Minolta MD lens question

j-dogg · Nov 17, 2011

What kind of Minolta MD lens has a max f-stop of 5.6? Big long hood and no indication of focal length. Saw it in a pawn shop and held it to my 5D Classic and it looks like a 300 or a 400. It's got some serious reach. About a foot long with the hood extended.

SMBooth · Nov 17, 2011

The 400 is f5.6 and about 256.5mm long without the hood. Perhaps its that

ath · Nov 17, 2011

Was it an original Minolta lens?
There is a complete list of Minolta lenses here

j-dogg · Nov 17, 2011

yep it's original.....might be worth picking up an MD adapter for my EOS line. Looks to be the 400 5.6, they were asking like 70 bucks for it I think. how sharp are they?

altim · Nov 17, 2011

ath said:
Was it an original Minolta lens?
There is a complete list of Minolta lenses here

Wow, this site is awesome. Anyways you probably already know this, but I don't think MD-EOS adapters go to infinity without optics

SMBooth · Nov 17, 2011

The catalog I have shows the 400mm f5.6 as an APO (apochromat), 7 elements in 6 groups, weighs 1470gr. I think it would be pretty good.

Focus No. 9 · Nov 19, 2011

at that price for a 400 imho is a steal.

j-dogg · Nov 19, 2011

I'm pretty much sold on an MD system at this point, because of that lens. Time to find an SRT or an XD11

Les Sarile · Nov 19, 2011

For a Minolta body also consider the XE-7 or XK.

guitstik · Nov 19, 2011

Sorry to be a technical wet blanket, but the Minolta lens mount is called SR. The MC/MD designation is for the later meter coupled lenses but they are still SR mount. You will find it difficult to mount an SR lens to an EOS because the Minolta lens to film distance is much shorter than Nikon or Canon it would be much easier to mount those lenses to Minolta bodies. You will not have infinity focus without an optically corrected adapter and even that will create problems.

fstop · Nov 19, 2011

Never seen a bona-fide Minolta lens without the focal length on it. Odd.

I would go for an XD-11, cheaper more plentiful than either the XE or XK.It does more than XE-7 and can accept a winder.The XK's only real features that make it somewhat better than the XD-11 is the mirror lockup,1/2000 top speed,manual speeds to 15 seconds. However no winder option and unless you get an AE-S finder ($$$$$$$$) you don't get the LED readout or shutter speed display in view finder.
The AE finders as notorious for the light tube that illuminates the meter being dim depending on your eye position, you have to move your head around to see the full scale, its not visible from one location.This is not an issue with the AE-S.
For the wheel barrel full of money it would take to buy a KEH EX condition XK w/AE-S you can get a XD-11,winder,flash,lenses.

I pick up my XDs before any other body I have.
The only draw back to the SRT is the battery, I use wein cells and just deal with the short life.The best SRTs are the 102 w/MLU and the 202.

Les Sarile · Nov 19, 2011

The XD-11 is also a fine Minolta body and I have no reason to belittle one over the other as they are all fine Minolta mount light tight boxes. I would make sure you are getting a fully functional and cosmetically reasonable body at the right price in order to fully appreciate the handling and capabilities of the body.

Ralph Javins · Nov 19, 2011

Good morning, J-Dogg;

Guitstik is right. The only Minolta camera body that really used the "MD" feature of the Minolta ROKKOR lenses was the X-700, and that was mainly for use in the "P" or "Program" mode. There were a couple of other things that were done inside the "MD" ROKKOR lenses to make them work even better with the X-700 in "P" mode, but the main thing was to let the X-700 camera know what the minimum f-stop was on the lens. The lens aperture leaves were also lighter and carefully selected to improve performance in the "Final Check" exposure metering with the lens and shutter speed selection

The X-700 was also one of the most popular and long term production camera models that Minolta made for over more than ten years (17 years?), going through three different locations where they were built and assembled; Japan, Indonesia, and China. There were a few million of them made, so you should be able to find a sample for your use. I think I have about 10 of them now, receiving the most recent one yesterday, and I still consider the X-700 to be the most versatile camera that Minolta ever produced. The only real criticism that was sort of deserved is the capacitor used in the shutter circuit beginning mainly when the production line was moved to Indonesia. Some of those barely made the specifications, and it showed. The later ones are pretty good, and the replacement parts are fine. So many of those capacitors have been replaced that did not really need to be changed, but once you have the reputation, it is very difficult to overcome.

guitstik · Nov 19, 2011

I've had several X-700 and my most recent is on loan to a friend for his trip to Indonesia and I'm going nuts worrying about it. I trust my friend but it is one of my better cameras since I had it CLA'd by Garry. I also have the XD-11 and XE-7 along with a good selection of srT cameras, all excellent cameras. The srT's aren't battery dependant so I leave em out and shoot au natural. I am currently in the market for an XK as well as an SR-2 to round out my collection of user Minoltas.

Ottrdaemmerung · Nov 19, 2011

One can place the blame directly on guitstik, since we live in the same city: I finally broke down and bought the younger brother to the X-700: the X-570, used off KEH, along with a Motor Winder 1. I have small hands, and the extra chunkiness helps me with ergonomics and stability. I took it out last weekend on a trip to St. Louis and got to love it immensely. Unfortunately, the motor drive of the winder didn't work and the frame counter of the camera didn't work, so I've returned them both to KEH for replacement. Great service by KEH, by the way. I really love the button-touch feature of the newer Minoltas, and their lenses are excellent. Besides the X-570, I have an SRT-200 and an XG-A.

Diapositivo · Nov 19, 2011

My Minolta Rokkor 100-200 f/5.6 also has a maximum aperture of f/5.6 as the name suggests. I suppose this is the lens you saw, as for that price the 400 APO would really be a steal. Besides - ahem - where did you see it?

