Alphatracks

Part 1 of the Alphatracks Minolta/Sony SLR lens guide

Second only to questions about vertical grips for the Sony Alpha A100, the most numerous Alphatracks searches involve lenses. Questions like “Can I use old Minolta lenses on Sony A100?” are frequent. Intriguingly, I have even gotten questions like “Will my new Sony lenses fit on my dad’s old X700?”

Confusion reigns when photographers, especially those new to the dSLR scene, attempt to sort out which Minolta lenses fit which camera. Minolta produced SLR lenses from the 1950s until 2006 — and Sony is still selling re-branded versions of some of the more popular Minolta glass. That is a heck of a lot of lenses. Those new to the world of SLRs hear that the A100 will accept Minolta lenses, so they can be forgiven if they expect an old MC lens from 1972 to attach to the A100. Conversely, there are brand new A100 owners who are doubtful that recent A-mount Minolta lenses will work on their camera.

This will be a three part series focusing on lens options for Minolta SLRs, as well as the KM and Sony dSLRs. I’m not going to explore any particular lens — instead I will delve into the different lens mounts and attempt to dispel some of the confusion.

First up, the Rokkor SR, MC and MD lenses.

Minolta — or at least the company we know as Minolta — had a long history producing cameras long before the era of SLRs. After making a variety of rangefinders and the famous Autocord Minolta the the plunge and entered the SLR ranks. The first Minolta SLR, oddly enough, was known as the the SR2, even though it was released before the SR1 model.

Both these SLRs introduced the Minolta designed, three blade bayonet mount. Introduced in 1958, the Minolta mount was superior to most competing contemporary SLR lens mounts. At the time, many competitors still relied on the old-style screw mount. Most SLR makers ended up redesigning their lens mounts to keep up with technology — but the Minolta mount was so well designed that the camera maker was able to consistently update their technology while still keeping backwards and forwards compatibility between cameras and lenses.

The original SR mount lenses were “stop-down” lenses, meaning you had to manually close down the lens to the aperture you wanted. In theory you would focus wide-open, then stop the lens down to make an exposure.

By the time the Minolta SR7 arrived is 1962, Minolta and others had figured out ways to allow the camera to automatically stop the lens down to the correct f-stop. In Minolta’s case, you could focus wide open, then when you pressed the shutter, a rod would cause the lens to close down to the f-stop you had set. As soon as the exposure was finished, the lens would open up again to provide a bright view finder.

The first “MC” lens appeared with the original SRT101 in 1966. This was the first SLR to offer through-the-lens metering. Minolta added a tab to the lens to allow the camera to tell which f-stop the photographer had set. Minolta dubbed these lenses MC for “meter-coupled.” It utilized the same SR lens-mount — but the MC lenses had the extra tab.

Many MC lenses featured a depth of field preview button. It was redunant, because nearly every Mnolta SLR of the era featued a DOF preview. The DOF lever disappeared from the MD lenses.

It is important to understand that, despite the rapid change and improvements, virtually all Minolta lenses would fit on any Minolta SLR. Of course you needed a MC lens if you wanted to meter with an SRT, but you could use the older SR lenses in manual mode on the SRT. At the same time, you could use a MC lens on a SR series camera with no side effects. There wee a couple of very specialized lenses that might need slight modifications to work properly, but virtually all SR and MC lenses were fully interchangeable.

This happy state of affairs continued as Minolta introduced the improved SRT102. I don’t have any accurate production figures, but in the mid-seventies, Minolta claimed their main lens factory was cranking out 40,000 lenses a month. Add in specialty lenses produced elsewhere, and it appears Minolta was producing nearly a half million MC lenses per year.

The Minolta SLR system, circa 1975. Taken from an old Minolta marketing piece, this probably shows the Rokkor-X lens lineup, as the XK, the SRT 102, the SRT 101 and the SRM motordriven camera are shown. The XK used Rokkor X (MC) lenses. The MD lenses wouldn’t be introduced for another two years. Sadly, with the exception of the filters, copy stands and ambient light meters, almost nothing shown in this photo can be used directly on any current dSLR.

Minolta’s first electronic shutter cameras

1973 saw the first Minolta with an electronic shutter, the legendary (and expensive) XK. This was followed up quickly with the more affordable XE-7 and XE-5. All three of these cameras offered a new option for Minolta shooters. In addition to shooting manually (the only option with previous Minolta SLRs), the new X series camera now offered an aperture priority setting. A photographer could select an f-stop and the camera would set a shutter speed that would provide the proper exposure. The Minolta engineers were able to make this work with no changes to the MC lens mount. So once again you could use all Minolta lenses on the new cameras in manual mode. If you wanted to use aperture priority, you needed an MC lens.

