Rikenon 135mm f/3.5 Bellows lens (M42, preset)

The Rikenon 135mm f/3.5 Bellows lens is a short telephoto head made to sit on the front of a bellows rather than screw straight into a camera. Ricoh’s lens tables in the instruction books of the SLX 500 (1975) and the Auto TLS EE (1976) list it among the plain Rikenon lenses, the ones without an automatic diaphragm. It is a simple four-element, four-group design with a preset diaphragm, an 18° angle of view and a 49 mm front filter. The weight is 200 g in the first book and 195 g in the second. Neither table gives a closest-focus distance, because the lens has none of its own: Dr. Ricoh’s list marks it “Preset, needs Bellows”, and the copy he photographs shows no distance scale. Two entries further down, the SLX 500 book lists Ricoh’s bellows attachment “for 135 mm Bellows lens”, with a focusing knob for very close work. The earlier Singlex TLS and TLS 401 books name a bellows attachment but not this lens. No source dates its introduction or says who made it for Ricoh.

It works the same way on every Ricoh M42 body, the Singlex TLS, TLS 401, SLX 500, Singlex II and Auto TLS EE. With a bellows between lens and body there is no automatic diaphragm and no full-aperture metering. You focus wide open, turn the aperture ring down to the preset stop, and meter stopped down. The Sears book for the Auto TLS EE’s twin says to use stopped-down metering whenever a bellows or extension ring sits between lens and camera. It is not an EE lens, so it gives no shutter-priority automation on the Auto TLS EE. Ricoh calls the Auto TLS EE the first AE camera on an M42 mount, but that is the maker’s claim and it is wrong as history: Asahi announced the Pentax ES (Electro Spotmatic), with aperture-priority AE on its screw mount, in 1971.

Only one version is documented, and no Sears-badged version is known. Do not confuse it with two other Ricoh 135s. Dr. Ricoh lists a separate M42 Rikenon 135mm f/3.5 in its own focusing mount, with 1.8 m closest focus and a weight of 380 g. The Auto Rikenon 135mm f/2.8 has an automatic diaphragm and a 55 mm filter. Dr. Ricoh calls this lens the “Telemacro”, but Ricoh’s books just call it the 135 mm Bellows lens. A buyer should check that the engraving reads Rikenon Telephoto Lens 1:3.5 f=135mm and that the barrel has no focusing helicoid or distance scale; a listing title alone may not tell this head from the focusing 135mm f/3.5. Check that the preset ring clicks to its stop and turns freely back to full aperture, and that the rear thread is clean. It is useless without a bellows or a helicoid, so ask whether one comes with it. Check whether it is Ricoh’s Bellows Attachment A or B, or another maker’s M42 bellows.