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The Minolta X-700This page contains information about the Minolta X-700, Minolta lenses and accessories compatible with the X-700. I have no information about lenses or accessories made by other vendors. This page is updated whenever some new information comes to light. If you have anything you would like to contribute or corrections, please send me some e-mail. The Minolta X-700 SLR was first marketed in Oct. 1981 and won the European Camera of the Year award (Source: Minolta Corporate History). The X-700 is at the heart of the Minolta Program System (MPS) incorporating a broad range of lenses and accessories. The X-700 body can still be purchased today (1999) although the range of lenses and accessories has been reduced significantly. The X-700 has three major operating modes, programmed auto-exposure (P mode), aperture priority auto-exposure (A mode) and metered full-manual exposure (M mode). It is not clear why a shutter priority mode was not included since most of the required mechanical parts are already in place to support P mode (modifications might be required to allow the camera to determine the maximum aperture of the lens and for the viewfinder to indicate the taking aperture). The shutter speed and aperture are varied steplessly in the auto-exposure modes. Metering in the X-700 is of the center-weighted averaging type. Two silicon photocells, one for normal operation and one for TTL flash metering are present. Major Accessories
LensesMinolta had an extensive line of fixed length and zoom lenses in the 1970s when they were still pursuing the professional market with cameras such as the XK Motor. With the shift to autofocus camera systems that began in the mid-1980s, the number of produced by Minolta for manual focus cameras was substantially reduced. The earliest line of lenses of interest to an X body (or SRT body) owner was the MC Rokkor line, with MC indicating meter coupled and Rokkor being a play on the name of Mt. Rokko in Japan that was located near the original Minolta factory. An MC lens mechanically couples to the camera body and communicates the f-stop to the metering system in the body. The metering system can determine exposure settings without needing to stop down the lens. This allows the iris to remain fully open while the operator is looking through the lens. When the shutter is released the lens is stopped down to the set aperture. In the early- to mid-seventies, the MC Rokkor line was updated a bit in styling and renamed Rokkor-X. Around the same time Minolta produced a budget line of lenses under the Celtic label. The Celtic lenses were designed to keep cost to a minimum while still maintaining Minolta's reputation for high quality products. The primary difference between the Rokkor line and the Celtic line was the lack of an achromatic coating on the Celtic lenses. In October 1977 Minolta introduced the MD Rokkor-X lenses to operate in conjunction with the then new XD series bodies. The MD lenses were designed to support the shutter-priority feature of the XD bodies and were also capable of supporting program mode operation on the X series bodies. I have construed that MD might have stood for metered diaphragm. The principal difference between the MC and MD lines is the addition of a minimum f-stop indicator on the aperture ring that indicates to the body when the lens has been dialed down to its minimum f-stop. During shutter-priority (XD) and program mode (X-700) operation the aperture is set to its minimum value to allow the exposure system in the body to select any desired aperture. When the X series bodies were introduced in 1981 the MD lens line was redesigned slightly and the Rokkor designation was dropped. The principal change in this case was the addition of a minimum aperture lock that would prevent an inadvertent change of the f-stop setting on the lens. The lock prevents the aperture ring from being turned and is meant to prevent operation of the aperture ring in Program mode. Tim Breihan has suggested that the Rokkor designation may have been dropped because there was no longer any need to distinguish between the Rokkor line and the discontinued Celtic line. Through most of the MC and MD life cycle, most of the lens line was unchanged with the occasional new lens being introduced or removed from the lineup. It it hard to determine whether there was any change to the optics over time as this sort of detailed technical information is not widely published. I would welcome any information on this topic. The X-700 makes use of MD and earlier MC lenses having a standard Minolta bayonet mount. MC stands for meter coupled and refers to the mechanical connection between the lens and camera body that allows the body to determine the current f-stop setting of the lens. I have guessed that MD stands for metered diaphragm, but it could just be that C was changed to D to denote progress. MD lenses are mostly similar to the MC lenses that they replaced with the exception that the MC lenses generally contained more metal and the MD lenses contained more plastic. In addition, it appears that filter diameters were changed for some of the MD lenses. MD lenses appeared about the same time as the XD camera body which was the first body in the Minolta line to offer shutter priority. In order for shutter priority to work effectively, the body has to be able to stop down the lens to any f-stop in the range of the lens. The mechanical system in Minolta lenses (MC and MD) only allow the lens to be stopped down as far as the current f-stop setting. In other words the body cannot force the lens to a lower f-stop than the one currently set regardless of the operating mode. All MD lenses have a coupler that indicates to the body when the lens is set to its minimum aperture. MC and MD lenses work fine in all X-700 models, however, Minolta claims that only MD lenses with the minimum aperture indicator should be used in P mode. The reason it works is because most of Minolta's X bodies (XD, X) take a light reading after stopping down the lens and adjust the shutter speed accordingly. This is intended to correct for any difference between the intended f-stop and the actual f-stop achieved by the lens. Improvements in lens design has made zoom lenses more popular than ever. Most bodies are sold with a zoom lens rather than a fixed focal length lens. As a result the lens lineup has been reduced substantially, consisting of a small subset of the most popular fixed length lenses, some zoom lenses and a few special purpose lenses. Other Minolta Manual Focus Pages
Accumulated TidbitsFrom time to time I come across some piece of rare information relating to the various Minolta MF bodies or somebody sends me something that is worth sharing. My EquipmentI used to think an online equipment list was silly, but it seems that this is an excellent way of finding people with similar equipment. Click here to get the list. |