Got a bunch of lenses for an older camera

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Luvmyzoocrew

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Ok was over my mother in laws house and my husbands grandfather, so you kno wthis is going back some way, had a Minolta camera and she had all this stuff from it. There were a bunch of lenses but they are minolta and the part that would go into my camera is too big, so i was wondering of if they sell attachments that you can put on my camera , which is a Nikon d3000, so that i could use these lenses!!!!! omg i would be in heaven if i cold have all these lenses for nothing,lol!!!!! If i cant do you know if these are something that people would be interested in buying or because they are so old would i have to look into someone who was looking for antiques?
 
Luvmyzoocrew wrote:
...they are minolta and the part that would go into my camera is too big, so i was wondering of if they sell attachments that you can put on my camera , which is a Nikon d3000
Sorry, but there's no such adapter. Inter-brand adapters have never been common (if any were ever available at all for SLR's). There are just too many differences between camera mounts, not just the size but also the parts which enable the interaction between the lens and the body.

Some third-party lenses (Tamron, Tokina, etc) were once made with interchangeable mounts, where you'd buy the lens along with a mount for your camera, but you could swap out the mount to use with a different camera if you changed later on. No manufacturers lenses were ever made that way, that I know of - they had an incentive to keep you in the family once you'd bought a bunch of their lenses.

In fact, even older Nikon lenses without built-in computer chips won't work properly with the D3000. They'll fit, but the metering won't work - you'd have to use them in manual mode without exposure metering (that's one of the advantages in the D300 and higher Nikons, that they can work with non-CPU lenses).
 
darn it!!!!!!!!!!!!! i have a bunch of , what looks like, awesome lenses,lol, couldnt be that easy right,lol. So now what is the market for them, what do you thik they would be worth, is there any market for them or am i better off going to an antique dealer? My MIL wants to get rid of them but said if i could use them then great!!! lol.
 
the only t hing with the vintage is that it takes 35mm film, which since i have had a digital can be expensive to get the film developed, in the case that i got there is a camera, i should try it cause i do have a roll or two of film left over from my older camera i had,lol
 
kirbyultra wrote:
How possible is it to buy a vintage minolta to use all those lenses instead?
As you've said, you already have a vintage Minolta which uses film, so you're set for that.

However, if you wanted to try it there were some digital SLRs which used a Minolta mount which were made by Konica Minolta (the two companies merged in 2003). Sony bought Konica Minolta in 2006 and has been selling digital cameras using at least some version of the Minolta mount since then.

I say "some version of the Minolta mount" because I'm not familiar with that line, and I don't know what degree of compatibility was maintained with older lenses when Konica Minolta switched to DSLRs. If you have a good camera store near you, it might be worth checking with them - maybe you could bring one of the old lenses in and ask if you could try it on a Sony DSLR. If it works, then if it wasn't an option to buy the Sony body at least you could try to find a Konica Minolta DSLR body on eBay.
 
lol would be my luck not to be able to get an attachment,lol. I was on ebay looking at exactly what i have and some lenses were a lil under 200.00 and the camera with one of the lenses was like 400.00, so my next step is to go to a camera shop and see what they tell me, then an antique shop maybe to see then i will have to go from there
 
Pet_Bunny wrote:
Unfortunately it does not say it will fit the D3000. :(
It says it fits the D40, so it will fit the D3000. There's no difference in the lens mount.

That said, even if it FITS the D3000, it won't WORK with the D3000 in any way you'd have any interest in. The D3000 has no ability to work with any manual lens (even Nikon) except in full manual mode without metering. So, you would have no way to measure exposure at all unless you bought and used an external light meter (I haven't seen a new one for years - you'd probably need another antique). You'd lose the Nikon matrix metering in the camera completely. I used cameras in just that way 45 years ago - I'd never want to do it again. Today's metering systems are so far beyond anything we had then there's no comparison.

Also, although the adapter will physically fit the D3000, it's not clear to me if it would fit your lenses. Nikon is unusual in that the physical Nikon mount hasn't changed since 1959. Every other consumer-camera manufacturer, as far as I know, made changes to their mount designs over the years so that not all Minolta lenses are the same. The adapter's for MD/MC lenses, but I don't know if the lenses you have are even that kind.

Bottom line, give the adapter a pass. Sell the camera and lenses and put the money toward a new Nikon lens which will fully work with the D3000 (remember, it's got to be one with the built-in focus motor if you want to use the autofocus) and you'll be miles ahead.
 

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