Was "My New Tool Arrived Today" Now Early Minolta

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

I didn't want my Canon F-1 thread hijacked any further, so I've moved our discussion of early Minolta lenses over here to Lenses.

[quote="koji"][quote="peterqd"]

koji · Expire: 2012-12-27

Wow I almost lost you Michael.

You are right, my Auto Rokkor-PF 55/1.8 does not have a meter linkage
tab beside the aperture ring. The later all MC lenses have this tab.

koji · Expire: 2012-12-27

I did dig further, and found out.

Minolta's first normal lens was AUTO ROKKOR-PF 55/2, with half lock
aperture. Ie, you have to rotate the aperture ring while you are pressing
side button, after the exposure this aperture did not return (I mean
stays closed down, not open automatically).

They had the same PF 55/1.8 described in the above, those were the first
SLR lenses from Minolta Co. These two lenses were introduced at 1958.

Mine comes back wide open automatically after exposure, so it is the
second version of the same lens. This must have happened 1960!

koji · Expire: 2012-12-27

There are two deep sites for Rokkor lenses.

1) http://www.ne.jp/asahi/55/nishikin/lenses.htm
2) http://homepage1.nifty.com/~Kim/Camera/Lens-SR.html

1) in the above has all the models of Rokkors table chronologically and
of course cameras. A great site.
2) He is a deep collector of Minolta goods (lens, camera, and metal hoods),
and one of my friends in Japan.

Unfortunately they are only in japanese. Auto translation does work but
still primitive stage, some meanings are definitely lost. But try....

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

Hey thanks for the links, Koji. Actually, I studied Japanese in college. Haven't had much chance to speak it during the past 15 years or so, so I'm now pretty rusty. Reading through those sites will be a good refresher for me. Especially if the go easy on the kanji and use mostly kana. Not much chance of that, though, I suspect.

dnas · Joined: 14 Nov 2008 Posts: 488 Location: Japan

The first site is very nice!!!! Very Happy

I have an Auto Rokkor 55mm F1.8 in my hand right now!!!
Not a bad lens.

However, I find that the MC Rokkors are generally quite a bit better than the Auto Rokkor series of lenses. This may be better coatings or better optical formula or both.

For example, the Auto Rokkor-PF 58mm F1.4 is not as good as MC Rokkor-PF 58mm F1.4

I have a beautiful MD Rokkor 85mm F2. It's probably one of my best lenses, in terms of sharpness, contrast and bokeh. Perfect condition and it was cheap, at around 1500yen!!! (about $16.50 USD) Very Happy

estudleon · Joined: 15 May 2008 Posts: 3754 Location: Argentina

dnas · Joined: 14 Nov 2008 Posts: 488 Location: Japan

I haven't done any specific test on the Takumar S-M-C 50mm F1.4, but the two copies of the MC Rokkor-PF 58mm F1.4 are better than the Super-Takumar 50mm F1.4, by quite a long way. One copy of the Rokkor MC is good, while the other is outstanding!!!

I have a Tak S-M-C & also a Tak SMC (50mm F1.4) which I will test at some stage.

estudleon · Joined: 15 May 2008 Posts: 3754 Location: Argentina

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9096 Location: Houston, Texas

I found this nice site, which is in English, about Minolta. Has a good section on lenses, including the early ones:

http://www.rokkorfiles.com/index.html

All this MC/MD discussion got me to remembering. Back when I was a camera dealer, for a while I had in my inventory an MC Rokkor 16mm f/2.8 and a SRT 101. I shot a roll of film with that lens because it was the first full-frame fisheye I'd ever had. It was a lot of fun. Here's one of the pics -- scanned negative. This was back in 1990 or so.

He was a good cat.

peterqd · Expire: 2014-01-04