At first, I was a little disappointed that my new XE-7 only offered aperture priority since I was shooting auto racing full time and a fast shutter speed was of major importance to me. I quickly found out that I was worrying about nothing, as I could just rack the aperture ring back and forth to cause the camera to set the shutter speed I wanted. Still, at the tme, I didn’t understand why Minolta didn’t offer a shutter priority option. The reason was simple. The camera had no way to adjust the aperture with an MC lens. So you couldn’t select a shutter speed and have the camera set the aperture to the correct exposure.

1977: the XD-11 and the first MD lenses

The two tabs on the aperature ring indicate this is a MD lens. The first tab is located near the green f22 marking, while the MD tab can be seen near the orange 50-135 marking.

Always thinking toward the future, the Minolta engineers solved the shutter priority puzzle in 1977, They released the XD-11 — the world’s first SLR that offered a choice of either Aperture or Shutter priority (as well as manual) modes. In order to bring off this magic, however, they had to make a slight change to Minolta lenses. Nothing drastic. Just a small tab added to the aperture ring. With this small change the XD-11 and subsequent X700 variants could stop down or open the lens when in shutter priority mode. Since this lens was designed for a dual mode camera, Minolta adopted the name MD for these dual mode lenses.

The original SR lens mount was now nearly twenty years old, but full compatibility was still maintained. You could attach the new MD lenses to an old SR2 or you could use any old SR or MC lenses on your new XD-11. Of course you couldn’t use the old lenses in shutter priority mode, but you still could shoot in aperture priority or manually.

The X700, released in 1981, was Minolta’s first Program mode camera — it could set both f-stop and shutter speed when in the program setting. This required no changes to the lens mount or lenses. You could use any MD lens in program mode. You could still use the older lens as well — with the same aperture or manual limitation.

Auto focus — death knell for the Rokkors

Finally, in 1985, advances in camera design finally caught up with the famed Minolta lens mount. That year, Minolta introduced a full system of automatic focusing cameras. It was a major advancement, and placed Minolta well ahead of all other camera makers. To bring this off, however, Minolta had to drastically redesign their lens mount for the first time. Even the wizards at Minolta couldn’t find enough space in the X-mount to incorporate autofocus.

Almost all of the original Minolta lenses were identified as Auto Rokkor while the MC lenses carry the legend Rokkor-X. The early MD lenses also carried the Rokkor-X designation, but the name disappeared along the way. Even Minolta’s economy Celtic line carried the MC marking.

The new Maxxum A-mount spelled the end of backwards compatibility. The X-mount lens opening was too small to allow for the various sensors and contacts required for the electronic focusing components. So the A-mount was born, with a larger opening and electronic connections to replace many of the X-mount’s mechanical workings. The two mounts look similar, but the lenses are not interchangeable between the systems.

Contrary to popular belief, however, the introduction of the A-mount did not spell the end of the X-mount. Minolta continued to produce variations of the X700 and X-570 cameras for many years after the introduction if the Maxxum and the A-mount. I was quite shocked to see that Minolta still offered the X700 in it’s product line in 2000, some fifteen years after the introduction of the A-mount.

That means you cannot use a timeline to identify whether a lens will fit the A-mount dSLRs. A Minolta lens purchased in, say 1996, is probably a A-mount, but could very possibly be an X-mount.

In addition, that also means that there is a huge amount of older SR, MC and MD glass out there, some of it fairly new. No wonder there is so much interest in using these great old lenses on modern dSLRs.

There are options to use the Rokkor lenses on the A-mount and other cameras — with some severe restrictions. We’ll discuss that in part three. Before we get into that, however, we need to explore Minolta’s (and Sony’s) A-mount lenses.

While I used my own experience and my collection of old Minolta literature to assemble this article, I did use some other Minolta-related websites to check some facts and dates. If you want to delve deeper into Minolta manual lenses, try Minman at http://members.aol.com/manualminolta/. You’ll find a wealth of information about manual-focus Minolta cameras and lenses. Another excellent source is Peter Blaise Monahon’s website at http://www.geocities.com/peterblaise/minoltamf/. Either of these sites should provide you with all the info you want on the SR, MD and MC lenses.

Next time we will look at the A-mount and which Minolta lenses fit the Alpha dSLRs.

