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

RE Topcor 28mm f/2.8 (RE Topcor N series, 1977)

Topcon · Exakta · 1977

via machine translation — corrections welcome

Also known as: RE Topcor 28mm f/2.8 · RE Topcor 28mm f2.8 · RE Topcor 28mm F2.8 · RE Topcor 28mm 1:2.8 · RE Topcor 1:2.8 28mm · RE Topcor 1:2.8 f=28mm · RE Topcor 2.8/28 · RE Topcor 28 2.8 · RE.Topcor 28mm f2.8 · RE-Topcor 28mm f2.8 · RE Topcor N 28mm f2.8 · RE Topcor N 28mm f/2.8 · Topcon RE Topcor 28mm f2.8 · Topcon RE Topcor 28mm f/2.8 · Topcon 28mm f2.8 RE Topcor · Topcon 28mm f/2.8 RE Topcor · Tokyo Kogaku RE Topcor 28mm f2.8 · REトプコール 28mm F2.8 · REトプコールN 28mm F2.8 · RE トプコール 28mm F2.8 · トプコン RE Topcor 28mm F2.8 · トプコン REトプコール 28mm F2.8

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
RE Topcor 28mm f/2.8, black Exakta 1977 — —
  1. Specifications. Tokyo Kogaku's instruction book for the RE300 and RE200 (Table of Topcor Lenses) lists 'RE Topcor 28mm F/2.8 (new)' with 7 elements, a 76° field, automatic diaphragm and full-aperture metering, f/2.8–16, 0.3 m (1 ft), a clamp-mount hood, a 52 mm filter and 230 g; these figures are set here. The same table lists no RE Auto-Topcor 28mm. The Maxifiche's RE lens table predates this lens and lists only the older RE Auto-Topcor 28mm f/2.8 (7 elements, 0.3 m, 49 mm, 240 g). Allphotolenses' contributor page gives 6 blades, 30 cm and 229 g, but its specification table is visibly misaligned (it prints f/1.6 as the maximum and f/2.8 as the minimum aperture, where its own photographs show a 2.8–16 ring), so only the book's figures are used. No source gives the number of groups.
  2. Maker. Topcon Club says the N series was designed by Tokyo Kogaku and made for it by its subcontractor Sima Kogaku (シマ光学), which renamed itself Cima (シィーマ) and launched the Cimko LS-1 after Tokyo Kogaku closed its camera division in 1981, using lenses of the same design. Topcon Club hedges the subcontracting ('seems to have been made', 生産されたようで) on its lens page and states it plainly on its RE300 page. Allphotolenses' contributor says the lens was 'fabricated by Cimko' and that Topcon 'maybe' designed the optics; the Maxifiche says the late bodies were probably built by third parties such as Cimko. Cimko is the later brand of the same works.
  3. Badge versions. Topcon Club says copies of the N-series lenses are seen as EXAKTAR, CARENA and QUANTARAY, and that the lens name changed to EXAKTAR when the RE200 and RE300 were sold as the Exakta EDX 2 and EDX 3. It does not show a 28mm under any of those names, and no source consulted shows one, so no badge variant is listed. Topcon Club also notes that Carena sold some Korean-made Carenar lenses in the Topcon RE mount, so a Carenar 28mm is not necessarily this lens. The K-mount AM Topcor MC 28mm f/2.8, which Topcon Club says has the same optics and barrel with a different mount and multi-coating, is a separate lens.
  4. RE200, RE300, RE Super, Super D, Super DM and RE-2: Topcon Club describes the RE200's mount as the RE mount, Topcon's mount since the RE Super, the Exakta mount with mechanisms added, and calls the RE300 and its Exakta EDX 3 twin open-aperture TTL cameras. The lens was made for the RE200 and RE300. No source describes it on the earlier RE bodies, which share the mount and its meter coupling, so the links are kept without that being confirmed.
  5. RS, RII (Automatic R) and RIII: these bodies have the body stop-down lever Topcon added in 1960, but no TTL meter, so the lens can only be used with the meter uncoupled. No source describes the N-series lenses on them.
  6. R (1957): Topcon Club says the R has no automatic-diaphragm mechanism in the body, everything being in its own semi-automatic Auto-Topcors. On the R nothing in the body closes this lens's diaphragm. No source describes the pairing; the link is kept with that limit.
  7. Exakta bodies: Topcon Club notes that Topcon put its shutter release on the opposite side to Exakta's, so lenses worked by an external preset arm lose that function when swapped between Topcon and Exakta bodies. It says nothing about the RE Topcor N lenses on an Ihagee Exakta, and no other source consulted does either.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Engraved RE Topcor, not RE Auto-Topcor and not AM Topcor MC (the K-mount twin, which says MC and has a Pentax K bayonet)
  • Topcon's RE bayonet: the Exakta-derived mount with the meter coupling of the RE Super; not the UV mount of the leaf-shutter Topcons, whose UV Topcor 28mm is an f/4 (Paillard catalogue)

RE Topcor 28mm f/2.8, black:

