A few months ago I bought a used 50mm Minolta 1.7 Rokkor (on ebay for a steal) lens which I have been using with my Olympus e-30, thanks to a cool little Minolta (35 mm film) MD lens mount to a digital 4/3 mount convertor.
After about 3 or 4 months of taking photos, this lens has easily become my favorite lens to use for portraits of models or pets, it takes mind blowing shots with it's fantastic shallow depth of field and amazing "Bokeh" (a japanese word meaning "blurred or out of focus background effect"). Not to mention that it's got a large aperture of 1.7, which has also given me a huge advanage when shooting in low light or when I just want a bit of an overexposed effect.
The fully manual focus on this lens is amazingly fast and with pratice it can make anyone question the Auto Focus Systems in most modern lens these days. The lens is funny enough only 4 years younger than me! Produced back in the 80's it's an amazing little piece of hardware which can be used on just about any DSLR with just a few little adjustments and a simple mount adapter.
I never imagined something that worked out costing me just a little over 40 USD could bring so much enjoyment and pure excitement at being able to capture a shot that has almost a creamy surreal bokeh background. The skin tones pop ever so nicely, with a hue that is effected by the type of coating on the glass of the lens.
In closing I'd just like to say that everyone who is at all interested in trying their hand at recent the manual focus trend/upsurge (using older lens), to have a look around at the many many great options that are out there! But price for value I am over the moon for this beautiful little Minolta 1.7 50mm.
Resources:
Great site for reviews, lens specs and loads info http://www.mflenses.com/
Flickr is great for examples of what the lens can do! http://www.flickr.com/
And Ebay so you can buy one!!! http://www.ebay.com/
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