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Some myths never die. You know what I mean: Wearing hats causes baldness. The owners of the Titanic claimed it was “unsinkable.” Humphrey Bogart spoke the line “Play it again, Sam” in Casablanca. George Washington had wooden teeth. The Alpha A100 dSLR relies on Sony Memory Sticks for image storage.

The last myth I mentioned has been prevalent for as long as the A100 has been on the market — and shows no sign of dying out any time soon.

For the record: The Sony Alpha dSLR uses a standard Compact Flash memory slot for removable storage. It accepts Compact Flash type I, Compact Flash type II and various flavors of the CF size Microdrives. All Sony A100s produced have a Compact Flash slot and Compact Flash is the only native memory format the camera offers.

I’m sure you already know this — after all, Alphatracks viewers actually CAN read and most actually have experience using Minolta or Sony dSLRs. Sadly, a number of bloggers and so-called journalists apparently can’t read well enough to understand the A100 spec sheet. And they sure have never used an A100. How else can you explain the number of otherwise knowledgeable writers who continue to promote the myth that Sony failed to understand the dSLR market and crippled the A100 by limiting it’s storage to Memory Sticks.

I can forgive individual photographers for persisting in this misunderstanding — after all, Sony developed the Memory Stick and it has been Sony’s memory card of choice for their extensive line of non-SLR digital cameras. But journalists need to hold themselves to a higher standard. Using the internet, a writer could determine that the A100 uses Compact Flash in only a few clicks. But why bother to check the facts? These gadget junkies know that the A100 is a Memory Stick camera – why bother to make sure your information is correct?

Several months ago a well known electronic gadget magazine published a review of 10mp dSLRs. The editor insinuated the A100 was limited by it’s reliance on Memory Sticks. Obviously the “reviewer” never used the camera.

You might have thought that since the Alpha 100 has been on the market for a full year now, that this kind of nonsense would have been laid to rest. Sadly, this is not the case.

I refer you to a blog called Eddielogic. It isn’t a photography related site, the emphasis is apparently on business strategy. It looks very professional and it would appear the authors know what they are talking about. Looks, of course, can be deceiving.

In a blog post dated June 6th, 2007, one of the authors, Oliver Recklies, expresses concern about Sony’s future in the dSLR market. I disagree with a number of points Mr. Recklies makes, but he is entitled to his opinion. But I almost fell out of chair when I read the following lines (talking about the design and marketing of the A100);

Yes, you read it right. Mr. Recklies is disappointed with Sony’s lack of foresight by forcing Memory Sticks on owners of it’s first generation Alpha model. Ironically he posted this on the first year anniversary of the A100’s announcement by Sony, That means he had a entire year to determine that the A100 uses CF memory. How’s that for strategy?

Mr. Recklies goes on to warn Sony of dire consequences unless it abandons the Memory Stick and provides a CF slot in it’s future dSLRs:

Ah, maybe Mr Recklies should cut back a little on the management and marketing research and do a little PRODUCT research before posting nonsense like this. It is rather embarrassing to recommend that a company implement a strategy only to find out the company has anticipated your suggestion by over a year.

Sigh. I’m sure the Eddielogic people know more about strategic things than I do. Yet I know that business schools teach that the first art of business is to know your product and your competitors.

Sadly, Mr. Recklies feels qualified to provide unsolicited advise to Sony on strategy — even though it appears he is woefully ignorant of Sony’s product. That doesn’t seem very strategic to me.

Unfortunately, Mr. Recklies is not alone. I have run across many others who are firmly convinced that the A100 uses Memory Sticks. Maybe it’s the fact that Sony choose to include a Memory Stick adapter in the box with the A100.

This is actually a good move on Sony’s part. After selling tons of P&S cameras with Memory Sticks, Sony didn’t want to offend loyal customers by forcing them to abandon their collection of MS memory if they chose to upgrade to Sony’s SLR. So Sony included an adapter that allows you to use Memory Sticks with the A100, You can buy similar adapters that will allow you to use Secure Digital and other memory other than Compact Flash in CF camera slots. The adapter consists of a hollow CF size card that you plug a Memory Stick into. You then plug the adapter into the A100’s CF slot. It’s mainly for those who have a collection of MS memory and don’t want to have to buy new CF cards for their camera. I doubt even Sony expects users to actually buy MS cards to use in the Alpha. Somewhere writers like Mr. Recklies spotted that Memory Stick adapter verbiage and jumped to the conclusion that that Sony failed to offer a CF slot in their new SLR.

After just lambasting Mr. Recklies and the Eddielogic blog for trying to give Sony unsolicited advice, I will now give Sony an unasked-for suggestion of my own. Now might be a very good time for a “Buy a Sony A100 and get a free Sony brand Compact Flash card” promotion.

