Can't go wrong with the FD's. I have two. 24mm and 55mm. I also recently got a Pentax Takumar 50mm F/1.4 that I need an adapter for that I'm expecting will look pretty good as well.

@fatpig Nikkor 50mm 1.7? Typo for 1.8?

Minolta used to make their own glass at the times of MD lenses and took great care to match color among them, which is a great advantage in filmmaking. They also co-operated with Leica and even made some lenses for them (like the 35-70mm zoom). Some call them "poor man's Leica" for a reason…

haven't really looked into the nikkors but aren't they a little pricier than the others?

Oh, and don't like the idea of training with focus in reverse direction of all other lenses.

I had a nikon manual film camera and bought few nikkors 10 years ago, before all hdslr hype, and they were cheaper then. So I kind of got used to them. When I got first mft camera I paid more for voigtlander adapter than all nikkors together :) Later did some swaps and changes, and also got few nice m42 lenses. What I've learned is that some mechanically great functioning lenses without any visible fungus can be prone to flaring (ugly low contrast), and it's due to losing the coating on the glass elements, because of aging. That should be taken into consideration when buying online. Not to often but it has happened to me when least expected.

I apologize to the OP for the offtopic, @fatpig I seriously doubt my googling skills now :) If it's not to much trouble, give a link to that lens.

thanks for pointing that out, i always get those mixed up. its a Rokkor, not a Nikkor, sorry mate :-P

Hmm, good stuff just got the adapter rings today for both md&fd tried some md's i already had and was very impressed with the aperture brightness 24mm at2.8 and 80mm zoom at 3.5 will inspect the footage later.

That makes sense, yes. I absolutely favour Rokkors too (which you'd have guessed), but the 135mm 1:2 is so rare it has shown up on Fleabay just once in a year and went to an insane price (the 135mm 2.8 is cheap, though).

If you can get such a fast FD for a reasonable price, go for it! They are not bad at all.

I have to agree on all of the points mentioned above, one will want to have both MD and FD lenses.

To my knowledge Minolta did not make 24 mm f2 lens, but Canon has that covered very well. For f2 (or faster) Minolta has inexpensive MD 45 f2. This is a fantastic Tessar type lens with such cinematic contrast, sharpness and saturation that it is hard to ignore. Several 50 mm (and 58) mm lenses are faster than f2 and are sharp and contrasty too. Then there are the now rare 35 mm f1.8 and 28 mm f2, which I do not have hands on experience.

And one interesting lens is a Minolta MC 21 mm f2.8, also a bit expensive unfortunately.

I use the MD 35-70 f3.5 zoom regularly and also MD Macro 50 f3.5 for both close focus and normal jobs. Very "real" image meant for accurate archival reproduction. MD 135 f3.5 is inexpensive but lovely image. Very cinematic images come also from the MD 35 f2.8, thankfully inexpensive and easy to come by.

If I compare these lenses to Yashica ML lenses that I also use, Yashicas are more contrasty to the point that they can be "too contrast". Sharpness is the same. However, with a little bit of filtering the Yashica ML lenses contrast can be brought to similar level as the MD, and then they might perhaps be even a bit more cinematic. Considering ML lenses are close relatives to Contax Zeiss lenses (same lens formula in several cases). I have less experience with Hexanon, Olympus, Pentax and Nikkor lenses, but they must be equally great lenses.

I have the MC. W Rokkor 21mm f/2.8 and MD 28mm f/2 lens. I have found the perfect use for the 28mm as it acts as my standard '50' crop view. the 21mm is what I resort for wider shots, I didn't want to get the well regarded Panny 20mm because of its sharpness and lack of video mechanisms (focus barrel/aperture ring). The 28mm is quite contrasty, the 21mm less so. I've been shooting with all -2 Smooth. The 28mm has 'good' bokeh wide open and closer to subjects but to really get a beautiful Closeup I have been keeping my eye out for the 35mm 1.8. The 58mm 1.2 is on my list too, from the video's I have watched it provides legendary portraits.