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

Telemegor 250mm f/5.5

Meyer-Optik Görlitz · Pentacon Six + Exakta + M42 + Other · 1936

Also known as: Telemegor 250mm f/5.5 · Telemegor 250mm f5.5 · Telemegor 250mm f/5,5 · Telemegor 250mm 1:5.5 · Telemegor 1:5,5/250 · Telemegor 1:5.5/250 · Telemegor 5,5/250 · Telemegor 5.5/250 · Telemegor 5.5/250mm · Telemegor 5,5/250mm · Telemegor 250/5.5 · Telemegor 250 5.5 · Telemegor 250mm · Telemegor 250 · Tele-Megor 250mm · Tele Megor 250mm · Tele Megor 5.5/250mm · Tele-Megor 5,5/250 · Meyer Telemegor 250mm f5.5 · Meyer-Optik Görlitz Telemegor 5,5/250 · Телемегор 250

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Exakta, early aluminium Exakta 1936 1109499 (Wrotniak's own example) —
Exakta, postwar (manual, then preset) Exakta 1951 — —
35mm SLR, M42 mount M42 — — —
Reflex-Korelle / Meister-Korelle (6×6) Reflex-Korelle / Meister-Korelle bayonet (6×6) — — —
Primarflex (6×6) Primarflex (6×6) — — —
Praktisix / Pentacon Six, black Praktisix / Pentacon Six (set-screw adapter) — 1209180 (the one series lens Bobsin knew in 2013) —
  1. Not listed as a version: Bobsin records a Praktisix prototype in a zebra-ringed barrel, reworked to match the other Praktisix lenses, without pressure diaphragm, number 34 999 502 (photograph by Steffen Wolf, Dresden). It is a factory sample, not a production lens.
  2. Dates: Wrotniak dates the Exakta lens to 1936 and Kröger calls the 250 and 400 mid-1930s designs; Kröger says the Telemegor 1:5,5 series first appeared in 1932 for plate cameras, but no source puts the 250 among the first focal lengths. After the war Kröger says the Telemegors were available again from the end of the 1940s, first in bright aluminium and later black, and that the 250 and 400 were soon replaced by the Telemegor 4,5/300. pentaconsix.com finds the 250 in a Meyer brochure of about 1957 listed for 24 × 36 only, and not in the 1963 catalogue. The DDR price list still has it in 1960. No end date is given.
  3. Closest focus: 3.3 m in Bobsin, Wrotniak and Kamerastore; 3.5 m in TRA's table at pentaconsix.com.
  4. Filter thread: 50 mm on the prewar Exakta lens (Wrotniak), 58 mm on the 1951 Exakta lens (Aguila & Rouah via Wrotniak) and on Kamerastore's M42 lenses, 52 × 0.75 mm on the Praktisix lens (TRA, by his own measurement, and Bobsin). Bobsin says the 35mm lens was built slightly differently from the medium-format one, and the different thread and weight (584 g against 460–475 g) agree with that.
  5. Diaphragm: in his passage on the 250, right after mentioning the 35mm version, Bobsin says that neither a preset nor a click-stop diaphragm was fitted, without making clear whether he means every version; Kröger says a preset was added to the postwar Telemegors after a short time, Aguila & Rouah list a preset Exakta lens of 1957, Kamerastore's M42 lenses are preset, TRA describes all the early Meyer Praktisix lenses except the Primotar E as manual preset lenses, and the 1960 DDR price list prices the lens with a preset diaphragm.
  6. Price: Marco Kröger's compilation of DDR retail list prices gives 175 Mark for the Telemegor 5,5/250 with preset diaphragm in 1960, mount not stated. No other period price is recorded here.
  7. Not on this page: the wartime Tele-Megor 25 cm f/5.5 that Hugo Meyer supplied for the Ross HK 7 aerial camera has a page of its own. It has the same name, focal length and aperture, and Bobsin's account of one barrel fitted to each camera by an adapter would allow it to be this optic in a Ross mount, but Hasselblad Historical, the only source on the Ross lenses, gives no construction, so the two are kept apart. A Ross lens has its barrel engraved with the serial number of the camera it was fitted to.
  8. Other mounts: the ihagee.org Exakta lens list also has a Telemegor 250/5.5 with manual diaphragm under its code 66V (apparently the Exakta 66) and a 'Tele Megor' 250/5.5 with manual diaphragm under VP2. No example of either has been recorded, so they are not listed as versions.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Telemegor name with 1:5,5 and the 250 focal length (sellers also write Tele-Megor); a slim, light barrel for its focal length with a tripod mount
  • On the older lenses the camera mount is a separate adapter secured by a locking ring and set screws, so a lens can have been re-mounted since it left Görlitz: check that the adapter is tight and the set screws present (Bobsin)
  • Not the Telemegor 4,5/300 of 1955, which has an 82 mm filter and a fixed mount, nor the Telemegor 5,5/180 or 5,5/400

