm 1:1.8 · Auto-Topcor 85mm f1.8 · Auto Topcor 85mm f1.8 · Auto Topcor 85mm f/1.8 · Topcon RE Auto-Topcor 85mm f1.8 · Topcon RE Auto Topcor 85mm f/1.8 · Tokyo Kogaku RE Auto-Topcor 85mm f1.8 · Tokyo Kogaku RE. Auto-Topcor 85mm f/1.8 · Tokyo Kogaku Topcor 85mm f1.8 · Topcon 85mm f1.8 · Topcon 85mm f/1.8 · Topcon 85mm 1:1.8 · Topcon 85 1.8 · Topcor 85mm f1.8 · Topcor 85mm f/1.8 · Topcor 85 1.8 · Topcor 1.8/85 · Topcor 1.8/85mm · Beseler Topcon 85mm f1.8 · REオートトプコール 85mm F1.8 · RE オートトプコール 85mm F1.8 · オートトプコール 85mm F1.8 · トプコール 85mm F1.8 · トプコン 85mm F1.8 · トプコン RE Auto-Topcor 85mm F1.8 · トプコン REオートトプコール 85mm F1.8

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
RE.Auto-Topcor 1:1.8 f=85mm, black Exakta 1972 — —
  1. Specifications: 6 elements, 28°30', f/1.8–22, 0.9 m, bayonet hood, 62 mm filter, 480 g (Maxifiche 040). 6 elements, 28.5°, 62 mm, 14¾ oz (420 g), 3 ft (Paillard). Tokyo Kogaku's RE300/RE200 instruction book (Table of Topcor Lenses) gives 6 elements, 28°30', f/1.8–22, 0.9 m (3 ft), 62 mm and 480 g. None gives the groups or the number of blades, so they are not set here. The weight set is the 480 g of the instruction book and the Maxifiche; Paillard's 14¾ oz (420 g) is the outlier.
  2. Date: Topcon Club contradicts itself. Its Super D page says the 85mm f/1.8 was introduced in 1972 with the black Super D, but its lens page places it around the launch of the Super DM (1973), sold late into a market other makers had already taken. English Wikipedia's RE Super article says 'introduced 1973', with no citation on that line. This page uses 1972 as the earliest date claimed. Maxifiche dates the RE Auto-Topcor series as a whole 1963–1976.
  3. Production: Topcon Club reports that fewer than 1,000 were sold and says it had never seen a serial above No.1000. On the MFlenses forum in 2018, calvin83 wrote that 'more than 1000 copies' were made. Neither figure is documented.
  4. Price: the Paillard Incorporated catalogue, from when Paillard was Topcon's exclusive US distributor, lists the lens as no. 80570 at US$247.80 with hood and leather case (US list price). The catalogue is undated but includes the Super DM of 1973. In the same list the 58mm f/1.4 with hood is $200.00 and the 135mm f/3.5 with case $152.75. Topcon Club's English caption says used shops were asking 100,000 yen or more, and several tens of thousands of yen for the hood alone. It thought 60,000–70,000 yen for lens and hood more reasonable. These are dealer asking prices it reported, undated.
  5. The Topcon R (1957): Topcon Club says the R body has no automatic-diaphragm mechanism of its own, because the semi-automatic Auto-Topcors of that camera carried it in the lens. The RE Auto-Topcor fits the R's bayonet, but its diaphragm is closed by a lever in the body, which the R lacks, so nothing on the R stops it down. No source describes this lens on an R. The link is kept with that limit.
  6. The Automatic R (RII), RIII and RS (1960–63): these bodies have the internal stop-down lever that works the automatic diaphragm (Topcon Club, Maxifiche), and Topcon Club notes that many RS bodies are found with RE Auto-Topcors fitted. None of them meters through the lens. The RIII and RS take clip-on meters coupled to the shutter speed only, so the lens's meter coupling does nothing on them. No source describes the 85mm on these bodies specifically.
  7. RE Super, RE-2 (Beseler D-1), Super D and Super DM: open-aperture TTL metering through the lens's coupling (Maxifiche: every RE Auto lens focuses and meters at full aperture; Paillard: 'Focusing and exposure measuring are done at full aperture'). The lens postdates the RE Super and RE-2, but it uses the same RE coupling. RE200 and RE300 (1977–78): Topcon Club says they use the RE mount of the RE Super line and calls the RE300 (as the Exakta EDX3) an open-aperture TTL SLR. Their own lenses were the RE Topcor N series, and no source describes the 85mm on them.
  8. Exakta bodies: Topcon Club says Topcon's release sits on the opposite side to the Exakta's, so lenses worked by an external release arm lose that function when moved between the two. Maxifiche covers Exakta lenses on Topcon bodies only. No source says whether this lens's automatic diaphragm can be worked on an Ihagee Exakta, so this page makes no claim about it.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • The only fast short telephoto in the Topcon RE line: 85mm f/1.8 in a 62 mm filter mount. It is not the RE Auto-Topcor 100mm f/2.8 (49 mm filter) that Topcon Club photographs beside it, and not the R Topcor 9cm f/3.5 preset lens sold shortly after the Topcon R of 1957
  • Fully automatic diaphragm with no preset ring, plus the RE meter coupling, so focusing and metering are done at full aperture on the RE bodies (Maxifiche, Paillard)
  • Exakta-type Topcon RE bayonet. The leaf-shutter Topcons (PR, Wink Mirror, Uni, Unirex, IC-1) used front converters and UV-mount lenses, and an 85mm converter belongs to that line, not to this lens