The 100-200 is a peculiar beast. The two zooming lens groups move in parallel, keeping a constant distance between them. The lens has an unusually low number of lenses for a zoom of the time. Very crisp and contrasted, but also showing a jolly good amount of distortion, this is something you should not use for architectural work for sure (OK you probably wouldn't use a zoom lens in any case). The small maximum aperture makes it somehow outdated by today standards. When extended, it really looks like a bazooka (that's because of its peculiar optical scheme, as said) so don't use it in a war zone (unless your wife hates you, and you love her, that is).

As far as I remember, the MD series of the SR mount was launched with the first "multimode" camera, the Minolta XD-7 in Europe (whatever else was called in other markets). The lens needs to be set to its minimum aperture (marked green) when the camera is used in shutter speed priority mode.

When the X-700 was launched the MD series was modified receiving a lock on the minimum aperture. That way, somebody wanting to use the X-700 in Program mode only could lock the lens on its minimum aperture.

As a curiosity it is interesting to say that the behaviour of the Program mode of the Minolta X-700 (and probably of the shutter priority mode of the XD-7) can be modified by setting an aperture which is smaller than the minimum one. If, for instance, you set a normal lens to f/5.6, the result will be that the Program mode will select f/5.6 and 1/1000 for EV14 @ 100 ISO, but will overexpose at EV15 not being able to close the lens more than that.

At EV10 (ISO 100), and with the lens at f/16, the resulting exposure is 1/125 @ f/2.8;
At EV10 (ISO 100), and with the lens at f/5.6, the resulting exposure is around 1/250 @ f/2.0 if the lens is capable of f/2.0, but it reverts to 1/125@f/2.8 is the lens is not capable of f/2.0.
This is explained by the graph at page 30 of the Italian manual.

With my 100-200 f/5.6 the Program mode would keep the full aperture until EV14, and then begin closing the aperture with the usual slope (7 diaphragm stops and 4 aperture stop for each 11 EV intervals).

Fabrizio

fstop · Nov 19, 2011

Les Sarile said:
The XD-11 is also a fine Minolta body and I have no reason to belittle one over the other as they are all fine Minolta mount light tight boxes. I would make sure you are getting a fully functional and cosmetically reasonable body at the right price in order to fully appreciate the handling and capabilities of the body.

I'm not belittling any camera, just offering practical advice from over 30 years of Minolta experience.

The best solution of course is to buy all 4, an XK,XD-11,XE-7,and SRT.

guitstik · Nov 19, 2011

I'll gladly carry the blame Terry. Minoltas are severely underrated cameras and lenses. The 570 and 700's are fantastic cameras and can easily be serviced if the capacitor fails unlike others like the Canon AE-1p.

semeuse · Nov 19, 2011

Minolta's were always reliable - I still occasionally break out my Maxxum 9000.

leicarfcam · Nov 19, 2011

guitstik said:
Sorry to be a technical wet blanket, but the Minolta lens mount is called SR. The MC/MD designation is for the later meter coupled lenses but they are still SR mount. You will find it difficult to mount an SR lens to an EOS because the Minolta lens to film distance is much shorter than Nikon or Canon it would be much easier to mount those lenses to Minolta bodies. You will not have infinity focus without an optically corrected adapter and even that will create problems.

Two common lens conversions are the MC Rokkor Minolta 58mm f/1.2 and the f/1.4 to Canon mount. Some hacking of the lens is required as well as shaving of the body mirror in order to reach infinity focus but it can and has been done..

In my opinion it is a waste of two good lens that can no longer be used on Minolta bodies.

I use the glassless adapter to mount my 58mm Minolta lens on the Olympus E-620 with infinity focus..

Metering needless to say is via stopdown in either manual or auto (aperture preferred) mode..

leicarfcam · Nov 19, 2011

fstop said:
The only draw back to the SRT is the battery, I use wein cells and just deal with the short life.The best SRTs are the 102 w/MLU and the 202.

Convert the meter via this sites instructions Dead Link Removed All of my SRT's are done this way and the metering is dead on but first if needed the meter cell prism blocks have to be removed and cleaned before re-cementing with glass glue from micro-tools..

guitstik · Nov 20, 2011

I have been pricing the Olympus E-3 with plans to use my Minolta glass with an adapter from cameraquest.com for a project I am planning in the near future. I have a ton of Minolta glass and have no problem manually focusing and from what I understand, they work well.

leicarfcam · Nov 20, 2011

guitstik said:
I have been pricing the Olympus E-3 with plans to use my Minolta glass with an adapter from cameraquest.com for a project I am planning in the near future. I have a ton of Minolta glass and have no problem manually focusing and from what I understand, they work well.

I use my Rokkor's on the Olympus E-620 with excellent results.

Be sure to specify micro 4/3 or 4/3 depending on which camera you get when ordering the adapter..

guitstik · Nov 20, 2011

The E-3 would require the 4/3. The micro 4/3 is for the small P&S bodied cameras like the EP-1. I have been doing some research and what I have found is that there are a few of the Olympus bodies that need to be modified in the mirror chamber before the adaptor can be mounted. I have also heard that some of the Minolta lenses may also need aperture tab shortened by a fraction but the E-3/5 do not need either done. Haven't done it yet so it is still conjecture on my part.

fstop · Nov 20, 2011

leicarfcam said:
Convert the meter via this sites instructions Dead Link Removed All of my SRT's are done this way and the metering is dead on but first if needed the meter cell prism blocks have to be removed and cleaned before re-cementing with glass glue from micro-tools..

I'm not converting the half dozen SRTs I have, I'll use the wein cells.I've had good battery life from them IMHO. I don't use those bodies often enough to make it worth my time.

Minolta MD lens question

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