Use of Konica Hexanon Lenses with Digital SLRs

[Lord of The Rings]

It would appear that some of you have had similar problems::)

I own an insurance investigative company here in The States. Because of this I have an enormous amount of equipment. My problem is that one of my best film cameras is a Konica FS-1 approx 25 years old. It works well, but one day it will fail. Konica brought out the FS Motor as a replacement for the FS-1, but since that time have only produced compact cameras, and finally digital ones. I have one of them a KD 500Z which performs well as a covert camera.

When Konica bought out Minolta, they promised to look after previous Konica owners, by using the name Minolta in The States (popular here) but remain Konica elsewhere. However, shortly after this they started the use of Konica Minolta here and finally brought out the new digital SLRs D5 and D7. Promises of continuing to use hexanon lenses, turned out to be just that, promises, and I am now told by the company that these are only compatible with Minolta Maxxum bayonet fitting. Nowhere to my knowledge have they retained the Hexanon type fitting, and have even said that they are phasing hexanon out?

If I am correct my $30000+ collection of genuine Hexanon lenses, will become useless if my FS-1 ever fails out.

At one time many manufacturers made converters to allow Hexanon to be used with other makes. Does anyone have any information if they are still made, and assumably a Minolta Maxxum/Konica Hexanon one would solve my problem and allow the use of my hexanons with the new D5 and D7s.

If anyone has any thoughts on this I would appreciate their comments. Contact with Konica Minolta both here and in Japan has been a waste of my time, as they just don't seem to be interested in assisting in any way.

[BobJanesse2]

The ability of the Old Konica AR cameras to take lenses of other manufacturers via adapters was mainly down to the very shallow body design used for the Autoreflex (and later FS and FT cameras) - this allowed them to use an adapter to attach between the body and lens while maintaining focus to infinity (put a pentax body next to the FS-1 and see how much deeper the Pentax is!). Konica acheived this by having the mirror swing up and back, rather than just pivoting, which meant they could fit Nikon and screw thread lenses to their bodies.

Unfortunately this gives problems if you want to use a Hexanon lens on a deeper camera body, as the extra distance between the rear element and the film plane makes the infinity focus impossible without employing extra optics in between (I understand the Minolta MD lenses can only be attached to an AF body using such an adapter, which is really more of a custom teleconverter). So any adapter would have a considerable downside (degraded resulotion due to extra optics in the way, plus manual focus and stop-down).

On the positive side, there seem to be a lot of people who still trade in the old Konica bodies (check Ebay), there is also a Yahoo Group specifically for Konica SLR users; the old bodies can be repaired (particularaly the older mechanical Autoreflexes) and refurbished. There should be some life in the old Hexanons yet...

Bob Janes, London (T3, TC, S3 etc)

[Lord of The Rings]

Dear BobJanesse2,:)

Thanks for your reply, difference in bodies already noted.:confused: I assume then that all hexanon lenses suffer from this "problem?":cool:

My FS1 still is in perfect condition, having been mine from new. It was just that it would have been nice to move to a Digital SLR, and still use my Konica lenses. By your comments, you are obviously certain that this would not be possible.:(

Wouldn't it have been nice of Konica if they had considered the use of their previous lenses, and not just dumped their customers into having to purchase new digital lenses.:rolleyes: As it stands any intending purchaser of a D5 or D7 must buy a whole new set of (very expensive) lenses, that probably, later will not work with any other camera system? Given these circumstances, and the obvious fact that Konica thought that they could make money out of ensuring that their new cameras could only be used with previous Minolta Maxxum lenses, and then still having to use them basically as manual ones, it's unlikely that I will entertain purchasing any of their equipment in future.:mad:

Thanks for the info in respect of my FS-1, as I may decide to look for a FT Motor body, just to ensure a continued opportunity to use my collection of lenses, should the FS-1 eventually die.;)

Best Wishes,:D

[BobJanesse2]

The same will go for all Hexanon lenses.

To be fair to Konica they (and lots of other manufacturers) were faced with a problem in the mid-80s because cameras were suddenly expected to support both aperture and shutter priority, plus autofocus - support of aperture priority would have been possible on the Konica mount through sensing the setting of the aperture ring through the little stub that tells the camera if the lens is set to AE or not - but there would have been the complication of these stubs not being of exact same dimensions across lenses and of the AE lock button getting set on as soon as you ran off the end of the aperture scale. To introduce autofocus (which Konica pioneered on compact cameras), would have added extra complications. A lot of manufacturers changed their mounts at this time, some more than once.. I think Konica felt the market was too volatile and got out; a shame, but the kit has proved quite robust. Below is a link to the Yahoo site I mentioned:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/konicaslr/

Bob

[BobJanesse2]

Since I made this posting I've found out that Hexanon lenses can be mounted directly onto Olympus 4/3rds bodies.

The work totally manually (diaphram and focus), the focus scale does not end up at the top of the lens and I understand the lenses actually focus beyond infinity - but the bayonet for the Konica AR fitting is similar enough to the Olympus E bayonet to fix to a camera and be usable.

Sorry for giving duff info the first time around.

Bob Janes

[Lord of The Rings]

Dear Bob,

Thanks for your final reply. My apologies for not replying sooner, but I have been out of the States for 3 years. You will be glad to know that I solved my problems by making a friend in Florida, who sold me (via ebay/Paypal) three Konica camera (1 add FS-1, and 2 FT-1 motors) this together with my original FS-1 (still going strong) and an enormous amount of accessories, spares and Konica equipment (remotes, lenses, special view finders etc.)
This will now allow me to continue enjoying the use of my original lenses and equipment well nto the future.

My friend, although having moved to Utah, still has a large amount of his personal collection, plus he is a fountain of Konica knowledge. If you are interested and/or in need of either Konica equipment or advice, please feel free to contact me, either via this group or direct at: BSAP@clearwire.net

In the end I expended approx $600+ to purchase it all, and added two new cases to house my inflated collection, which was far less than I had set asidee to buy a new Sony Digital.

Again, sorry for my tardiness, but my thanks for your assistance,

Best Regards,

[Phill D]

Mike I know absolutely nothing technical about what you asked but do know that Brian Mosely who posts over on DPR uses his Hexanon lenses with a Panasonic G1. If you do a search on there for "Brian Mosley Hexanon" you will find a lot of posts. Seems that he likes the way you can manually focus with it. Brian's a nice guy I'm sure he'd advise if you wanted to go digital even though you've managed to extend the life of your current set up with your recent acquisitions.