Exakta, early aluminium:

  • Aluminium barrel with a fixed, non-rotating tripod mount and a detachable hood (Wrotniak)
  • Plain manual diaphragm to f/22, no presetting and no click stops; 50 mm filter thread; focuses to 3.3 m (Wrotniak)
  • Probably uncoated: Bobsin says the Telemegors of earlier systems he pictures differ optically from the Praktisix lenses only in having no coating; no source records the coating of this Exakta lens

Exakta, postwar (manual, then preset):

  • Exakta bayonet at the rear; 58 mm filter thread and a rotating tripod ring (Aguila & Rouah, as listed by Wrotniak; the ring is marked uncertain on the 1951 lens)
  • The 1951 lens has a plain manual diaphragm; a 1957 version has a preset diaphragm (Aguila & Rouah via Wrotniak)
  • A French collector's example, recorded as East German, has the Exakta bayonet, closes to f/22 and has an integrated hood (collection-appareils.fr)

35mm SLR, M42 mount:

  • M42 screw thread at the rear; black barrel
  • Preset diaphragm, 58 mm filter thread, 3.3 m closest focus; Kamerastore gives 198 × 66 mm and 584 g

Reflex-Korelle / Meister-Korelle (6×6):

  • Unpainted barrel (Bobsin says the black Praktisix lens differs from this version only in its lacquer); the camera mount is a separate adapter held on by a locking ring and set screws (Bobsin)
  • Bobsin says the Meister-Korelle and Primarflex lenses are identical apart from this adapter

Primarflex (6×6):

  • Unpainted barrel with the set-screw adapter for the Curt Bentzin Primarflex (Bobsin)
  • Optically and mechanically the same lens as the Korelle version apart from the adapter (Bobsin)

Praktisix / Pentacon Six, black:

  • Black-lacquered barrel on the old Meyer adapter system, otherwise like the aluminium Primarflex and Meister-Korelle lenses (Bobsin)
  • Diaphragm 5.5 to 22 (Bobsin) with no automatic-diaphragm pin (TRA); 52 mm filter thread
  • Engraved 'Made in Germany', with no 'DDR' or 'Made in G.D.R.' (TRA, from Kenneth Loen's example)
  • Bobsin gives 166 mm long without caps, 75 mm across without the tripod ring and 475 g; TRA gives 135 mm from the base of the mount without hood, 165 mm with the factory hood, and 460 g

Specifications

Formula
True telephoto of the Telemegor 1:5,5 series: a positive front member and a negative rear member with a wide air space between them, four elements in two groups (pentaconsix.com; Kröger for the series)
Designed by
Roeschlein Stefan — Kröger credits him with Meyer's series of true telephotos of the early and mid-1930s, of which the Telemegor 1:5,5 lenses are part; no source names the designer of the 250 individually
Construction
4 elements / 2 groups
Aperture range
f/5.5–f/22
Min. focus
3.3 m
Filter
50 mm (Exakta, early aluminium) · 58 mm (Exakta, postwar (manual, then preset), 35mm SLR, M42 mount) · 52 mm (0.75 mm pitch) (Praktisix / Pentacon Six, black)
Years manufactured
1936
Country
Germany (Görlitz); East Germany after the war
Original price
175 Mark (DDR retail list price, 1960, preset-diaphragm version, mount not stated), from Marco Kröger's compilation of DDR price lists