(Note to Mr. Recklies: More than a month before your post Sony announced their line up of Compact Flash Cards. They will still sell Memory Sticks, but they have now expanded to producing CF media. Just thought you might like to know.)

This type of promotion could achieve several goals:

It should move more A100s. People always like to get something for free, and it could tip the scales when someone is deciding which brand of dSLR to purchase. With most serious Alpha users waiting to see the specs the future Sony dSLRs, I’m sure that the sales for the current A100 may be a little flat. This could really help.

It will help spread the word that Sony makes Compact Flash cards. Sure most serious photographers already know this, but I’m sure a lot of average consumers aren’t aware of the new Sony branded CF cards. This would be a great way to foster that awareness.

Most importantly, it might just make certain bloggers and journalists wake up to the fact that the A100 uses Compact Flash memory. Imagine Mr. Recklies talking things over with Eddie — who appears to be a bird. (I could make all manner of bird brain jokes here, but I won’t. Eddie looks like a very nice bird.)

“Look here Eddie. Sony is giving away a CF card if you buy one of their A100 dSLRS. Isn’t that the silliest thing you ever heard of? You wouldn’t be able to use that card in their camera. Hey! It says here that you can actually use a CF card in the A100. Who would have thought?”

Who indeed.

The complete Eddielogic rant can be found at the EddieLogic blog. I wouldn’t worry too much about Oliver’s gloom and doom predictions. If he can’t get the basic memory card stuff right, I don’t think the rest of this post carries much weight.

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Is that Sony Alpha real or fake?

If you roam around the various Sony-Minolta camera forums on the web, you probably have seen this image — apparently a shot of the Alpha Advanced Amateur dSLR in use. Is it really the future Alpha? Or is an interesting fake? It is definitely not an A100.

The way I see it it could be:

1. Someone playing around with one of the prototype Alphas shown at the PMA show
2. Someone with access to an actual pre-announced test Alpha
3. A Photoshop hoax designed to play on the emotions of photographers waiting for any crumb of information about the new Sony cameras.

The word is that the future Alpha mockups shown at PMA were just that — non-functional wooden mockups. Perhaps someone got their hands one of these and staged a teaser photo session.

Then again, if one of the new A-mount SLRs is due to be released any time soon, Sony would need to develop a working model to test with. So our friend with the vertical grip Alpha might just have been showing off with a prototype Alpha and the image would up on the web. Perhaps…

The third option — a Photoshop fake — is entirely possible. I checked the EXIF data for the image on the web — but there was none — a possible indication the image was reworked in Photoshop. It would take some work, but it would be fairly easy to take one Sony’s own promo images and carefully edit in to the image of the man holding the camera. As long as he was holding any SLR with a vertical grip, anyone with Photoshop skills could place the Sony promotional image in place.

I also think there is something fishy about the Sony logo on the pentaprism. The logo is sharp enough to shave with, but the lens face is so out of focus you can’t read any of the text printed on the bezel of the lens.

Hmm — the lens doesn’t appear to be a long zoom, rather a short zoom or a prime lens of some kind. That would mean a distance of less then four or five inches between the face of the lens and the pentaprism. That is really shallow depth of field. How many lenses can you think of that could photograph the whole scene, render the Sony nameplate perfectly, yet have the front of lens out of focus? It would take a long, very-fast telephoto, opened all-the-way to provide depth of field that shallow. It’s possible…but not very probable.

Still, if it is a fake, it is a very good fake. You know the natives are getting restless when we are reduced to grasping at straws like this. Comon Sony — announce the new models already!

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Ok, which of the future Sony dSLR cameras are we likely to see in stores first? The original word was that one camera would be released in 2007, the other in early 2008. Nothing definite, though and this has led to intense speculation about the prototypes.

Sony hasn’t said which of the future dSLRs will be released first. A number of people seem to assume that the Advanced Amateur model will show up first — for no other reason then they just figure that is the natural way to go about things. It does seem fairly plausible. But don’t forget that much of Sony’s dSLR division is made up of old Minolta employees. Minolta had their own ideas of how to manage camera releases.

Minolta always released the higher end model first. Always

It started with the fabled XE-7 in 1975. They released the camera to great acclaim. About a year later they followed that up with the less-expensive, less-full featured XE-5. The X-700 was the first out of the gate, and was followed up by several lesser models. Minolta’s first A-mount, auto focus SLR? The Maxxum 7000, of course, followed later by the 5000 and a collection of 7000 wannabes. With the i series, Minolta changed things up a little, releasing the 7000i, then the 5000i and then the top-of the line 9000i. This would establish a new 5-7-9 pattern for Minolta.

