Est. 1928 · Osaka, Japan · 3 lenses
Minolta was founded in 1928 in Osaka by Kazuo Tashima as Nichi-Doku Shashinki Shōten ('Japan-Germany Camera Company'), with German engineers Billy Neumann and Willy Heilemann assisting in early production. The company was renamed Molta Goshi-Kaisha in 1931 and Chiyoda Kogaku Seiko K.K. in 1937; the trade name 'Minolta' (an acronym for 'Mechanism, Instruments, Optics and Lenses by Tashima') was applied to its cameras from 1933 onward and became the corporate name in 1962.
Minolta's photographic-lens identity centered on the Rokkor brand, named after Mount Rokkō overlooking Kobe. The SR-2 (1958) introduced the SR bayonet that — through the MC and MD revisions — supported nearly thirty years of Minolta SLR production. The company built a reputation for innovative metering and exposure automation: the SR-T 101 (1966) used CLC dual-cell averaging metering, and the XD-7 / XD-11 (1977) was the world's first multi-mode (program, aperture-priority, shutter-priority, manual) 35 mm SLR. Minolta cameras flew on the Mercury and Gemini space programs, and a Hi-Matic 7 was carried aboard John Glenn's Mercury-Atlas 6 mission in 1962.
Minolta's most consequential product was the Maxxum 7000 / α-7000 / Dynax 7000 (1985) — the first 35 mm SLR with a fully integrated body autofocus system, motor-driven film transport, and an electronically coupled lens mount (the A-mount). Commercial success was enormous, but Honeywell sued Minolta for infringing patents on phase-detection autofocus and a 1991 verdict awarded Honeywell roughly $127 million in damages — at the time the largest patent settlement in U.S. history. Minolta absorbed the loss and continued with the Dynax / Maxxum 9 (1998) and Maxxum 7 (2000) bodies and an expanding line of AF Apo, Apo Tele, G-series, and Limited lenses.
Konica and Minolta merged in 2003 to form Konica Minolta Holdings, Inc., and the combined company exited the camera business in March 2006. Sony — already collaborating with Konica Minolta on a DSLR project — acquired the DSLR and lens IP, which became the basis of the Sony α DSLR and SLT cameras. The A-mount lens roadmap continued under Sony as Sony A-mount with G-branded native lenses and Carl Zeiss ZA-branded co-developed optics, extending the original Minolta optical heritage well into the 2010s.
Notable designs: MC Rokkor-PG 58mm f/1.2, MD Rokkor 50mm f/1.4, AF 50mm f/1.4, AF 85mm f/1.4 G, AF 200mm f/2.8 APO G, AF 28-70mm f/2.8 G