Potential new Pentaxian

[Monza76]

For those who are not aware of this, the old pre-AF Minolta cameras had an unusual specification. While almost every other major manufacturer used a depth from lens mount flange to filmplane that was roughly equal, Minolta used a much shorter distance in their pre-AF days. What this means it that Minolta lenses cannot be adapted to a DSLR (except Olympus) because infinity focus would not be possible. You might ask where this particular discussion is headed? My friend owns a Minolta X-series kit.

He has been looking at Olympus and the Camera Quest adaptor for Minolta lenses, but... any system which looses most of the cameras features is not an acceptable compromise, so I made him this offer. I would trade some of my older MF lenses for his Minolta kit (as a collector) and he would buy himself a new Pentax DSLR. I don't use the old Ricoh lenses or the Takumar-F zoom anymore so I would give him those lenses and a working Pentax 35mm AF body for a classic Minolta outfit for my display cabinet. He would start out with two fast MF primes and one AF telephoto zoom (along with an 18-55mm kit lens). Pretty much where I was two years ago.

See, I am doing my bit for Pentax sales.

Ira

[Corpsy]

Just out of curiosity, why not consider going with the Sony Alpha which supports Minolta lenses? Are those older lenses a different specification than the ones normally supported?

[Monza76]

Old pre-AF Minolta are just as incompatable with Maxxum/Alpha as they are with everything else. Just a theory on my part but perhaps the short rear spacing was part of the reason Minolta changed their mount so radically while Nikon and Pentax could keep their existing mount. There is a table of flange distances here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lens_mounts note that the Four Thirds mount is the onlyDSLR mountshorter than the Minolta MC/MD mount.

[bigdawg]

Monza76 wrote:

Old pre-AF Minolta are just as incompatable with Maxxum/Alpha as they are with everything else. Just a theory on my part but perhaps the short rear spacing was part of the reason Minolta changed their mount so radically while Nikon and Pentax could keep their existing mount. There is a table of flange distances here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lens_mounts note that the Four Thirds mount is the onlyDSLR mountshorter than the Minolta MC/MD mount.

For distances at 70 feet or less they can be adapted to the pentax camera. I've done so...But any and all adpters I've built so far do not give you better infinity focus with the Konica/AR or the Minolta MC/MD mount. There are other problems such as the Minolta lens mounting flange being much smaller than the pentax and the Konica's having a lip that has to be removed just to mount a pentax mounting flange in replacement. I believe it is more than just distance at work with these two as the rear lens is ground for a closeup fit and putting distance between the film plane and rear lens element does the same as using a macro extension tube....Better closeups but the distance shots suck a big one!! To make these work you'd have to be able to mount them with the rear element sticking into the Pentax camera body and then no guarantee The infinity focus would improve....I didn't get this from a chart but from doing the adaptation myself....By the way Ira...Thanks for that link...I will use it!! Oh yeah...The Contax/Yashica modification is the best and easiest so far giving as good a photo as a lens made for the Pentax camera.

Dawg