Couldn’t resist sharing a picture of this beauty:
A Carl Zeiss Tessar 50mm f/2.8 lens with 8-blade aperture and Exakta mount, fitted to my Olympus PEN E-PL3 via an Exakta-m4/3 adapter.
Updates
Testing Miranda lenses on a m4/3 Olympus (part 2)
Actually, the title is a bit misleading, because this time I’m testing Soligor lenses, although they all have either Miranda screw-mount or bayonet mounts.
The weather today was overcast but quite warm for the season, so I did some walking-around in the city with three – heavy(ish) – lenses and the Olympus PEN E-PL3 in the backpack. All the pictures are taken in aperture-priority mode.
Soligor 105mm f/2.8 preset lens (with T-mount-to-m44 adapter), serial number 197144. Exposure: f/5.6 1/200s 200ISO.
Soligor 105mm. Exposure: f/5.6 1/500s 200ISO.
Soligor 105mm. Exposure: f/8.0 1/100s 500ISO.
Soligor Auto-Zoom 90-230mm f/4.5 T4-mount lens, serial number 17120034. Exposure: f/4.5 1/250s 200ISO.
Soligor 350mm f/5.6 Telephoto preset lens (with T-mount-to-m44 adapter), serial number T42387. Exposure f/5.6 1/100 200ISO.
Miranda – Micro Four Thirds adapter review (part 1)
One of the interesting side-effects of the small register (flange distance to the film/sensor) of the mirrorless digital system cameras is the possibility to use almost any make and model of the older manual lenses with them, provided that the suitable mechanical adapter can be made, or already exists.
For Miranda lenses, the adapter situation had been tricky for quite a long time, mostly because the dual-mount Miranda bayonet is somewhat difficult to make. No ready-made Miranda-to-any adapter existed, unless you count the very rare Miranda’s own ML (Miranda-to-Leica/m39) adapter. Of course, some skilled enthusiasts have made their own adapters.
Fortunately the situation changed around the beginning of the year 2013: a fellow going by the eBay pseudonym of ramir73 started making Miranda lens adapters for the mirrorless digital cameras; he has made adapters for at least Micro 4/3, Canon EOS M, Nikon, Fuji and Sony NEX camera mounts.
I have two versions of his Miranda-to-m4/3 adapters. Both versions fit quite nicely to both the lens and the body – maybe just a tiny bit of tighter tolerances would have been better – and the dimensions are correct for infinity-focusing. The original version (black one on the left in the picture below) is quite good in itself, and nicely finished; however, it has two major problems: first, the mount is bayonet-only, i.e. the 44mm screw mount is missing, so accessories like reverser rings and extension tubes, or older screw-mount lenses, can’t be used. Second, the alignment between the two bayonets , Miranda and m4/3, is some 10° askew; insignificant when used with round lenses, but it created a significant problem with the Focabell bellows.
The latest incarnation (silver one on the right), which I got just a few days ago, addresses these shortcomings: the mount is now the correct dual-mount (bayonet/m44), and the Miranda bayonet and the m4/3 bayonet are now in line with each other. The maker was concerned about the tolerances of the screw mount, but so far everything I have with 44mm screw mount has fitted without problems. The finish has now changed to very nice looking matt aluminium; the matt black in the hand-painted interior is however a bit on the thin side.
The old (black) and the new (silver) Miranda-to-m4/3 adapter.
Olympus PEN E-PL3 with the new adapter, equipped with Auto Miranda 135mm f/3.5 lens.
Olympus PEN E-PL3 fitted to Miranda Focabell bellows and an Auto Miranda 50mm f/1.9 lens.
Please see the part 2 of the review here.
Testing Miranda lenses on a m4/3 Olympus (part 1)
Last Saturday, which was an extremely warm and sunny day here in Tampere, I set about cycling around the town with my off-road bicycle, with Olympus PEN E-PL3 body, Miranda-m4/3 adapter and a selection of Miranda lenses in the camera backpack, with the intention of taking test shots. Here are some examples of the resulting photos; the photos are unmodified and in full size, so the loading of the pictures may be slow.
Auto Miranda 28mm f/2.8 lens, serial number 1200345. Exposure: f/16 1/250s 200ISO Aperture-priority mode.
Auto Miranda 50mm f/1.8 (Sensorex style) lens, serial number 1924791. Exposure: f/16 1/500s 200ISO Aperture-priority mode.
Auto Miranda 135mm f/3.5 lens, serial number 2635458. Exposure: 1/500s 200ISO Manual mode. (These two ducks, and three more, were constantly moving. I took several pictures of them in quick succession and didn’t have time to record the aperture used.)
Same 135mm lens, exposure: f/8 1/1000s 200ISO Aperture-priority mode.