RE.Auto-Topcor 1:1.8 f=85mm, black:

  • All-black barrel with a ribbed rubber focusing grip, shown with a black metal hood in Topcon Club's photographs. No chrome version was made (Topcon Club)
  • Very large front element for an f/1.8 in a 62 mm filter mount. Topcon Club says it looks big enough to pass for an 85mm f/1.2

Serial-range notes

Serial seen: 13300018
Topcon Club says it had never seen a copy numbered above No.1000, and it reads this as support for the report that fewer than 1,000 were made. A Catawiki lot (catawiki.com/en/l/99895155) was titled with the serial 13300018. On the MFlenses forum (topcor-58mm-f-1-8-t79740) John Shriver wrote that the first digits of a Topcor serial are the lens's code number, so this serial is a code followed by a running number. No source gives the code for this lens, so where the code ends and the running number begins is not known.

Specifications

Construction
6 elements
Aperture range
f/1.8–f/22
Min. focus
0.9 m
Weight
480 g
Filter
62 mm
Years manufactured
1972
Country
Japan
Original price
US$247.80 with hood and leather case (Paillard Incorporated catalogue no. 80570, US list price; undated, it lists the Super DM of 1973)

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 85mm f/1.8 was the only fast short telephoto in Tokyo Kogaku’s RE lens line, and a late addition to it, made for the Topcon Super D and Super DM. Maxifiche, the French collectors’ sheet, names it as the particularly fast lens among the fifteen RE Auto-Topcors. It gives six elements, an angle of view of 28°30’, f/1.8 to f/22, a closest focus of 0.9 m, a bayonet hood and a 62 mm filter. The Paillard catalogue, from when Paillard was Topcon’s US distributor, gives the same six elements and 62 mm filter and a 3 ft closest focus, and sells the lens for portrait work “even in available light”. The two disagree on weight, at 480 g and 420 g; Tokyo Kogaku’s own instruction book for the later RE300 and RE200 lists the lens at 480 g, with the same six elements and 0.9 m. The diaphragm is fully automatic, and the lens carries the RE meter coupling, so on the RE bodies it is focused and metered at full aperture.

The date is not settled. On its Super D page Topcon Club, the Japanese collectors’ site, says the lens was introduced in 1972 with the black Super D, as a fast long lens of the kind then catching on for portraits. Its lens page places it around the launch of the Super DM instead, and English Wikipedia gives 1973. Topcon Club’s lens page also says Topcon came late to the fast-portrait-lens market other makers had already opened, and the lens hardly sold. It reports that fewer than 1,000 were made and says it had never seen a serial above No.1000. One MFlenses poster wrote in 2018 that more than 1,000 were made, so the figure is a report, not a record. The one serial seen, 13300018 in a Catawiki lot title, is a lens code followed by a running number, but no source gives the code for this lens. Topcon’s mount is its development of the Exakta bayonet, and its throat is narrow. Topcon Club says the lens gets round this, as the 58mm f/1.4 does, with a front element big enough to pass for an 85mm f/1.2.

There is one version. From the Super D on, Topcon made every lens except the 20mm and 25mm in black, and Topcon Club says the 85mm was never made in chrome. Paillard sold it with a hood and leather case at US$247.80, a list price, in a catalogue that includes the Super DM. Topcon Club’s English caption reports used shops asking 100,000 yen or more, and several tens of thousands of yen for the hood alone. Topcon Club thought that too much. These were dealer asking prices. Collectors on the MFlenses forum rate it highly. One calls the 58mm f/1.8, 58mm f/1.4 and this lens “very impressive”. Another found it nearly free of chromatic aberration and sharp from full aperture.

The lens fits every Topcon focal-plane reflex but does not work fully on all of them. On the RE Super, RE-2 (Beseler D-1), Super D and Super DM it meters at full aperture. The low-cost RE200 and RE300 of 1977–78 keep what Topcon Club calls the RE mount of the RE Super line, though they were sold with the RE Topcor N lenses. The Automatic R (RII), RIII and RS have the body lever that works the automatic diaphragm, but they cannot meter through the lens. The original R of 1957 has no diaphragm mechanism in the body, so nothing on it stops this lens down. No source describes the lens on an Ihagee Exakta. Topcon Club notes only that Topcon put its release on the opposite side to Exakta’s. Do not confuse it with the 100mm f/2.8 sold beside it, or with the 85mm converter of the leaf-shutter PR line, which belongs to that separate system. When buying, check that the diaphragm snaps shut and reopens when the pin at the rear is pressed, look at the large front element for haze and cleaning marks, and check the focusing: one forum owner’s copy had a stiff helicoid and fungus that spread until a professional service.

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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 85mm f/1.8? 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 (12)

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.