Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

G-Rokkor 28mm f/3.5

Minolta · LTM · 1998

Also known as: Minolta G-Rokkor 28mm f/3.5 · G-Rokkor 28mm F3.5 L · Gロッコール 28mm F3.5 · ミノルタ G-ROKKOR （L）28mm F3.5

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
G-Rokkor 28mm f/3.5 (L39) LTM 1998–1998 — 2,000
  1. This is not a CL lens and the page does not treat it as one. It is the fixed lens of the Minolta TC-1 compact of 1996, taken out of the camera and rehoused in Leica screw mount as a limited edition in 1998. Its connection to the M-Rokkors is that Minolta made both and that it is, as Shige's hobby notes, the company's first lens for a Leica rangefinder since the Leitz Minolta CL and Minolta CLE lenses — a gap of about seventeen years. It reaches an M body only through a screw-to-bayonet adapter, and no Leica or Minolta body in this family shows a 28mm frame except the CLE.
  2. The 2,000 is the firmest number in this whole group of entries, and it is worth being exact about how firm that is. It comes from two independent directions, not four. English Wikipedia's sentence — "As part of the same anniversary, 2000 examples of the G-Rokkor lens from the TC-1 were sold as a limited-production interchangeable lens in M39 lens mount" — is footnoted to Hamish Gill's 35mmc review and to nothing else, so the two are one line, not two. The other line is Japanese: Shige's hobby prints 2,000 in a specification table beside a September 1998 release date, and Japanese dealer listings — a Fotobörse item from 2008 among them — give "1998年に2000本限定で発売", released in 1998 in a limited run of 2,000. Nothing consulted disputes the figure, and unlike the TC-1's own total it counts lenses. But no Minolta document was found behind it, and Gill, the source Wikipedia rests on, hedges his own version of it.
  3. The anniversary framing is thinner than the count. Gill writes that the run was "supposedly part of a 70 year celebration" and cites nothing; Wikipedia repeats him. Neither Shige's hobby nor the Japanese dealer listings read here mention an anniversary at all — they give the year, the mount and the 2,000 and stop. The arithmetic is right, since Minolta was founded in 1928 and marked its seventieth year in 1998 with the black TC-1 Limited, so the connection is very likely; it is recorded here as likely rather than established.
  4. The optics are the TC-1's and the diaphragm is not. Five elements in five groups with two aspherical elements carrying three aspheric surfaces between them, which is what both the camera and the lens are given; Hamish Gill states the formula is otherwise unchanged. What changed is the stop: the TC-1 has four fixed circular Waterhouse holes at f/3.5, f/5.6, f/8 and f/16, and the screw-mount lens has an ordinary nine-blade iris that adds f/4, f/11 and f/22. That is the one optical difference between the two, and it is the reason the camera renders bright points as discs and the lens renders them as stars.
  5. Minimum focus is 0.8 m and is frequently misprinted as 0.45 m. Shige's hobby identifies the cause: 0.45 m is the TC-1's close limit, and it gets carried across with the rest of the camera's specification. The two numbers describe different objects and both are correct in their place.
  6. Five elements in five groups means no cemented surfaces at all, which Shige's hobby points out is a practical advantage in an old lens: there is no balsam layer to cloud, unlike the Ricoh GR 28mm of the previous year, which is the lens this one is always measured against and which does suffer separation. The two are close relatives in kind — both are compact-camera optics sold separately in Leica screw mount — and the GR is 7/4, f/2.8, 180 g of brass at ¥98,000 for 3,000 pieces, against this lens's 5/5, f/3.5, 110 g of aluminium at ¥110,000 for 2,000.
  7. Price realised: a chrome example in excellent condition, new in its presentation case with maker's box and papers, serial 18801351, made €1,440 including the 24% buyer's premium at Leitz Photographica auction 11, lot 367, against an estimate of €500–700. A Japanese dealer listing from 2026 asks ¥168,000 for a used example with light wear and slight haze on an inner element — above the pre-tax list price of ¥110,000.
  8. The list price and several of the physical figures come from the specification table on Shige's hobby, whose English pages are the author's own machine translation of his Japanese site, reviewed by him afterwards. The numbers are corroborated where possible: the 5/5 construction, the two aspherical elements, the nine blades and the 2,000 all appear independently in Japanese dealer descriptions.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Leica screw mount, not M — the only lens in this group that does not mount on a CL directly
  • Five elements in five groups: no cemented surface anywhere, so no balsam to fail
  • Focuses to 0.8 m, not the 0.45 m of the camera the optics came from

