Minolta MC W. Rokkor-NL 21mm f2.8 (MCII) Lens Disassembly and Diaphragm Cleaning

Full disassembly and reassembly of a Minolta MC W. Rokkor-NL 21mm f2.8 lens. Lens is disassembled to access the optics, mechanical components, and body sections individually. The diaphragm is also taken apart, cleaned, and reassembled.

Minolta made two versions of the 21mm NL Rokkor, the MCII style one seen here and a MCX Rokkor-X style one. I believe these two lenses are similar optically and mechanically.

This lens is repairable but complicated to take apart and put back together correctly. It uses all high quality metal components that can be disassemble. This is especially important for its optics, as this lens has one of the most complicated optical setups of any Minolta lens, yet you can easily clean inside of the optics and take them apart.

The layout of this lens is very different from normal Rokkor lenses, and it has many small components which do not all fit into specific positions. Although I disassembled the rest of the lens, I was unable to remove focusing ring from the lens body. Make sure you mark where things lined up when taking this lens apart.

This is probably my favorite Minolta lens to shoot with. I've taken 90% of my pictures over the past two or three years with the MCX version of the lens on a NEX-7 camera. It's a bulky lens and it's hard to get good results from it, certainly not the lens for pixel peepers, but I love shooting with it and it can produce great images when used correctly.

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