Mounting Minolta Lens on Nikon (Adapter)

Hi All, This question was asked by some one earlier, and the general response

was there is No such adapter.

But I wanted to know, if things have changed :-) (A Hope)

..and is it possible to use (say) a Minolta-to-M42mount and connect it to

M42mount-to-Nikon mount. Ya it sounds stupid! :-) but the case is, a Friend

has 600mm telephoto Minolta lens and Minolta SLR, and recently got a Nikon

Camera. And wants to do some wild life photography with his Nikon lens.

Thanks

Vignesh

If you want to use a lens in Minolta mount (AF, MD, makes no difference) on a body with Nikon F mount AND focus it to infinity, nothing has changed. Can't be done, will never be possible.

 

Nikon F flange to film distance is 46.5 mm. Minolta AF, 44.5; Minolta MD, 43.5. See http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/mounts.htm

 

What this means is that to use a lens in Minolta mount on a Nikon body, the mount adapter will have to have negative depth. This is achieved by putting a lens in the adapter, i.e., by using a sort of teleconverter.

 

Yes, one can string adapters together to hang nearly any lens on nearly any camera body. The cost is loss of the ability to focus on distant subjects. I once used two Novoflex adapters to hang a macro lens in Exakta mount on a Nikkormat. On the Nikkormat the lens' far focusing limit was ~ 1 m.

 

Tell your friend to use his Minolta lens on his Minolta SLR and be happy.

Hi Vignesh,

 

Keep checking the auction sites! Minolta lenses are designed to ride closer to the film plane than Nikon lenses (in fact, I think that this is true for all other 35mm camera models as well). This means that no purely physical adapter ring will allow you to achieve "infinity focus" with a Minolta lens on a Nikon body. The lens is trying to focus in front of the film plane.

 

An adapter COULD be built...may have been built...and if so, will probably appear on the web auction sites at one time or another. But this adapter will need to contain a glass element, to achieve the kind of infinity focus that you'll want for wildlife photography.

 

However, due to the above situation, you can find purely mechanical adapters for mounting Nikon lenses on almost any other 35mm camera body.

 

Sincerely,

 

Dave

Hello Dan,

Thanks a Lot, and also thanks for the Link.

I guess my friend won�t be able to use his �Brand new Shiny digital camera� for wild life until he gets a Nikon Lens. :-)

Regards

Vignesh Baliga

Hi Dave,

Yes, I guess that kind of adapter (with few elements in it) will help, but may make the lens slower.. not sure of the clarity.

..and true! There are plenty of adapters with various combination, but could not, locate Minolta-to-Nikon. I use Zenit 122K and Canon Elan 7, and have a 500mm M42 screw mount which I use on Zenit (K mount) with an adapter. Had found an adapter for M42-to-Canon but was scared to use it, as I felt it could damage the lens mount ring on the Canon body. :-)

Regards

Vignesh Baliga

It is indeed possible: I did it with a low cost reverse macro lens adapter (VirtualVillage on ebay) after taking off the rear ring of the MC 1.4/58mm lens from my old SRT101 and replacing it with this ring. The main problem is the 2mm difference in mount position between the 2 makes, so I had to cut into the adapter in order to focus at infinity (this adapter is built in aluminium and prone to

deformations, so I do not recommend it for 600mm !). Evidently, you

have to work in manual mode (my purpose was hand held night shots).

Picture is http://www.photo.net/photo/4888698 .<div></div>

hello,

acutely i am a nikon mf/af user and minolta md/mc and i have notice the minolta md /mc lenses some how better than nikon lenses and convenient to use but the problem is the minolta body's (xk-xd11-x570-sr-t super) crapy in my opinion because of slow flash sync and if it is a kind speed there is no ttl or not having a spot metering future any way i think to use camera has P mode, A mode , S mode and M mode+ ttl flash sync something like 1/250 and can use slower speed in ttl flash so i think about nikon fa which has all these future but it will never accept minolta md/mc mount then i start to think to change the nikon fa mount into md/mc mount ; it is not easy but it will be my work in next 3 month so if there is any one who wants to start this project with me i will be glad all i need is a crazy person about photo gear like me who can help me to make this dream truth and maybe we will make $ of this thing.

 

here is Nikon FA - Specifications>>http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/nikonfa/specification.htm

 

abdul

Hello,

I made this fitting for fun and, with a non-zoom lens, like the 50mm this is satisfactory, and more or less useful (the plane of the mount has to be exactly parallel to the film, and with a DSLR, this is far more demanding - defects are evident on my results).

However, fitting a zoom lens would be far more difficult because mechanical postioning of the mount for focal distance has to be done exactly (otherwise focus changes with focal length because the lens is not where it shold be)- a precision around 50 microns is my guess.

Thus, AF is a must (try manual focus with the small viewer of D70 !), and we are lead to another joy of Nikon users, that is "chipping" a lens (search RoRo on this forum) which, in my view

is far more useful but cannot have commercial application because of Nikon patents ...

can i get mor drtails or cunstruction pictures on the Minolta lens to Nikon there?

Just said it was a chinese Nikon macro reversal ring (2 mm cut because MC mount is wider

than Nikon) but focussing is too difficult with a small viewer like that of the D70. I could think

to use this lens with my D300 which has far larger viewer ... but this is quite crazy to put

a not so good as you think lens on such an expensive body! Regards.