G-Rokkor 28mm f/3.5 (L39):

  • Brushed chrome barrel with a matching screw-in trumpet hood and a screw-in metal cap carrying the Minolta logo
  • A conventional nine-blade iris marked f/3.5 to f/22
  • Sold in a presentation case with a name plate; the L39 rear cap is a special one

Serial-range notes

(none published)
No serial list has been published, and no source consulted states whether the 2,000 lenses were numbered within the edition. A chrome example sold complete with case, box and papers at Leitz Photographica auction 11 carries the serial 18801351, which is an eight-digit Minolta number and not an edition number.

Specifications

Construction
5 elements / 5 groups
Aperture range
f/3.5–f/22
Diaphragm blades
9
Min. focus
0.8 m
Dimensions
51 × 19.5 mm
Weight
110 g
Filter
40.5 mm
Years manufactured
1998–1998
Country
Japan
Material
Aluminium, brushed chrome finish
Original price
¥110,000 before tax at launch in September 1998 (Shige's hobby specification table) (today ¥121,000)

What reviewers say

History

Minolta built the TC-1 around a 28mm lens so good that two years later the company took the lens out of the camera and sold it on its own. The G-Rokkor 28mm f/3.5 in Leica screw mount is that lens: 2,000 of them in 1998 — the seventieth year since the company was founded, though the anniversary framing is one writer’s and he hedges it — in brushed chrome with a matching trumpet hood and a screw-in metal cap.

It is not a CL lens and this page will not pretend otherwise. It has no bayonet, it post-dates the Leitz-Minolta cameras by seventeen years, and the only Minolta or Leica body in that family with a 28mm frameline is the CLE. What it does share with the M-Rokkors is a maker: Shige’s hobby is right to call it Minolta’s first lens for a Leica rangefinder since the CL and CLE lenses, and that gap is the reason it is worth reading beside them.

The optics are the camera’s, unchanged: five elements in five groups, two of them aspherical and carrying three aspheric surfaces between them. What changed is the hole. The TC-1 has no iris at all — four circular Waterhouse stops on a turret at f/3.5, f/5.6, f/8 and f/16 — and the screw-mount lens has a conventional nine-blade diaphragm with f/4, f/11 and f/22 added. That single substitution is the whole difference between the two, and it is why the camera turns a bright point into a perfect disc and the lens turns it into a star.

One number gets copied across wrongly and is worth fixing. The lens focuses to 0.8 metres. The 0.45 metres often printed against it is the TC-1’s close limit, travelling with the rest of the camera’s specification sheet; both figures are right about their own object.

Five groups for five elements means nothing is cemented, which in a lens now nearly thirty years old is worth something: there is no balsam layer to go cloudy. Its obvious rival, the Ricoh GR 28mm f/2.8 of the year before — also a compact camera’s lens sold separately in screw mount, 3,000 of them, 180 grams of brass at ¥98,000 — does suffer separation, and the comparison is the one every Japanese write-up reaches for.

The count is the part that makes this entry unusual. Almost nothing in the premium-compact segment has a published production figure; here the lens has one and the camera does not. But the figure is corroborated twice, not four times: Wikipedia’s 2,000 is footnoted to Hamish Gill and to nothing else, so those two are one voice, and the second voice is the Japanese one — Shige’s specification table and the dealer listings, which give 1998 and 2,000 in the same words. Nobody disagrees, no Minolta document turned up behind it, and Gill’s own sentence about the seventieth anniversary says “supposedly”. Minolta was founded in 1928 and marked seventy years in 1998 with the black TC-1 Limited, so the connection is very probably right; it is not documented. The list price was ¥110,000 before tax; a dealer in 2026 wanted ¥168,000 for a used one, and a mint example still in its presentation case made €1,440 at Leitz Photographica against a €500–700 estimate.

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This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Example photos

Sample photo wanted — shot with a G-Rokkor 28mm f/3.5? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $1,400 across 8 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $1,300–$1,500). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $1,400.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$1,400$1,300–$1,5008
2026-09-06$1,400$1,300–$1,5008

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

Show 2 more listings

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Listings updated 2026-09-11. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: M-Rokkor 28mm f/2.8

Sources (6)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this lens, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.