it's been 9 yrs since the upload, yet it helps me so much about how I should repair my own auto rokkor 58mm f1.4 (black mounting plate). Going to clean the blades, repairing the aperture mechanism, recalibrate the focus and cleaning the elements inside. Thank you!
Thank you! With your detailed instructions I was able to get my 58mm f1.4 v2 diaphragm working again. I've had the lens since early 70s and have adapted it to my Sony A7 cameras. Also I repaired the focus on my Rokkor 28mm f2.8, same vintage. Thanks for your help!
Matt, I just completed the disassembly of this lens to clean an exceptionally oily diaphragm. All of the leaves were very oily so I had to take the diaphragm assembly apart to clean the individual leaves. I cannot believe how oily the inside of this lens was! After a few missteps (my fault), I was able to complete the reassembly. Your video was very helpful and now I have a fully functional Minolta MC Rokkor-PF 58 mm f 1.4 (MC I) lens. Thank you.
Thanks so much for this teardown, it helped me clean up a thrift store special that somebody hadn't learned not to store lenses wide open....one through TLC job later, and it works perfectly! Cheers!
What is the diameter of the balls inside of the aperture ring? I lost some years ago when I attempted to repair my lens. I wish your videos were around then. They are great....thanks.
Very good video, wish I'd seen it before I took the lens apart but cleaned it and got it back together. The bit you didn't take apart (with the 5 sections of wire and 5 ball bearings) is VERY fiddly to get back together but not impossible. If you have any information or tips / video on the repair (jammed shutter) of Minolta XM / XK / X1, I'd be interested. Cheers.
Hi, i just bought one MC2 for cheap that had stuck aperture blades. I managed to take it apart, I unstuck the blades quite easily (too much grease). Fast forward to post reassembly : the aperture ring is declicked (is this normal?) and the lens cannot stay wide open (it pushes back to ~f2 when I want to go wide open. Any idea please? Thank you
I did some service on my lens becouse focuss ring was to hard or stiff. I did not do anything for aperture blades but now I have wide open as f1.4 and max aperture only f2.8 ( mesured by shutter speed - only have 2 stops of light but leaver on the back go all his trip. I try to unscruw three screws and geting a aperture small yours, but than want open wide od the aperture ring but open wide if i push that leaver on the mount of the lens. How to correct this issue? Thanks!
i have a rescue rokkor 50MM - some complete nitwit thought to declick the apeture ring by losing the bearing inside of it. so how do I find a bearing and set my rokkor free?
Do you have any experience with the oldest pre-MC 58mm f1.4? Mine says 'Auto Rokkor-PF' and serial 20xxx - but looks completely different internally. Also has 8 aperture blades.
I'm working on one like your right now I've fix my problem with the blades But focusing ring don't match the infinity And if you move the focusing ring out it Comes out off! And this one in the video as you Reply is different and is all black:-(
Hi Matt. Do you have other videos of other lens brands disassembly? I have a manual focus Tamron 28-80mm SP F2.8 that has a bit of fungus just inside the front element. It's really bugging me and I would like to attempt to take it apart. thanks.
Here's all the lenses I've done so far: ruclips.net/p/PLWUxAx7ODw3sMT6V2XrQQb2xztW9lSHtQ All old, manual prime lenses, mostly Minoltas. No Tamrons or zoom lenses yet
Excellent videos! I have one of these (MC 1) that is clean and can focus very smoothly from infinity until softly jamming at about the 3 foot mark... which is not quite broken enough for me to have yet tried to fix it. Should I try? What do you think is the likely cause and fix?
It depends. Do you run into this in normal shooting? If not, depending on what's going wrong and your level of experience, try to determine if the jamming will break the lens further after extended usage. That's hard to determine, so you may just want ask yourself: based on your skill level, are you confident taking apart and trying to repair the lens, while risking making things worse? There are a few possible sources of jam. As a general approach, try taking it apart the lens one piece at a time until you can get the focus working smoothly. Then put it back together to see which piece is causing the problem. To start, I would first detach the mounting plate and back of the lens from the rest of the body. Spin around the front of the lens to see if anything on that part was preventing it from rotating. Continue from the back of the lens, removing pieces until focusing works properly in order to identify the problem. If you still can't find the problem, there may be a problem with the focusing mechanism itself. Make sure to lightly mark where all the pieces line up so you can reassemble the thing, and carefully take apart the housing around the focusing mechanism and then mechanism itself. If the focusing is still gritty feeling or jamming, screw apart the helicoids and try cleaning inside them, but only as a last step. Again, just take it a step at a time. Make sure to track where every piece goes and where the pieces originally lined up. Leave pieces together where possible to make reassembly easier. The video may help, but it shows things in a different order than you may need. Good luck!
