Vivitar Lens compatibility with Minolta X-700?

[Shypii90]

Hey

I was browsing on e-bay and came across a Minolta X-700 body complete with a Vivitar 75-300mm zoom lens for a really reasonable price! But then I was concerned because I don't know if the Vivitar lens is compatible for the camera. How do I tell if the lens is compatible? Does the Minolta have a certain lens mount I must look out for when buying lenses for it? And how can I be certain this Vivitar lens meets these requirements? If it doesn't, is there a special tele-converter I'd have to get or something? I'm still very new to 35mm so there are a lot of things I have yet to learn about lens compatibility and the like.

I'd appreciate the help. Thanks

Shawn

P.S: here's the link for the website I found the offer on:
click me!

 

[eric]

If he's selling it with the Minolta, it should fit. Usually, it'll have an MD or MC designation somewhere. But from the look of the bottom of the lens, that looks like an MD tab. It also says MD in the way bottom (in RED) of the lens mount. I like the x700 but I prefer the x570. Both really nice. But now, I just have SRT's. Good luck!

 

[Dan Fromm]

I looked at the listing too. The lens is compatible. The mark of the beast (red MD on the lens mount, as pointed out by Eric) is just visible.

Shawn, its time you learned more of the facts of life. SLR cameras from, in alphabetical order, Canon (three incompatible systems, of which the two you'll run across are FL/FD and EOS), Leica, Minolta (two incompatible systems, SR/MC/MD and Maxxum/Dynax), Nikon, Olympus (Pentax screw, see below, and later OM, a proprietary bayonet), Yashica/Zeiss have proprietary mount systems. A lens that is made to fit any one of them will not fit any other make of SLR. The one not-quite-proprietary SLR mount system is the K-mount system, invented by Pentax and used by a few other manufacturers.

There's also the Praktica-Pentax thread mount, used by guess who and, again, a few others. This system is, practically speaking, dead. Very little new lenses for it for decades. Come to think of it, Praktica eventually switched to an incompatible with everything bayonet.

As a practical matter, the best thing to do is buy into a system and stick with it. For historical reasons, I'm in Nikon F and extensions. If I had a small budget and were starting out now and was willing to make do with used manual focus cameras, the Minolta system (SR/MC/MD mounts, all compatible with each other) wouldn't be a bad choice. Neither would Canon (FL/FD). Or Nikon. Or Pentax K.

Look around. There has to be a book -- did Roger Hicks write it? -- that discusses the major makes of manual focus SLRs. Learn before you spend, and don't count on random answers to semi-random questions to teach you enough.

 

[Shypii90]

Thanks Eric, I guessed as much. I guess i didn't see the MD saying even though I looked around for it, so thanks for noticing.

Dan, thank you very much for the listing of major SLR mount systems to note and look out for.

I've been reading threads on this forum so I already knew about the "buy a good lens mount and stick to it" general rule. Thanks for the advice.

Obviously I know I have to look things up before I spend that's why I posted this thread, but you're right, I can't count on "random answers to semi-random questions" to teach me enough. Meaning I'll find a few resources that can teach me everything. I posted this thread because people are always checking the forum so I knew it would only be a small matter of time before someone (Eric and you) replied, so for time reasons, I find the forum here very informative and resourceful.

So thanks to both of you, I'll keep this in mind.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I had a Vivitar 85 - 205 mm zoom, circa 1970, for my Minoltas [SRT-101, SRt-102, X-700] and the lens worked well. The optics did not have the contrast of the Minolta lens.

Steve

 

[Mike Wilde]

future info for x-700 lens purchases - MC and MD series

The only obvious physical thing that differentiates Minolta MC from MD lens is an extra little tab that flips a little switch on the camera body to tell the body computer that the lens aperture is fully closed.

The X-700 uses this fully stopped down information when in fully automatic exposure (P) mode. It needs to know that the lens is fully stopped down to know how many stops to close the aperture from its wide open focussing mode to (along with its chosen shutter speed) come to the exposure that it's computer circuit is calling for. I seem to recall that the distance between stop clicks is uniform with MD as well.

Older MC lenses sometimes are not uniform in the distance that the aperture ring moves going from one stop to the next. So MC lenses work just fine on an x-700, you just don't get P mode.

The A mode picks the right corresponding shutter speed to the aperture setting you select.

If you shoot black and white a lot you likely don't want P mode, or even A mode, but rather fully manual mode. In this respect the X-570 is a superior camera to the x-700.

The x-700 does not give you a lot of info on the suggested exposure once you are in fully manual mode. I used to do a lot of flipping between A to get auto meter info, then manual to place the tones on the appropriate zones that I thought best, rather than allow the camera to try to make everything it meters 18% grey.

The x-570 in manual mode shows the recommended shutter speed, and also your selected shutter speed in the same viewfinder; there is no need to go to A on this camera to se the autoexposure selected shutter speed.

I have shot with Minolta for 26 years for my 35mm work. The manual focus line has lots of used glass and bodies now available for very reasonable prices, and is more affordable than Canon or Nikon. If you want really exotic lenses in the long term, then Canon and Nikon are the way to go though. I find as time wears on that I use the zooms, and long lenses less and less, and shoot more stuff with a 50 or perhaps a 35-70 on the cameras.

I have had my x-700 die as a result of going swimming with me as we dumped out of a canoe, hence my knowledge of the x-700 and its recent sucessor, for me at least, the x-570.

I also have a back up body -an SRT101. It is a thoroughly reliable body, but a bit heavier, ebinbg all metal and fully manual (but with a built in match needle metering system). It does not offer the off the film flash metering that the x-line cameras can provide when using a dedicated minolta /Vivitar/etc flash.

 

[Shypii90]

Your experience has proved valuable!
thanks for the post mike, i appreciate it

 

[Shypii90]

Hah, i was looking at the deal closely and found out it doesn't even deliver to my country anyway! So it was for nothing... oh well.
thanks for the help everyone though!

 

[Sirius Glass]

Heck, I'll deliver it, if you pay the airfare for me!

Steve

 

[Shypii90]

...
It's OK I emailed the seller a question anyway to see if he would ship it here... If not then I found back-up deals; all is not lost