I bought an old Minolta X-700 with an Rokkor 50 f1.7 attached to it. The combo is amazing, I also love using the lens on my G2. Now for the question, I noticed that other 50mm lenses on evilbay have the numbers in green on it, mine in orange, what are the differences? Does it have anything to do with the year it was manufactured?

Here's a picture of the camera with lens:
Wolfgang Schwarz's Photos - DigitalRev

so long

the captain

Yours is a late model, usually designated as "plain MD" by Minolta afficionados. The earlier models carry the Rokkor(-X) naming alongside Minolta, Rokkor being sort of a brand name for lenses. Rokkor lenses have green/white lettering for the distance scales. Rokkor-X lenses were made for the American market, in Europe the same lenses were sold as Rokkor lenses. As far as I know, the optical design of the 50/1.7 has been the same throughout the MD era, from 1977 until after 1983. Incidentally, I have almost all 50/1.7 variants, you can see them here.

__________________
Best regards, Ad.

Pictures | Equipment | Minolta collection | All lenses

Wow Ad, quite a collection there!

Thanks! To be honest, I have sold off some of the lenses shown. Notably the 20/2.8, 24/2.8 (both) and 85/2 disappointed me on µ4/3 and I didn't really want to have that kind of money (around € 150 each) tied up in lenses I don't use. So I'm afraid that doesn't make me a real collector...

__________________
Best regards, Ad.

Pictures | Equipment | Minolta collection | All lenses

Wow, thank you addieleman for the quick and detailed reply, it really is a great lens to use. You even answered my next question whether there is any difference to older models

I tought about getting an 85mm Minolta, have you used one on a M43 system? I'm asking because it took me a while to get used to a 100mm equivalent manual focus lens, I guess the 85mm would be even harder to handle handheld...

You're welcome . Concerning older models, in general you'll want to stick to MD lenses; the older MC lenses are less contrasty in general, and mostly less sharp too.

I've had an MD Rokkor 85/2, which I found somewhat disappointing compared to the MD 100/2.5 I still have and love: the 85/2 wasnot so great at f/2, got better at f/2.8 and below, but corner sharpness was never excellent. There's always the possibility that I had a bad sample. The MD 100/2.5 on the other hand is quite useable at f/2.5 and is excellent at f/4: sharp from corner to corner and very contrasty. The 100/2.5, Rokkor or plain MD, is also a lot cheaper than the 85/2 or the older 85/1.7. Both lenses handle equally well on my GH2 or G1, although their focal length is on the border of useability without image stabilization. You'll need shutter speeds well in excess of 1/250 s to avoid motion blur and focussing is not easy because of the vibrating finder image. A 50mm lens is much more useable hand-held.

__________________
Best regards, Ad.

Pictures | Equipment | Minolta collection | All lenses