Rokkor Explained

Rokkor was a brand name used for all Chiyoda Kōgaku Seikō and later Minolta lenses between 1940 and 1980, including a few, which were marketed and sold by other companies like Leica. The name was derived from the name of Rokkō (六甲山), a 932 metre (3058') high mountain, which could be seen from the company's glass-making and optics factory at Mukogawa near Osaka, Japan. The company's founder wanted the name to symbolize the high quality in optics.

Overview

The first lens to carry the Rokkor designation was a 200mm 4.5 lens that came with the hand-holdable aerial camera Chiyoda SK-100 in 1940. After the Rokkor name was dropped and no longer engraved in new lenses after 1980/1981, the Rokkor name resurfaced two times. As was revealed not before 2006, the Rokkor name was still used internally for prototypes of a never released SR-mount Minolta MD Apo Tele Rokkor 300mm 2.8 manual-focus lens in the early 1980s, a lens design, which later saw life as the A-mount Minolta AF Apo Tele 300mm 2.8 G in 1985, a non-Rokkor auto-focus lens. The Rokkor name was also resurrected for a short time between 1996 and 1998 for the Minolta G-Rokkor 28mm 3.5 lens. As the only officially released auto-focus Rokkor ever, this lens was incorporated into the Minolta TC-1 135 film compact camera. To celebrate Minolta's 70th anniversary in 1998, the same optics were also used in the Minolta TC-1 Limited as well as in a Leica thread-mount version of the lens in a limited production run of 2000 units for the Japanese market only.

When the brand was still used by Minolta, there were also printed Minolta magazines named "ROKKOR" in Austria and Japan.

The brand was so well respected among photographers that some customers asked for "Rokkor cameras" and questioned the origin of the lenses when the first Minolta lenses without the Rokkor designation hit the market between 1977 and 1980. Many continued to call at least the manual-focus Minolta SR-mount lenses "Rokkors" long after the name was dropped. Even decades later, when Sony took over the A-mount auto-focus SLR system from Konica Minolta in 2006, for which no Rokkor lenses were ever produced, there were (unsuccessful) petitions to reintroduce the old Rokkor brand. There are now even totally unrelated pseudo-brands named Rokunar and Rokinon trying to capitalize on the power of Minolta's brand.

3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
C D E F G H I J K L
3 (trēs)T-TC
(100, 135)		-TD
(45, 300)		colspan=8
4 (quattuor)Q-QD
(135, 300)		-QE
(35, 100, 200)		-QF
(50, 200, 250)		-QH
(21)		colspan=4
5 (penta)P-PE
(200)		-PF
(50, 53, 55, 58, 85, 100, 135)		-PG
(18, 50, 58, 135)		-PI
(21)		colspan=3
6 (hexa)H-HF (300)-HG (35)-HH (35)colspan=4
7 (septem)S-SG (28)-SI (28)colspan=3
8 (octō)O-OK (16)
9 (novem)N-NL (21)
For some while in the 1960s and 1970s SR-mount SLR lenses manufactured for the North American market were engraved with Rokkor-X rather than just Rokkor (as was used in the rest of the world) in order to improve trackability and dry out the gray market. Although some buyers from the USA and Europe each associated either the Rokkor-X or the non-X-ed Rokkor designation with a higher quality, respectively, both types of lenses were built to exactly the same specifications and quality standards in the factory. They differed only in their name plate. In the 1980s and 1990s, Minolta used a similar scheme for A-mount lenses, which were labelled Maxxum AF in the USA and Canada (where the A-mount camera bodies were labelled Maxxum) and just AF elsewhere (including in those regions otherwise using the Dynax and α labels for the cameras).

Until around 1975, the Rokkor (or Rokkor-X) name was followed by a two-letter combination indicating the optical formula of the lens. The first letter stood for the number of groups, while the second letter indicated the number of elements; for example, a Rokkor-QF was a six element lens with four groups.

Specialist types of Rokkor lenses

Super Rokkor,Boen Rokkor,Fish-Eye Rokkor,VFC Rokkor,Shift CA Rokkor,Varisoft Rokkor,Bellows Micro Rokkor,Micro Rokkor,Bellows Macro Rokkor,Macro Rokkor,Tele Rokkor,RF Rokkor,Zoom Rokkor,Rokkor-TC,Rokkor-TD,TV Zoom Rokkor.