<p>I found an adapter made by an outfit called Camplus on eBay. It says it works with Minolta MD lenses to Nikon DSLR bodies. Has anyone used a Camplus adapter? It's listed for $39.99.<br>

Thanks.</p>

<p>MINOLTA had MC and MD mounts. They are quite different since the distance from film-plane to bayonet-mount differs by 2 mm. A MD lens is quite easier to adapt than a MC (older) lens. </p>

<p>What Jean just stated Is completely False (assuming no grammatical or word processing errors) .<br>

Allow me to give a quick accurate explanations of the three different Manual Minolta Lens mounts that exist.<br>

The SR, MC, & MD mounts will all fit and focus to infinity on any Minolta Manual focus camera. The only differences between the three lens mounts were the addition of tabs on the aperture ring to communicate with certain model cameras.</p>

<ol>

<li><strong>SR</strong> - had no tabs. When using on later model Minoltas the lever must be presses to obtain accurate meter readings after aperture is set.</li>

<li><strong>MC</strong> - Had one tab so the built in body light <strong>M</strong>eter can <strong>C</strong>ouple with the lens for accurate readings.</li>

<li><strong>MD</strong> - Had an additional tab to the MC one, to communicate the aperture of the lens to be used on 2 models of camera body’s that Minolta offered. One camera had Program mode and another with Shutter Priority mode. </li>

</ol>

<p>There is no difference in distance from film-plane to bayonet-mount on any of those Minolta mount lenses.</p>

 

<p>Sorry, I answered too quickly, my statement should have been (<a href="http://www.markerink.org/WJM/HTML/mounts.htm">http://www.markerink.org/WJM/HTML/mounts.htm</a>)<br>

Minolta AF 44.50 mm<br />Minolta MD 43.50 mm<br>

so, difference is 1 mm between AF and (MC/MD) mounts. Y're right.</p>

 

<p>I figured it had to be somthing simple like that Jean. I too have somtimes writen one thing when I ment to type somthing diffrent. I just didnt want anyone reading it to get confused, so i thought I should clear it up.</p>

<p>Oh one other thing Jean, earlier when I asked for more details and pictures on the construction you replied</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Just said it was a Chinese Nikon macro reversal ring (2 mm cut because MC mount is wider than Nikon)</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I don't know if you were agreeing, that you gave no details on the building of the lens or pictures of the mount, and just mentioned the part one needed; or you thought I had not read where you said what part you used. In ether case just wanted to thank you and tell you, yes at the time I first replied I did read what part you said was needed to create the lens, I just wanted some TECHNICAL build details and a picture of the mount so i can attempt a conversion also. Unless that is all the details needed to make it. Just get the ring cut off 2mm and press it on, or did you use a hammer? I have a rubber mallet if you think thats better.</p>

<p>To be more precise, as I just received another question, the adapter is a nikon mount macro reverse adapter with 52 mm thread readily available. As we have to shorten the mount by 2 mm (right), I used a milling machine to cut the adapter. The back of the 1.4/50 minolta lens can be easily taken off and the adapter can be screwed in place. The main problem is that these adapters are built in aluminium and are misshapen when milling, so sensor is not exactly perpendicular to the lens axis. Focussing is not uniform away from the lens axis when I study my images. A better quality adapter can maybe do the job. <br>

I tested this because I had in hand the minolta lens and I wanted to practise night shots with my D70. To day, I abandoned this game because newer camera are more sensitive and my nikkor 1.8/50 is sufficient, so my minolta lens was reassembled and went back to my SRT101 body in my photo museum.</p>

<p>And the not too fair looking adapter ...</p><div></div>

<p>There's one - complete with a lens to take care of the different mount-film distances.<br>

http://www.rugift.com/photocameras/minolta-md-nikon-adapter.htm</p>

<p>In case anyone is considering purchasing the Minolta MD Lens to Nikon Body adaptor advertised by<br>

Camplus (on ebay) or<br>

Rugift http://www.rugift.com/photocameras/minolta-md-nikon-adapter.htm or<br>

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/258375331/Lens_Mount_Adapter.html.<br>

It is not clear in these product photos but a glass lens is in the product design, presumably to enable focus to infinity.<br>

I bought one unit from Camplus to attach my Minolta Bellows with 50mm f1.4 MD lens to my Nikon D60. Mechanically speaking, yes it does work. However the images produced are very very soft at anything other than minimum aperture. Even attaching the 50mm MD lens directly to the D60 produces unusably soft images, like shooting through a piece of translucent cloth.<br>

So, not recommended. I'm considering removing the piece of glass and use it purely as a mechanical mount to see what results I get. Anyone have any idea if that would allow me to use the adaptor for my bellows (not interested in focusing to infinity obviously)<br>

regards<br>

Tze Meng</p>

<p>To my opinion, it would be interesting to compare quality of the results with this adapter from a wide-angle and then a tele lens (I would say quite bad with a wide-angle, not so bad with a tele) but you cannot expect very qualitative results (as compared with the original Rokkor merits). This is similar to the doubler you can use (a Nikon doubler is by far more complex than this adapter (achromatic doublet ?) and works better with a tele.</p>

<p>Update: I had another close look at the adaptor I bought from Camplus on eBay, with the idea of removing the lens and noticed the metal tube holding the lens in place was loose so it made my task easier. Turns out there are two "lens elements" of questionable quality (does not look like optical quality glass and not multicoated). I then mounted a Minolta MD 50mm f1.4 lens on my D60 and proceeded to do some quick tests including with a minolta bellows unit. I also have a 28mm f2.8 lens but did not do any testing with this.<br>

1. The softness is gone in the centre of the field (so the cheap glass elements were the cause of the softness, surprise :)<br>

2. The lens so mounted cannot focus beyond a few inches (which is fine for me since I intended to use these for macro work anyway) which means its totally useless of pretty much anything else.<br>

3. The apparent "depth of field" in the D60 viewfinder is not the same depth of field in the resulting image, which is much shallower. Things that look in to be in focus turn out to be out of focus.</p><div></div>