Almost the Last Miranda

[sadanand]

<p>Excellent series Rick. I am not too familiar with this gear. Looks like it is just out of the box. Very nice photos too. Thanks for posting.</p>

[brett_rogers]

<p>What a gorgeous camera. It is a real looker. I actually think that I might like one. And of course the photos, both of the camera, and those taken with it, are brilliant, as usual, Rick. Thanks for the potted history, too. I think that if Ivor Matanle ever retires, Amateur Photographer might like to hear from you.<br>

PS<br />I bought a prism for the FX online tonight...</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Thanks Rick. A beautiful classic camera and some fine photographs. The presence of adapters for other optics is interesting, and perhaps might allow some more recent OEM camera or third party lenses (Voigtlander-Cosina?) to be fitted to the body. Do you know which other adapter bayonet mounts can be fitted, and whether they are available or not? Where is highway 2 and the location shown? </p>

[john carter]

<p>Besides being a camera collector you are a good photographer.</p>

[walter_degroot]

<p>a great report on an almost forgotten camera.<br>

I started with a Miranda D in 1961. sort of like a senomat., but no meter and no auto diaphragm.<br>

it used the PAD ( external lever) lenses.<br>

I have the XM ( manual Exacta) NM - nikon F and PM pentax m42.<br>

all had to be used as manual lanses, though there was a AXM<br>

that allowed auto external Exacta lenses to be used all focused to infinity.<br>

There was no adapter to allow use of Miranda lenses to be used on other cameras.<br>

And no adapter to let T4 or YS or other changablke mount lenses to be used with the external diaphragm mount cameras.<br>

So the older models without internal diaphragm were a dead end.<br>

Thesre is NO WAY to use miranda bayonet or screw mount lenses on other cameras<br>

I only progressed as far as the Sensores which was match pointer / full aperture. and own YS and T4 lenses.<br>

One awkwardness that turned out to be an advantage was the max aperture dial and external meter coupling arm ( not auto diaphram arm) It allowed any kind of lens that could be screwed glued or taped to the Sensores body to properly meter at full aperture.<br>

The waist level VF with the magnifier and the "VF3 5x 15x finder was very useful for close up work.<br>

at Sel-0rex, I was asked to photograph the inside of a 25 cent piece that had been heavily gold plated cut in half and then the inside was etched away.<br>

it was easy to both focus and Meter these photographs.<br>

The camera was constructed so it could easily be operated wearing Gloves.<br>

I never owned or used or handled any of the EE cameras.<br>

but I read the ee mechanical metering worked very well.<br>

After THE END and after Dixon's in the UK sold variations on the Sensomat. with several names,<br>

there was a Cosina K mount "Miranda" sold several years later.<br>

There were Miranda branded lenses to fit other makes of cameras but having nothing to do with real mirandas.</p>

[rick_drawbridge]

<p>Thanks <strong>Pete</strong>, always good to win approval from the Miranda guru! I guess Perth is not too far away from our latitudes, with the low winter light. <strong>Arthur</strong>, there was a wide range of adapters, including M42, Nikon, Contax, Leica, Canon screwmount, Exacta and Topcon. Mirandas were truly a system camera. Highway 2 runs through the lower eastern plains of the North Island of New Zealand, and the pic was taken near my home, outside a little settlement called Tauherenikau.</p>

<p>Thanks <strong>Brett</strong>, high praise, but I think I have a way to go before I catch up with Ivan. Lots of interesting information there, <strong>Walter</strong>; many thanks.Thank you <strong>Steve</strong>, <strong>John</strong>, <strong>Mike</strong> and <strong>Sadanand</strong>, I'm pleased you all enjoyed the post.</p>

[User_502260]

<p>I have written about my Mirande EEs in other postings. It would be nice to have the other finders which Walter mentions. I find the finders of the EE models to be somewhat dim, especially when I compare them to Nikon N90S, Canon F-1N and Minolta X-700 cameras. The overall costruction does not seem to be comparable to that of a Nikkormat FTN or Canon FTb. At some point I will add an EE2 just so I have both EE models. The cloth shutter doesn't bother me. I use Minolta SRT and Canon FTb/FTbN cameras with cloth shutters and they work very well. Somewhere I have a Vivitar T4 adapter for pre-EE Mirandas. Does anyone know whether Vivitar TX and Tamron Adaptall mount adapters were made for the EE/EE2 cameras? </p>

[rick_drawbridge]

<p><strong>Jeff</strong>, I've seen Tamron Adapt-a-Matic and Adaptall couplings for Miranda bayonet, including the EE models , though I assume EE functions would not be supported. Jim's Cameras in Seattle used to stock them. I've not come across an Adaptall 2 fitting and, as for Vivitar, I have no knowledge.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Rick, thanks for the adapter information. I ought to have guessed your picturesque New Zealand location from the position of the car on highway 2. The lighting on the nicely designed wooden neo-gothic church is nicely captured. Some of these classic cameras are formidable devices. The former head of our local camera society used the older Minolta SRT 101 classic SLR camera and lenses right up to and within the present millenium. The quality of many of his 16 x 20 images was hard to better.</p>

[fotografya]

<p> Great camera, great shots. Have fun...</p>

[tony_lockerbie]

<p>Your light is just like ours at this time of year, and well captured through the Miranda. They were often touted as a bit second class in the day (although never cheap) but the more that I use them the more I like them. Quite well made and certainly pretty....also the ads with the somewhat naked girls were always interesting!</p>

[rick_drawbridge]