List of Rokkor lenses for 35mm cameras

Interchangeable Rokkor lenses for 35mm SLR cameras[1] ! rowspan=2
FL
(mm) !		NameSR MC MDConstructionFocusNotes
Ele Grp
Fisheye lenses
7.5 –22 Fish-eye Rokkor12 8circular fisheye lens
16 –16 Fish-eye Rokkor-OK11 8"full-frame" (diagonal) fisheye lens
18 –22 UV Rokkor-PG7 5fixed"full-frame" (diagonal) fisheye lens
Ultra wide angle lenses
17 –16 W Rokkor12 9Retrofocus design
20 –22 W Rokkor10 9Retrofocus design with floating element
21 –16 W Rokkor-NL12 9Retrofocus design
21 –16 W Rokkor-QH8 4symmetric lens, requires mirror lock-up
21 –16 W Rokkor-PI9 5symmetric lens, requires mirror lock-up
Wide angle lenses
24 -16 W Rokkor9 7Retrofocus design
24 -16 W Rokkor VFC9 7Retrofocus design
28 –16 W Rokkor10 9Retrofocus design
28 –16 W Rokkor-SI9 7Retrofocus design
28 –16 W Rokkor7 7Retrofocus design
28 –16 W Rokkor-SG7 7Retrofocus design
28 –16 W Rokkor-PE5 5Retrofocus design
35 –16 W Rokkor-HH8 6Retrofocus design
35 –16 W Rokkor-HG7 6Retrofocus design
35 –16 W Rokkor5 5Retrofocus design
35 –22 Shift CA Rokkor9 7Retrofocus design, includes variable field curvature control (VFC)
35 –22 W Rokkor-QE5 4Retrofocus design
Normal lenses
45 –16 Rokkor-TD4 3
50 –16 Rokkor7 6
50 –16 Rokkor7 5
50 –16 Rokkor7 6
50 –16 Rokkor-PF6 5
50 –16 Rokkor6 5
50 –16 Rokkor6 5
50 –22 Macro Rokkor-QF6 4
53 –16 Rokkor-PF6 5
55 –16/22 Rokkor-PF6 5multiple versions with different minimum aperture
55 –16 Rokkor6 5
55 –16/22 Rokkor-PF6 5multiple versions with different minimum aperture
55 –16/22 Rokkor-PF6 5multiple versions with different minimum aperture
58 –16 Rokkor-PG7 5
58 –16 Rokkor-PF6 5
Portrait lenses
85 –22 Tele Rokkor-PF6 5
85 –22 Rokkor6 5
85 –16 Varisoft Rokkor6 5
100 –22 Tele Rokkor-PF6 5
100 –22 Tele Rokkor-PF6 5
100 –22 Tele Rokkor-PE5 5
100 –22 Tele Rokkor-QE5 4
100 –22 Macro Rokkor-QE5 4
100 –32 Macro Rokkor5 4
100 –22 Tele Rokkor-TC3 3preset aperture
135 –22 Rokkor6 5
135 –22 Tele Rokkor-PF6 5
135 –22 Tele Rokkor-PG7 5
135 –22 Tele Rokkor-QD4 4
135 –22 Rokkor5 5
135 –22 Tele Rokkor-QD4 4
135 –22 Rokkor5 5
135 –22 Tele Rokkor-TC3 3preset aperture
Telephoto lenses
180 –22 Tele Rokkor-PF6 5preset aperture
200 –32 Rokkor5 5
200 –22 Tele Rokkor-QF6 4
200 –22 Tele Rokkor5 5
200 –22 Tele Rokkor-PE5 5
200 –22 Tele Rokkor-QE5 4preset aperture
250 –22 Tele Rokkor-QF6 4preset aperture
250 Rokkor RF6 5catadioptric
300 –32 Tele Rokkor-TD4 3preset aperture
300 –32 Tele Rokkor-QD4 4preset aperture
300 –22 Tele Rokkor-HF6 6
300 –32 Rokkor7 6
300 –32 Tele Rokkor-QD4 4preset aperture
300 –22 Tele Rokkor-PE5 5
400 –22 APO Tele Rokkor-PE7 6
500 RF Rokkor6 5catadioptric
600 –45 Tele Rokkor-TD4 3preset aperture
600 –32 APO Tele Rokkor9 8
800 RF Rokkor8 7catadioptric
1000 RF Rokkor7 6catadioptric
1600 RF Rokkor7 6catadioptric
1600 RF Rokkor6 5catadioptric
Zoom lenses
24-35 –22 Zoom Rokkor10 10
24-50 –22 Zoom Rokkor13 11
28-70 (4.8)–22 Zoom Rokkor8 8In partnership with Cosina
28-85 (4.5)–22 Zoom Rokkor13 10In partnership with Tokina
35-70 –22 Zoom Rokkor8 7
35-70 (4.8)–22 Zoom Rokkor7 7In partnership with Cosina
35-105 (4.5)–22 Zoom Rokkor14 12In partnership with Tokina
35-135 (4.5)–22 Zoom Rokkor14 12In partnership with Tokina
40-80 –22 Zoom Rokkor12 12
50-100 –16 Zoom Rokkor15 9
50-135 –22 Zoom Rokkor12 10
70-210 –22 Zoom Rokkor12 9
70-210 (5.6)–22 Zoom Rokkor12 9
70-300 (5.8)–22 Zoom Rokkor13 9In partnership with Cosina
75-150 –32 Zoom Rokkor12 8
75-200 –22 Zoom Rokkor15 13
80-160 –22 Zoom Rokkor15 10
80-200 –22 Zoom Rokkor14 10
100-200 –22 Zoom Rokkor8 5
100-300 –32 Zoom Rokkor13 10In partnership with Tokina
100-300 (6.7)–22 Zoom Rokkor10 8
100-500 –32 Zoom Rokkor16 10
100-500 –32 APO Tele Zoom Rokkor16 11
160-500 –22 Zoom Rokkor16 11
Specialty (close-up) lenses
12.5 –16 Bellows Micro Rokkor4 4—
25 –16 Bellows Micro Rokkor6 4—
50 –32 Auto Bellows Rokkor3 3—
100 –32 Bellows Rokkor-TC3 3—
100 –32 Auto Bellows Rokkor5 4—
135 –22 Bellows Rokkor-TC3 3—
Notes

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Obiettivi Intercambiabili per reflex 24x36 Manualfocus . it . Massimo Scotti . 6 April 2023.

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