List of Minolta SR-mount lenses

Most Minolta lenses for SR-mount cameras are branded Rokkor; in the United States, to combat unofficial gray market imports, lenses officially imported were engraved as Rokkor-X, with the X colored orange. Before 1975, lenses also carried a two-letter suffix indicating the construction.^[1]

Because the number of groups is always equal to or less than the number of lens elements, certain combinations are not possible (for instance -QC, which would be a four-group, three-element lens). In other cases, the combination is not used, such as -QG, which would be a four-group, seven-element lens. Although the -OJ suffix was never used for a production lens, a prototype MC Rokkor-OJ 24 mm f/2.8 lens was shown at Photokina 1970.^[2]

In addition to Rokkor-branded lenses, Minolta also sold a lower-cost line of lenses, designated Celtic.^[3]: 66 Compared to the Rokkor lenses, Celtic lenses have less sophisticated coatings.^[4]: 8

In the final series of lenses (after 1981), the "Rokkor" branding was dropped.

• MC and MD tabs on Minolta XD-5
• 
  MC tab, just under the engraved f/16 on the aperture ring of the lens, engages with a corresponding tab (colored black) on the camera body.
• 
  As the lens is stopped down, the in-camera meter is able to determine the aperture that was set (in this case, f/8) by the displacement of the black metering tab.
• 
  The MD tab displaces a separate tab on the camera body (colored silver, in the bottom right corner of this photograph) when the lens is set to its minimum diaphragm (f/22) for shutter-priority autoexposure.

Minolta SR-mount lenses can be broken into three broad generations with some overlap:^[5]

1. Pre-MC (1958): Lenses with manual, preset, and automatic diaphragms, without the meter coupling (MC) tab on the aperture ring to signal the f-stop that was selected to the in-body light meter.
2. MC (1966): Lenses with automatic diaphragms, with the MC tab.
3. MD (1977): Lenses with automatic diaphragms and the MC tab, and an additional minimum diaphragm (MD) tab to signal the minimum aperture opening size (largest f-stop value) of the lens to the body for shutter-priority autoexposure.

In general, MD lenses tend to incorporate more plastic components and are lighter than MC and pre-MC lenses. Within each of these generations, there are minor differences which are generally cosmetic changes.

Minolta SR lens generations^[1][5][6]

Name	Generation	Years	Example	Notes
Pre-MC	SR	1958 – 1966		The earliest lenses had pre-set and manual aperture controls. Lens engraving included "Rokkor" branding, basic construction details, maximum aperture (1:nnn), and focal length (f=nn mm).
	AR (I)	1958 – 1960		These were contemporaneous with the SR lenses, and had automatic diaphragm, as designated by the engraved "Auto Rokkor" (AR) name.
	AR (II)	1961 – 1964		These are distinguished from the earlier AR (I) lenses by the evenly spaced f-stop engravings.
	"Compact"	1965 – 1967		Encompassing both AR and SR types; most have 52 mm front filter threads using a black-colored nose, while preceding generations had 55 mm with a chrome nose.
MC	MC (I)	1966 – 1969		These lenses have a meter coupling tab on the aperture ring to signal the aperture setting to the body. The aperture ring is colored silver, while prior generations were colored black.
	MC (II)	1967 – 1972		Cosmetically similar to MC (I) with a more deeply scalloped focusing grip knurling.
	MC-X	1972 – 1976		Rubberized focusing grip with square, truncated pyramid shapes; aperture ring reverts to black. Starting in the mid-1970s, Minolta began adding two to three anti-reflection coating layers[7] to balance color and contrast across the lens lineup.[8]
	MC Celtic	1972 – 1976		Budget line. Cosmetically similar to MC-X, with a different rubber grip waffle pattern (finely-spaced rectangular) and simplified coatings. The first lens was a 135 mm f/3.5 branded MC Celtic-QD, with a metal focusing ring and silver aperture ring similar to MC (I), and the Minolta name did not appear on the lens.[9][10]
MD	MD (I)	1977		Additional tab added to signal the minimum aperture value (largest f-stop number, smallest diaphragm opening) has been set; aperture ring becomes plastic.
	MD (II)	1978 – 1980		Cosmetic update to put focal length before maximum aperture on the front nameplate.
	MD Celtic	1977 – 1980		Update of MC Celtic, adding MD tab.
	MD (III)	1981 – 1984		Dropped "Rokkor" branding; sometimes referred to as "Plain MD". Mechanical lock added to aperture ring to secure the aperture ring at minimum value.
	MD (IIIa)	1985 – 1996		Possibly rebranded lenses built by a third-party manufacturer, lacking features compared to MD (III).