As I mentioned in an earlier post, Fotodiox has now a range of adapters for Miranda lenses. Since then I have wanted to see and test them for myself, so I ended ordering their Fotodiox PRO Miranda-MFT adapter for $59,95 plus P&P. It arrived a few days ago; here are the test results:
The adapter looks very good. The Miranda bayonet is made of chromed brass; the rest of the body is black anodised aluminium. The manufacturing tolerances of the bayonets and the m44 thread are very good, both the camera end and the lens end are a much tighter fit than the sloppy-ish bayonets in the ramir73-made adapters I reviewed earlier.
But now for the bad news…
The adapter body is too short for correct focus to infinity. Repeat: Too Damn Short!
The register (i.e. flange distance to the film or sensor) of Miranda cameras is 41,5mm, while in the MFT cameras it is 19,25mm, leaving 22,25mm for the adapter (The measurement ‘A’ in the picture above). While on the ramir73’s adapters the adapter length was correct, on Fotodiox’s adapter the measurement ‘A’ is only 21,65mm, i.e. it is 0,6mm too short. 0,6mm may not sound much, but even that little error causes the infinity focusing of a lens to be completely off the mark. As an example, on a certain 50mm Miranda lens I was forced to set the lens to the ‘5m’ mark instead of ‘∞’ to focus to infinity.
The Miranda bayonet is fitted to the adapter body with four screws, so this error could be fixed by placing spacers of suitable thickness under the bayonet… But why would I need to do that kind of thing to an adapter costing nearly $60? On a $5 Chinese adapter it would be acceptable, but… I’ll try to contact Fotodiox to hear whether they have something to say about this!