  • Black barrel with a rubber focusing grip in a square-block (pyramid) pattern, in the late-1970s style of the other N-series lenses (Allphotolenses' photographs; Topcon Club's photographs of the N-series group)
  • Front ring engraved RE TOPCOR 1:2.8 f=28mm with the serial number, and no AUTO; the copy on Allphotolenses is serial 7012233. The older RE Auto-Topcor 28mm f/2.8 reads RE AUTO-TOPCOR
  • Aperture ring 2.8 to 16; distance scale in feet and metres with depth-of-field marks (Allphotolenses' photographs)
  • No N anywhere on the lens: Topcon Club says the N was only Tokyo Kogaku's in-house label for the new series

Specifications

Construction
7 elements
Aperture range
f/2.8–f/16
Min. focus
0.3 m
Weight
230 g
Filter
52 mm
Years manufactured
1977
Country
Japan
Coating
Single coating with a strong blue cast and no MC marking (Topcon Club, which contrasts it with the blue-violet, magenta-tinged coating of the K-mount AM Topcor MC and guesses the AM version adds one multi-coat layer)

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 Topcor 28mm f/2.8 is the wide-angle of the last lens series Tokyo Kogaku made for its Exakta-derived RE bayonet. Topcon Club, the Japanese collectors’ site, says the 28mm, 35mm, 135mm and 200mm came out with the budget Topcon RE200 in 1977, alongside its new RE Topcor 55mm f/1.7. Its caption puts the 35–100mm zoom in the same 1977 group, but its own paragraph on the zoom calls it the last RE lens, released in 1979. Tokyo Kogaku called them the RE Topcor N series, N for New, to tell them from the earlier RE Auto-Topcors. The N was never engraved on the lenses. Topcon Club says the lenses were designed by Tokyo Kogaku and built for it by a subcontractor, Sima Kogaku. After Tokyo Kogaku closed its camera division in 1981, Sima renamed itself Cima and used the same designs in its Cimko LS-1 system. That is why lens databases call these lenses Cimko-made: Allphotolenses’ contributor page says the 28mm was fabricated by Cimko, and the French Maxifiche says the late bodies were probably built by third parties such as Cimko. Topcon Club’s account explains how the names relate.

This is not the RE Auto-Topcor 28mm f/2.8, an older lens that Topcon Club says did not appear until well after the RE Super’s best years in the mid-1960s. Topcon Club photographs the two side by side. The new lens has a black barrel with a square-block rubber focusing grip, and its front ring reads RE TOPCOR 1:2.8 f=28mm, with no AUTO. Allphotolenses says it resembles the AM Topcors. Those are the K-mount lenses Topcon exported with its K-mount RM300 at the end of the 1970s, and Topcon Club says their optics and barrels are the N series unchanged except for the mount and the coating, which on the AM lenses has magenta added for a blue-violet look and, from the MC marking, probably an extra multi-coat layer. The RE version’s coating has a stronger blue cast. Topcon Club adds that EXAKTAR, CARENA and QUANTARAY copies of the N-series lenses turn up, since the RE200 and RE300 were also sold as the Exakta EDX 2 and EDX 3. No source consulted shows a 28mm under any of those names. Tokyo Kogaku’s own RE300/RE200 instruction book gives its figures: 7 elements, a 76° field, f/2.8 to f/16, 0.3 m closest focus, a 52 mm filter and 230 g, with a clamp-on hood and full-aperture metering. That is the 52 mm filter of the other N-series lenses, not the 49 mm of the RE Auto-Topcor 28mm. No launch price was found.

Opinions of the series are mixed. Topcon Club finds the lenses of this period generally a step down from the RE Auto-Topcors, prone to ghosts and flare against the light, but says they still give the rich tonal gradation of the earlier Topcors once you know their habits. It says the N 35mm, ‘unlike the 28mm’, was not highly regarded, though the passage does not make clear whether it means this lens or the RE Auto-Topcor 28mm it has just praised. The Allphotolenses contributor calls the 28mm very good from full aperture and says it seems rather rare. Topcon Club also notes that long-time Topcon users slight these last lenses, which Tokyo Kogaku did not make itself, and that camera shops tend to offer little for them when buying them in.

The lens was made for the RE200 and RE300, open-aperture TTL bodies. Topcon Club calls their mount the RE mount used since the RE Super, so it fits the RE Super, Super D, Super DM and RE-2 as well, though no source describes it on those bodies. The RS, the Automatic R (RII) and the RIII have the body stop-down lever but no through-the-lens meter. The original R of 1957 has no diaphragm mechanism in the body at all, so nothing on it closes this lens. The lens does not fit the leaf-shutter Topcons (the Wink Mirror, Uni, Unirex and IC-1), which take the UV-mount lenses, and their UV Topcor 28mm is an f/4. When buying, check that the front ring reads RE TOPCOR, and not RE AUTO-TOPCOR or AM TOPCOR MC, which is the K-mount version. Check that the diaphragm closes briskly when the stop-down pin is pressed, and that the rubber focusing band has not perished or slipped.

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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

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

Sample photo wanted — shot with a RE Topcor 28mm f/2.8 (RE Topcor N series, 1977)? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

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 2026-11-09. 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.