Miranda Lenses

Est. 1946 · Tokyo, Japan · 3 lenses

Miranda grew out of Orion Seiki, a postwar Tokyo camera workshop founded by Akira Ogihara and Shintarō Ōtsuka, both trained in aeronautical engineering. Miranda's own company history dates its beginnings to 1946. Repairs, lens adapters, the Mirax reflex housing, and Focabell bellows preceded the company's move into complete cameras. The Miranda T, introduced in 1955, was among the earliest Japanese 35 mm SLRs with an eye-level pentaprism; its removable finder established a defining feature of the system. Orion adopted the Miranda company name in the 1950s.

Miranda built its reputation around adaptable SLRs: interchangeable finders, a lens mount combining an external bayonet with an internal 44 mm screw thread, and accessories for close-up and scientific photography. The Sensorex brought through-the-lens metering into this modular system, while the Auto Sensorex EE added shutter-priority automatic exposure with Auto Miranda E lenses. Allied Impex, the American distributor behind the Soligor brand, became Miranda's owner during the 1960s. Soligor-branded lenses formed part of the early system alongside the later Auto Miranda ranges.

The lenses deserve attention in their own right. The early Auto Miranda 50mm f/1.4 supplied for the Sensorex used an eight-element, six-group Gauss-type design, distinct from later lenses carrying the same focal length and aperture. The Auto Miranda 25mm f/2.8 covered an 82° angle of view with eight elements in seven groups and focused down to 0.25 m; the 105mm f/2.8 provided a compact portrait option. In the 1970s, the Auto EC series emphasized smaller, lighter lenses for bodies such as the dx-3, spanning fast 50mm standards, wide-angles, and telephotos including the 35mm f/2.8, 135mm f/2.8, and 200mm f/3.5.

The compact dx-3 exchanged the traditional removable finder for a fixed prism and an electronically controlled shutter. It could not reverse the company's decline: Miranda entered bankruptcy and ended camera production in 1976. Dixons later revived the name on cameras, lenses, and accessories sourced from other manufacturers. Those later Miranda-branded products belong to a separate chapter from the original Japanese SLR system.

Notable designs: Auto Miranda 50mm f/1.4 (eight-element), Auto Miranda 25mm f/2.8, Auto Miranda 105mm f/2.8, Auto EC 35mm f/2.8, Auto EC 135mm f/2.8, Auto EC 200mm f/3.5