I would like a wide angle lens to use on my Minolta manual camera body. Is the [insert any third party lens] any good?

While there may be some notable exceptions that I am unaware of, most older third-party MF wide-angles are pretty bad (I had a Makinon 24mm f/2.8 (before I knew any better) that was so bad the edges were vignetted and the whole image was soft, noticable even on a 3x5" print; I got rid of it quickly). Newer (last five years) thrid-party wide-angles are the same design as their AF counterparts, so for example, the Sigma 24mm (see my other post on the topic) does better even than the Minolta counterpart. Buying used, it can be hard to tell the year of a design, and it can be pretty risky getting a third-party wideangle. Remember, wide angles are pretty hard to do well, especially compared to 50mm or even 135mm. I have seen quite a few very good 135mm third party lenses for minolta. I have a minolta 28mm f/2.8 celtic that I got cheap once. I was got it to give it away to someone,but I was so happy with the results that I kept it, and have been using it regularly ever since. I've seen them for as low as $40, both on e-bay and at places like cameta.com. That is what I would suggest. KEH.com is another of my favorite places to get lenses.