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 Telemegor 250mm f/5.5 is one of the long lenses of Meyer’s Telemegor 1:5,5 series, which Marco Kröger credits to Stefan Roeschlein. Kröger describes Roeschlein’s time at Görlitz as a fairly short one, ending when he left for Schneider in Kreuznach on 1 July 1936. The series is made of true telephotos: a positive front member and a negative rear member with a wide air space between them, four elements in two groups, so the lens is much shorter than its focal length. Kröger says the series appeared in 1932 for plate cameras and was then fitted to the new 35mm and 6×6 reflexes. J. Andrzej Wrotniak gives 1936 as the year the Exakta-mount 250 was introduced, and by 1939 Meyer listed Telemegors for the Exakta, the Primarflex and the Reflex-Korelle. On the mflenses forum one owner called it very slim and light for a 250 but rather average optically, and another found it average especially wide open, sharpening up a bit when stopped down. Kröger calls the design somewhat dated by the 1950s.

Meyer made the long lenses in one standard barrel and married each to a camera when it was ordered. Carsten Bobsin explains that the barrel ends in a wide external thread. The camera adapter screws onto it and is held by a locking ring and set screws. The Primarflex and Meister-Korelle lenses are identical apart from that adapter. Bobsin says the lenses of the earlier systems are optically the same as the Praktisix ones but uncoated, and Wrotniak records an aluminium Exakta lens from his own collection with a 50 mm filter thread, a fixed tripod foot and a plain manual diaphragm. After the war the Telemegors came back, from the late 1940s by Kröger’s account, as inexpensive amateur lenses. They were aluminium at first, later lacquered black, and gained a preset diaphragm. Aguila and Rouah, as Wrotniak lists them, have an Exakta 250 of 1951 with a manual diaphragm and a 58 mm filter, and a preset one of 1957. Kamerastore has sold preset M42 lenses with a 58 mm filter at 584 g. Bobsin notes that the 35mm version was built slightly differently from the medium-format one. Kröger’s table of DDR retail prices gives 175 Mark in 1960 for the lens with preset diaphragm. Kröger says the 250 and 400 were soon replaced by the Telemegor 4,5/300 of 1955, and pentaconsix.com finds the 250 missing from Meyer’s 1963 catalogue.

The Praktisix version is the rare one. Bobsin’s survey of the Meyer lenses for the camera found a prototype in a zebra-ringed barrel and only one series lens, black, numbered 1209180, on the old set-screw adapter and otherwise like the Primarflex and Meister-Korelle lenses. It has a 52 mm filter thread and weighs 475 g, and TRA notes that it has no automatic-diaphragm pin. Bobsin says the lens is never named in a Görlitz brochure. It appears in some 1958 wholesale catalogues and in Pentacon’s part-number register. Its serial suggests the early 1950s, and he thinks it may have been an unsold Primarflex or Korelle lens that was repainted and fitted with a Praktisix adapter at the works as a sample. TRA at pentaconsix.com shows a second example, from Kenneth Loen’s collection, engraved “Made in Germany” rather than with the later “DDR”. He reads his brochures as showing the lens available in Praktisix mount from 1957 until some time before 1963. His Meyer brochure of about 1957 lists the 250 for 24 × 36 only, and no source gives production figures.

When buying, read the rear of the lens before the front. The same engraved head can sit on an Exakta, M42, Primarflex, Korelle or Praktisix adapter, and because the older adapters are held only by set screws, a lens may have been re-mounted by someone other than Meyer. A black lens with a 52 mm thread on a Praktisix bayonet is the scarce one. Check that the set screws are present and the adapter does not turn, and that the long helicoid moves evenly. Early aluminium lenses are probably uncoated. Titles that pair “Telemegor” with 4,5, 300 or 82 mm are the later 300, and “Orestegor” is the successor line. The Hugo Meyer Tele-Megor 25 cm of the wartime Ross HK 7 aerial camera is a separate entry: the same name and specification, possibly the same optic, but hand-fitted to a Ross bayonet and engraved with the serial number of the camera it served.

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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

Sample photo taken with the Telemegor 250mm f/5.5
Telemegor 1:5,5/250 mm in M42 mount, bought in Germany in the late 1950s or early 1960s according to the uploader — Christian Fischer (Fice), via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

More sample photos elsewhere

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

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Telemegor 250mm f/5.5? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $170 across 32 fixed-price listings on 2026-11-10 (middle half $99–$250). First day tracked.

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

Show 34 more listings

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

Related: Tele-Megor 25cm f/5.5 (HK 7)

Sources (7)

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.