How do I figure out which adapter I need to put an old Vivitar lens on a Minolta body?

Question

I'm looking for the correct adapter model to fit a 70-210mm zoom Vivitar lens onto the body of my Minolta Dynax 300si camera. As I will probably need to go to eBay, it would really be great to get it right the first time. All our old camera shops have gone down here in new Zealand.

Addendum:

I haven't yet received the lens; I got it off trademe (a site similar to ebay that operates here in new Zealand). I will post as much detail as I can find on it, although the combination I'm trying might just be a waste of time. A little sad as the Vivitar is in fantastic condition.

Answer 1

Vivitar is a brand that sells lenses with various lens mounts for all sorts of brands of SLR and DSLR cameras. As such, Vivitar does not have one specific type of lens mount. In order to know which lens mount converter you need, you first need to know what mount your Vivitar lens was made for. Look at the back of the rear lens cap. Usually Vivitar lenses had a letter on the cap. C for Canon, K for Pentax, N for Nikon, O for Olympus.

Answer 2

To figure out whether your lens can be adapted at all to the Minolta AF mount on your camera, you first need to identify which camera mount the lens uses. Telling us it's a Vivitar lens is not enough information, since Vivitar, as a third-party lens maker made lenses in a variety of camera mounts. If you tell us what camera it fits on/came from, that could identify the mount.

Without that information, what would probably be the most helpful would be posting pictures of the lens, specifically front, side, and back views of it. The back view of the lens mount itself is probably the most important, though, as the size/location of the flanges and bayonet mechanism (or thread mount) and any levers to perform aperture functions with the lens will be the primary ways to identify the mount.

There are several pictorial guides online to help vintage lens purchases try to ID lens mounts. You may also want to try referring to these. A few such sites are:

• KEH's three-part guide to lens mounts. While it's not even close to exhaustive, it covers a lot of the more common mounts:
  • Part 1: Canon, Nikon, Pentax, and Leica
  • Part 2: Hasselblad, Minolta, Olympus, Mamiya, Bronica
  • Part 3: Contax, Retina, misc.
• Rick Oleson's Lens Mount Identification Guide
• West Yorkshire Camera's 35mm SLR lens mount identification guide

Then, after you've identified the lens mount, you can do research to figure out whether or not that mount can even be adapted to your camera's and go looking for whether an adapter exists.

See also: Can I use lens brand X on interchangeable lens camera brand Y?

Answer 3

Your camera has Minolta AF mount, which is the precursor to Sony A-mount. As others have already noted, which adapter may work depends on the specific lens you have.

Consider getting a lens designed specifically for your camera, such as Minolta AF 70-210/4 or 80-200/2.8. These lenses have constant aperture, excellent optics, and can be controlled and auto-focused by your camera. The 70-210/4 is fairly inexpensive and can be purchased for prices similar to that of some of the better adapters.

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Vivitar rebranded lenses made by other manufacturers. The "same" lens was usually made for multiple mounts. Unless your lens uses M42, T2, or TX mounts, I would not bother adapting it to Minolta AF mount.

The problem with adapting to Minolta AF is the flange focal distance (44.5mm) is just long enough to make it impractical for most optics-free adapters to maintain infinity focus. If you are willing to use the lens only for close-up photography, you can use optics-free "macro" adapters that will not maintain infinity focus:

• Canon FD
• Pentax PK
• Minolta MD
• Nikon F
• Olympus OM
• Possibly others.

For many of the same mounts, there are also adapters that contain optics that maintain infinity focus, but multiply the focal length by 1.4x, so your 70-210mm lens would become a 98-294mm lens. The multiplier also decreases the amount of light used for exposure, so the lens would be less useful in low light.