MINOLTA SLR LENS MOUNTS

Thanks to the longevity of the Minolta lens mount, every manual-focus Minolta-style lens will fit on any Minolta-style manual-focus camera.  Even the oldest Minolta lens (1958 Auto Rokkor) will fit and function on the newest Minolta camera (2001 X-570).  Reciprocally, the newest manual-focus Minolta lenses (2001 MD Minolta) will fit on the oldest manual-focus Minolta camera (1958 SR-2).  No other SLR camera company can make this claim!  But just because you can get a particular Minolta lens to physically attach to a particular Minolta camera does not mean that all of the features of the lens or camera will be useable.  For example, if you put a new lens on an old camera, the new features of the lens may not be useable.  Conversely, if you put an old lens on a new camera, the new features of the camera might not be useable. The details on using cameras and lenses are listed under each lens category.

Minolta lenses are the longest running series of SLR lens-camera compatabilities -- 1958 to the present.  All the other camera companies either stopped making SLR cameras or they made substantial changes to their lens mount along the way.  This prevents their newer lenses from working on their older cameras, and vice versa.  For example, Pentax, Yashica, Mamiya, Olympus, Fuji and several others all started their SLR camera lines with screw-mount lenses.  They eventually had to make the switch to the much-more-convenient, bayonet mount in order to allow their lenses and camera to adequately "talk" to each other.  Since a screw-mount lens rotates several times while it is being attached to the camera body, it cannot incorporate fixed linkages designed to mate with static pins in the camera.  And without the best convenience features, the screw mount cameras could not compete for customers against the feature-rich Minolta cameras.  So these companies eventually switched away from the screwmount, but their older screw-mount lenses will not work on their newer camera bodies without an adapter -- and then they only function in a limited capacity.  And don't even think about putting one of their new lens on one of their older cameras -- adapters are not available.  So if you had an old camera, and they developed a new lens, you were just out of luck.  Similarly, although Nikon used a bayonet system from the beginning, they finally were forced to switch from their original, awkward, meter-coupling system of the F camera to the Minolta-like AI system.  This left their older lenses in the dust-bin.  They will only work with an expensive fix.  And how about Canon?  Well, they started out with a frustrating, breech-lock system that requires three hands to change a lens.  They, too, eventually gave it up and went to the sensible bayonet system that can change lenses in the dark with one hand.  

In short, Minolta got it right from the beginning.  They avoided all of these problems when they created their original lens mount and lens design.  The original Minolta lenses were typically designed to have the aperture ring right next to the camera body.  Most other camera companies placed this ring out toward the front of the lens.  When it came time for lenses and cameras to talk to each other -- for metering and auto-exposure purposes -- Minolta was well ahead of the game.  They had only to make relatively minor adjustments to their lenses while everyone else had to "go back to the drawing board" and come up with completely new lens series, infuriating many of their loyal customers.  Since automatic lenses remain at the maximum aperture, the meter has no way of knowing what the actual f-stop setting is.  Most companies got around this by using "stop-down" metering.  In this approach, you have to press a lever to stop-down the lens, and at that point the meter can take a reading..  Not only is this awkward, but it defeats the whole purpose of an automatic lens system -- to keep the lens open and the viewfinder bright until the moment of exposure.  Minolta was able to avoid this whole problem of "stop-down" metering because they had designed most of their lenses, from the beginning, to have the aperture ring next to the camera body.  All Minolta had to do was make a minor modification to the f-stop ring on their lenses to tell the meter what the f-stop was set at.  It's the same thing with f-stops in the viewfinder.  This was easy for Minolta to accomplish because the f-stop ring was located next to the pentaprism from the very beginning.  Other camera firms came up with excuses and expensive fixes.  And while the older Minolta lenses do not have all of the automatic features of the newer lenses and cameras, they are still very useable on the newest cameras.

The Minolta lens mount can generically be called the "Minolta Manual Mount" (since these lenses will not fit on Minolta's autofocus cameras without an adapter), or the "SR" mount.  But since there are a number of variations they can be sub-categorized as follows:

• SR -- the basic mount to fit the lens to the camera.  This mount was used on many of the early lenses and on many later lenses that did not require special connections to the camera, such as mirror lenses which lack diaphragms.  All of the lenses in the Rokkor series use this mount, and some of the lenses in the MC Rokkor, MC Rokkor-X, MD Rokkor-X, and MD Minolta series use this mount.
• SR2 -- this mount has all of the features of the SR mount, with the additional feature of automatic diaphragm operation.  It is named after the Minolta SR-2 which was the first Minolta camera to offer this feature.  This mount was available on many of the early lenses and was used on some later lenses that did not require other special connections to the camera, such as bellows lenses which lack connections to the camera meter. All of the lenses in the Auto-Rokkor series use this mount, and some of the lenses in the MC Rokkor-X, MD Rokkor-X, and MD Minolta series use this mount.
• SRT -- this mount has all of the features of the SR2 mount, with the additional feature of meter-coupling operation.   It is named after the Minolta SRT line of cameras which were the first Minolta cameras to offer this feature. This mount was available only on the MC Rokkor line of lenses.
• SRX -- this mount has all of the features of the SRT mount, with the additional feature of displaying the aperture setting in the viewfinder of cameras that were equipped to display it..   It is named after the Minolta XK camera which was the first Minolta camera to offer this feature. All of the lenses in the MC Celtic series use this mount, most of the lenses in the MC Rokkor-X series use this mount, and some of the lenses in the MC Rokkor, MD Rokkor-X, and MD Minolta series use this mount.
• SRD -- this mount has all of the features of the SRX mount, with the additional feature to support the new shutter-preferred, auto-exposure option of the Minolta XD-11.  It is named after the Minolta XD-11 camera which was the first Minolta camera to offer this feature. All of the lenses in the MD Celtic series use this mount, and most of the lenses in the MD Rokkor-X series use this mount.
• SRM -- this mount has all of the features of the SRD mount, with the additional feature to support the focus-assist feature of the Minolta X-600.  It is named after the Minolta line of lenses which were no longer called Rokkor. Most of the lenses in the MD Minolta series use this mount.

You can use any lens from an earlier series on your newer camera but you will lack the features of the later lens series that were designed for you camera.  Likewise, you can use any lens from a later series on your older camera but you will lose the new features of the later lens series.  These tables will help you determine which features you will lose.  

Minolta Lens and Camera Mount Manufacture

LENS SERIES	SR	SR2	SRT	SRX	SRD	SRM
ROKKOR	X	-	-	-	-	-
AUTO-ROKKOR	-	X	-	-	-	-
MC ROKKOR	X	-	X	X	-	-
MC ROKKOR-X	X	X	-	X	-	-
MD ROKKOR-X	X	X	-	X	X	-
MD MINOLTA	X	X	-	X	-	X
MC CELTIC	-	-	-	X	-	-
MD CELTIC	-	-	-	-	X	-

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