When the company moved to digital, they offered the Dimage 5 and 7 simultaneously, so both the high-end and the low-end were available at the same time. When Konica-Minolta brought out their first A-mount dSLR, which came first? Of course, the Maxxum 7D. The 5D appeared a year later. So the Minolta pattern is firmly established.

This makes it’s own kind of sense. If you release a mid-range model and tell everyone a better model is coming soon, many buyers may wait for the flagship — spoiling the launch to the mid-range camera. At the same time, the instant gratification of buying a new camera may cause customers who would have bought the flagship to purchase the mid-range model because they just couldn’t wait any longer. By the time the flagship comes out they’ve already spent a chunk of cash on the less-expensive model. Some of these photographers will upgrade — but many who might have bought the flagship, had it been available, will stick with their mid-range model either because they are happy with it or they’ve already spent their disposable income on the camera they have.

On the other hand, if the flagship should appear first, the well-healed and those who have been waiting for an upgraded Maxxum 7D may jump on board because they don’t want to wait any longer. The rest who can’t afford the price-tag on the flagship will eagerly await the lower cost Advanced Amateur Alpha. If the Flagship is expensive enough, it could make the AA version look like a real bargain.

Will Sony let Nikon steal their thunder?

The above is pure speculation, of course. But there is another thing to consider. Bragging rights.

Unless you are so into Sony and Minolta SLRs that you don’t pay attention to anything else in the industry, you’ve probably heard the rumors that Nikon is planning it’s first full-frame dSLR. Again there is a lot of smoke and mirrors going on, but there is a strong consensus that Nikon will produce a 1.1 crop, 18mp model before the end of the year.

While Sony might surprise everyone by coming up with a dedicated sensor for the flagship model, it seems likely that — just as with the Alpha A100 — Sony will offer their newest sensor technology to other manufacturers. As Sony supplies all Nikon dSLR sensors, it would be even more likely that they will make the sensor for the new Nikon as well.

It doesn’t take a degree in supply-side economics to figure out that the Sony Flagship and the new Nikon will most likely share the same sensor. It allows Sony to make the sensor more cheaply and shaves design and development costs. There may be some differences, but unless Sony grows incredibly proprietary about the new flagship’s sensor, they will supply the same chip to Nikon and anyone else who wants to build a dSLR around it.

If Sony or Nikon announce a 18mp (we don’t know to will be 18mp, but that is what the rumor-mill is claiming) full frame or 1.1 crop camera it will be news. Really, really big news. If however, Nikon comes out with their new iron in 2007 and Sony waits until 2008 it could make the Alpha camera look like a “me-too” effort.

Thus if Sony turns the flagship loose in 2007 it will seem truly amazing — especially if the rumored specs are anywhere close to being true. If they wait until 2008, however, the camera, while still exciting, will seem like “just another 18mp dSLR — Nikon’s had a similar model on the market for almost a year now.”

Will Sony really let Nikon grab the attention of a huge sensor and near full frame crop factor? Only Sony knows, but my guess is that there a fighting chance the flagship might just be first in Sony’s batting order.

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File this under “Be careful what you ask for…”

By far the most sought after information on Alphatracks has concerned Vertical grips for the Sony A100 and the KM Maxxum 5D. Neither Minolta or Sony offered a vertical grip for these dSLRS — a major oversight considering how many people are searching for one. I’ve linked to web stories on making your own grip as well as the DiCain and Ownuser aftermarket grips.

Until recently, however, to obtain one of these units you either needed to live or travel in the Orient — or take your chances trying to order through a non-english website without much in the way of firm details.

At last, however, there is an English language website that offers aftermarket grips for the Maxxum 7D, the Maxxum 5D and the Sony A100. You still have to order from Hong Kong, but this site has contact phone numbers, a return policy, detailed photos of the products and a secure online ordering method. Oh yeah, Gadget Infinity also sells on eBay, where they have a 100% positive feedback ranking of 31,380. That indicates to me the company is legit and I wouldn’t hesitate to order from them.

The information about the grips is fairly minimal, but I think Gadget Infinity is selling the Ownuser grips, although it doesn’t give any brand information for the hardware on the site.

I can’t speak for the quality or how well these grips work. Still they look impressive. If you’re looking for a Sony A100 battery grip or you can’t locate a genuine Minolta 7D vertical grip it looks like GadgetInfinity can hook you up.

Gadget Infinity Website (opens in a new window)

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