<p>Thanks <strong>Master</strong>, I'm doing my best on the fun front...And <strong>Tony</strong>, I always felt those ads, while being kinda fun, <em>did</em> cheapen the image of the Miranda, setting the camera squarely in the consumer class rather than giving it the pro image the system deserved. Still, I guess they had to sell cameras in a competitive market, somehow...</p>

[mark_medin]

<p>Jeff, you're comparing an early '70s camera's screen brightness with cameras made in the '80s and later? Kinda loading the dice with that comparison.</p>

[peter_naylor1]

<p>Rick, I have to agree about those Hal Rieff risque adverts for the Miranda range, amusing though they were, must have cheapened the all-important image aspect. After AIC assumed control of the Miranda Camera Co in the early 60s there seems to have been a decision to increase production volume and lower prices, possibly because of that lowered image. So Mirandas became 'middle-of the-road' rather than the cutting edge pricey items they had been. A good example is the Automex trio, which were the precursors of the Sensorex. These had been ferociously expensive in the late 50s and into the 60s, and in many countries (eg Australia) they weren't even sold because of their high price tags. </p>

<p>OK, so Hal Rieff never did one of his 'Oh, That Miranda' photoshoot ads for the Automex (AFAIK) but I reckon the brush had tarred it as tad nevertheless. As a result Automex model Mirandas never sold as well as they should when you consider their very advanced features, and they're rarely seen today. I feel quite humble to have picked up a really nice, fully working Automex 111 at a local charity shop for a mere song a couple of years ago - and it was one of the rare variants with a 'gold' fascia! For those unfamiliar with Automexes, here's a write-up and photo about them from my Flickr Pages:</p>

<p> <a href="

[rick_drawbridge]

<p>Great little line-up of lovely cameras, <strong>Pete</strong>. Automexes are an extremely rare item, this side of the ditch.</p>

[richard_armstrong5]

<p>Hi Rick<br>

I know this post is rather late just catching up on the Miranda posts, enjoyed your pic's from around Tauherenikau with your Sensorex EE. I thought I knew New Zealand fairly well but had never heard of it so google to the rescue, the moment I saw Woodside come up I new where I was. I used to live just down the road at Pigeon Bush & then Cross Creek but that's over 50 year's ago. Now I'm in the Bay of Plenty.<br>

Keep those Mirandas clicking.</p>

<p>Regards<br>

Richard</p>

 

[rick_drawbridge]

<p>Nice to hear from you, <strong>Richard</strong>. I currently live just out of Featherston, so Cross Creek and Pigeon Bush are familiar haunts. Used to orchard in both Katikati and Opotiki, so I also know the BOP fairly well; miss that great climate, though we get more exciting weather down here. I don't get as much time as I'd like to spend with the Mirandas, with far too many cameras in residence. Though changes Photo.net made to their file handling have degraded the images a little, there's another Miranda post of mine which may interest you, here:<br>

<a href="/classic-cameras-forum/00W00l?start=0">http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00W00l?start=0</a></p>

[william_geissler]

My first system camera was a Sensomat with some Soligor preset lenses. Worked very well as a starter camera, and I learned how to take quality photographs. I upgraded to a Sensorex and three Auto Miranda lenses -- 35, 50, and 105mm lenses. I used this system as a photojournalist for a daily newspaper. The Sensorex was very quiet and I could hand hold it at 15th second for the 35 and 50 mm lenses. The 105 was extremely sharp and was a good sports and portrait lens. A few years later, I started working in an advertising studio which required Nikon cameras. I traded the Sensorex system in for a comparable Nikkormat system. While sturdy and "professional", the Nikkormat could not be hand held at anything less than 125th second. It was noisy and had significant vibration but used the great Nikkor lens system. The Miranda lenses were much smaller than the Nikkors and just as sharp. the Nikkor 105 mm lens was great, but not visibly superior to the 105mm Auto Miranda. I missed the waist level finder from the Sensomat and Sensorexes. The studio had a Nikon F which was an order of magnitude better than the Nikkormat FTN. Years later, I bought a Nikon EL which I use today with two FE2s and own 8 Nikkor lenses for semi professional use.

[Mike Gammill]

Great images, Rick. And an informative post. Miranda's were popular for astrophotography with refracting telescopes since waist level mode allowed the same convenient viewing angle that the diagonal prism allowed when viewing. Thanks.

[rick_drawbridge]

Thanks Mike; did you realise that this thread was initiated on May 29, 2012? And that page 2 is missing?

[chuck_foreman1]

Scratching my head too .. on missing page or date??

[Mike Gammill]

Thanks Rick. I noticed page 2 had gone missing when I looked just now. I guess when new responses came up I thought this was a new thread. If I'd looked at the first paged I'd have seen my response from 2012. But a worthy thread such as this one deserves to brought back up even after several years. FWIW, at least in the USA, it's difficult to find a clean, fully functional Miranda, but this post reminds me I should keep looking.

[brett_rogers]

I mentioned in a post way back that wouldn't mind one of these Mirandas—well I did eventually get one perhaps a couple of years ago from here in Australia via eBay. It's not as immaculate as yours, with a little brassing, but tidy enough and only paid about AUD $20 for it. I bought it from the original owner, Pamela, and it has her name neatly engraved into the lower cover. Normally I'm not at all impressed by such defacing of equipment, but she was lovely to deal with and delighted her old camera would see some more use and it's fairly unobtrusive so in this case I don't mind it. The meter needed a little persuasion due to some corrosion in some contacts but it's working now and the shutter and self timer work at all speeds. I should replace some light seals as a precaution, but otherwise I shall put a film into it over the next couple of months. I may be pre-occupied shooting with a few Alpas reflexes over the next month first with a bit of luck—more about that, in due course.

Cheers,

Brett