Rare?? Unique topcor lens. Help

Ive had my Beseler Topcon Super D (RE) for 12 years. Perfect condition and so old that it still had mercury batteries from the 60s when i got it in a free auction. The only reason I've never used it is because....The extreme crazy lens it has (and my cheapness to buy one on ebay). i have fiddled with it for years, scoured the internet for answers.

But if anyone, someone, could help my 12 years of searching, please.

Specs: Macro Topcor 1:3.5 f=5.8cm ...(Tokyo kogaku japan 1010220)

The lens....mount...can come apart in half and has a 'clamp' which i still havent figured out, as well as very large bellows. stupid heavy and inconvenient especially for the purpose this camera was made, to shoot the war.

if u have answers- thank you

 

Edited May 15, 2019 by Elderberry

I am not that familiar with Topcon cameras but that looks like a focusing bellows and lens for close up photography. If you are trying to "shoot the war" with this setup it will not work. It is only for close up macro work.

Errr, which war would that have been? Suez crisis, Korean, Malaysian?

 

I suspect that lens and bellows post-date all of those.

 

So, what's the question you want answered? I don't see a direct question in your post.

Urban legend has it the US Navy bought Topcons in the mistaken belief that the name of the American importer "Beseler" engraved on them indicated they were a USA knockoff of the Nikon F. By the time someone noticed they were 100% Japanese with an old German lens mount, it was too late to back out (not that there were actually any US-made SLRs comparable to Japanese SLRs, anyway). Given the time frame of manufacture (1963-1976) the only war they could have documented was Vietnam.

 

Many Topcon lenses had excellent optical performance for their era, with most anything other than the f/1.8 standard lens being somewhat collectible today. Your Macro Topcor 1:3.5 f=5.8cm was the earliest macro version, primarily designed for very close work using the front half of the lens mounted on the bellows (as you show in your pics). You did not show what the other "half" of your lens looks like: I would guess it is the matching detachable helicoid focusing tube. This (presumably) allows mounting the lens directly on the camera without the bellows, for normal distances and infinity.

 

The "clamp" might have something to do with pre-setting the aperture: this lens does not have an automatic stop-down and re-open aperture (whatever aperture you select is stopped down immediately, you need to manually open up all the way for brighter focusing, then remember to stop down again before shooting). As a convenience, such lenses often have a pre-set ring/lever that remembers your chosen stop, so you can flick from wide open f/3.5 to, say, f/8.0 without taking your eye from the viewfinder to look at the lens markings. Not sure that applies here: little is known about this lens, and it isn't clear from pics of it how it might work.

 

If you aren't the least bit interested in slow macro closeup photography, this special-purpose lens is worthless to you. List it on eBay as a package deal with the bellows: some collector is sure to buy it from you. Use the money from the sale to buy one of the standard lenses instead, RE Auto-Topcor 5.8cm f/1.4 or f/1.8. These couple to the meter, and automatically stop down when you take the shot like any other modern lens. Prices are unpredictable, of course, but at the moment I'm pretty sure you could swap this macro lens and bellows for the very desirable 5.8cm f/1.4 at no additional cost to yourself.

Edited May 20, 2019 by orsetto

That's a typical macro setup similar to most other cameras of the era. Even Leica rangefinders had lenses in which the lens head separated from their basic focusing unit for macro use with a separate focusing helicoid or bellows. The recessed front element and f/3.5 on a 50mm lens are common traits of many macro lenses from the 1950s - 2000. If you would like an operating manual for this set you can go here: http://www.cameramanuals.org/pdf_files/beseler_topcon_bellows_iii.pdf

Another version of how the Navy ended up with Topcon, involves their earlier use of Exaktas. The Topcon mount is a variant of the Exakta mount, but is not really very compatible, as it turned out.