I avoid using this lens because I can't get to about 1/4 of the focus range (I do have over 150 lenses, so not using one isn't that big a deal). Not really worried about breaking it worse... more concerned that the answer will be that it would be completely wasted effort with nothing fixable. It feels sort-of like a part of the focus mechanism is slightly deformed and rubbing against another part, which I would not expect to happen without some external sign, but the lens is clean enough that I'd bet it has been taken apart before....
You just need a lens spanner wrench, like this one www.amazon.com/Neewer-Professional-pointed-Spanner-Repairing/dp/B00J5F6O92 Although I've disassembled a few lenses even with a compass Besides that you'll need a set of jewelry screwdrivers, and also little bit of lighter fluid can come up handy to lub sticky blades. (like in this video ruclips.net/video/4UFDLjb-kYw/видео.html) Hope that helps, cheers!
Why do these MINOLTA ROKKOR 58mm F/1.2 lenses all seem to have fungus? Is this the result of some bad coatings or what? On eBay all of the ones I have seen over the last year have had at least some fungus. And the sellers might say Excellent+++. What do you think? The f1.4 lenses don't.
I usually record the aperture size before taking the lens apart and match up the size during the reassembly. For photography, I'm not sure you have to be too precise but having it too small or too large can cause problems.
it's been 9 yrs since the upload, yet it helps me so much about how I should repair my own auto rokkor 58mm f1.4 (black mounting plate). Going to clean the blades, repairing the aperture mechanism, recalibrate the focus and cleaning the elements inside. Thank you!
Thank you! With your detailed instructions I was able to get my 58mm f1.4 v2 diaphragm working again. I've had the lens since early 70s and have adapted it to my Sony A7 cameras. Also I repaired the focus on my Rokkor 28mm f2.8, same vintage. Thanks for your help!
Matt,
I just completed the disassembly of this lens to clean an exceptionally oily diaphragm. All of the leaves were very oily so I had to take the diaphragm assembly apart to clean the individual leaves. I cannot believe how oily the inside of this lens was!
After a few missteps (my fault), I was able to complete the reassembly.
Your video was very helpful and now I have a fully functional Minolta MC Rokkor-PF 58 mm f 1.4 (MC I) lens.
Thank you.
Thanks so much for this teardown, it helped me clean up a thrift store special that somebody hadn't learned not to store lenses wide open....one through TLC job later, and it works perfectly! Cheers!
Best minolta lens related videos. Thank you, it's a big help.
These videos are an outstanding resource. Thank you!
Thank you for this very informative video, Matt. Very professionally done.
Matt, amazing video. Love it. Thanks
thanks for this an others minolta rokkor disassembly videos. They are really professional and helpfull.
What is the diameter of the balls inside of the aperture ring? I lost some years ago when I attempted to repair my lens. I wish your videos were around then. They are great....thanks.
Very good video, wish I'd seen it before I took the lens apart but cleaned it and got it back together.
The bit you didn't take apart (with the 5 sections of wire and 5 ball bearings) is VERY fiddly to get back together but not impossible. If you have any information or tips / video on the repair (jammed shutter) of Minolta XM / XK / X1, I'd be interested.
Cheers.
This! Would desperately love to see a video on this section. I can't figure out how to reassemble it.
Do you know if these 2 versions are radioactive lenses or not? They seem a bit yellow.
Hi, i just bought one MC2 for cheap that had stuck aperture blades. I managed to take it apart, I unstuck the blades quite easily (too much grease). Fast forward to post reassembly : the aperture ring is declicked (is this normal?) and the lens cannot stay wide open (it pushes back to ~f2 when I want to go wide open. Any idea please? Thank you
I did some service on my lens becouse focuss ring was to hard or stiff. I did not do anything for aperture blades but now I have wide open as f1.4 and max aperture only f2.8 ( mesured by shutter speed - only have 2 stops of light but leaver on the back go all his trip. I try to unscruw three screws and geting a aperture small yours, but than want open wide od the aperture ring but open wide if i push that leaver on the mount of the lens. How to correct this issue? Thanks!
What do you think the problem is when the focusing ring is very tight? How would you fix it?
i have a rescue rokkor 50MM - some complete nitwit thought to declick the apeture ring by losing the bearing inside of it.
so how do I find a bearing and set my rokkor free?
Do you have any experience with the oldest pre-MC 58mm f1.4? Mine says 'Auto Rokkor-PF' and serial 20xxx - but looks completely different internally. Also has 8 aperture blades.
I'm working on one like your right now
I've fix my problem with the blades
But focusing ring don't match the infinity
And if you move the focusing ring out it
Comes out off!
And this one in the video as you
Reply is different and is all black:-(
Hi Matt. Do you have other videos of other lens brands disassembly? I have a manual focus Tamron 28-80mm SP F2.8 that has a bit of fungus just inside the front element. It's really bugging me and I would like to attempt to take it apart. thanks.
Here's all the lenses I've done so far: ruclips.net/p/PLWUxAx7ODw3sMT6V2XrQQb2xztW9lSHtQ
All old, manual prime lenses, mostly Minoltas. No Tamrons or zoom lenses yet
Excellent videos! I have one of these (MC 1) that is clean and can focus very smoothly from infinity until softly jamming at about the 3 foot mark... which is not quite broken enough for me to have yet tried to fix it. Should I try? What do you think is the likely cause and fix?
It depends. Do you run into this in normal shooting? If not, depending on what's going wrong and your level of experience, try to determine if the jamming will break the lens further after extended usage. That's hard to determine, so you may just want ask yourself: based on your skill level, are you confident taking apart and trying to repair the lens, while risking making things worse?
There are a few possible sources of jam. As a general approach, try taking it apart the lens one piece at a time until you can get the focus working smoothly. Then put it back together to see which piece is causing the problem.
To start, I would first detach the mounting plate and back of the lens from the rest of the body. Spin around the front of the lens to see if anything on that part was preventing it from rotating. Continue from the back of the lens, removing pieces until focusing works properly in order to identify the problem.
If you still can't find the problem, there may be a problem with the focusing mechanism itself. Make sure to lightly mark where all the pieces line up so you can reassemble the thing, and carefully take apart the housing around the focusing mechanism and then mechanism itself. If the focusing is still gritty feeling or jamming, screw apart the helicoids and try cleaning inside them, but only as a last step.
Again, just take it a step at a time. Make sure to track where every piece goes and where the pieces originally lined up. Leave pieces together where possible to make reassembly easier. The video may help, but it shows things in a different order than you may need.
Good luck!
I avoid using this lens because I can't get to about 1/4 of the focus range (I do have over 150 lenses, so not using one isn't that big a deal). Not really worried about breaking it worse... more concerned that the answer will be that it would be completely wasted effort with nothing fixable. It feels sort-of like a part of the focus mechanism is slightly deformed and rubbing against another part, which I would not expect to happen without some external sign, but the lens is clean enough that I'd bet it has been taken apart before....
What tools are you using? I wanna clean my minolta lens also.
You just need a lens spanner wrench, like this one www.amazon.com/Neewer-Professional-pointed-Spanner-Repairing/dp/B00J5F6O92
Although I've disassembled a few lenses even with a compass
Besides that you'll need a set of jewelry screwdrivers, and also little bit of lighter fluid can come up handy to lub sticky blades. (like in this video ruclips.net/video/4UFDLjb-kYw/видео.html)
Hope that helps, cheers!
Why do these MINOLTA ROKKOR 58mm F/1.2 lenses all seem to have fungus? Is this the result of some bad coatings or what? On eBay all of the ones I have seen over the last year have had at least some fungus. And the sellers might say Excellent+++. What do you think? The f1.4 lenses don't.
Hey man I guess I fucked up by dissassembling the back mounting plate. Any reference to how to reassemble it?
Hi man did the same fuck up and trying to see what to do. Were you able to find something or am I fckd
how did you know what was the exact opening of the minimum aperture? it seems like you just chose it..
I usually record the aperture size before taking the lens apart and match up the size during the reassembly. For photography, I'm not sure you have to be too precise but having it too small or too large can cause problems.
Thanks a lot !!’