Soligor Miranda 3.5/180 - Kowa ?

[luisalegria]

I picked this up (cheap) knowing that it had an M44 screw Miranda mount, but hoping it was a T-mount. It was not.





However, it was possible to remove the Miranda mount anyway, and my general-purpose home-made "Frankenstein" adapter fits quite well, and with a 5mm extension ring it is a perfectly fine M42 lens with infinity focus.

I was interested in this because it is a mystery where most of the Miranda lenses, and Soligor lenses in dedicated Miranda mount, came from. Soligor of course sold lenses from nearly every Japanese maker (and of course it owned Miranda), but one does not usually see the Miranda-mount stuff also available in general purpose T-mount. Why this is one can only speculate. I have heard that Kowa made some of the Miranda lenses, so this might be a Kowa. Other makers that are not usually found in the general run of Soligors also include Itoh, Sigma and Sun, though the style and mechanics may rule out Sun.

I may also have seen this lens or similar designs advertised in Exakta mount, under the "Coligon" (Aetna) brand in Seymours 1960's catalogs.

Anyway, this lens is a quite conventional preset, with the aperture mechanism not so typically on the mount end of the lens. Also not so common is an optical flat (no curves) just at the mount, which had to be removed as well in order to turn this into M42. I can only speculate that this was supposed to prevent dirt from getting into the lens.

The manufacturing quality and finish is rather cheaper than usual for Soligor made lenses of the early 1960's, though the lens is perfectly functional.

Performance is mixed. Its decently sharp even wide open, though its not a competitor with most of what I have in this focal length, its softer and suffers more from CA and fringing than most. Its certainly not as good as either the Komine or Tamron-made Soligor 180's. I can't complain about color or flare, its very good in those respects.

I used extension rings for some of these.













100% crop





Experiment - merged layers of straight desaturate plus Gimp GEGL C2G B&W conversion.



Egg drop contest -











The bird -



crop -

[martinsmith99]

It looks a pretty decent lens to me. Congrats.

[Scheimpflug]

[casualcollector]

Luis,

Interesting find. Kowa made an early Miranda 50mm. It was labeled as a "Prominar", Kowa's house brand. I've seen the Miranda/Kowa reference but have forgotten where.

[a20010494]

I know Kowa from their insane x-ray lenses. I think you picked up a bargain, an sure your hand/eye combination takes the juice out of it!

[Univer]

Hi,

Wow...talk about coincidence. I just picked up this same lens in M42 mount. In fact, this thread appeared as the lens was en route to me, and I had a bad couple of days wondering whether the "screw mount" the seller described was 42mm or 44mm.

A question, Luis, if I may: when you removed the mount to attach your adapter, did you have easy access to the aperture blades? My lens is in cosmetically mint condition, but its blades are a little out of whack, and the aperture, as you stop down, is slightly asymmetrical. Not necessarily a big issue in and of itself, I know - and I'll probably wind up leaving well enough alone - but I would like to have a peek and see what's going on in there.

I'm looking forward to shooting with it, wonky aperture and all; although, as always, I despair of ever matching Luis's results.

Cheers,

Jon

[fatdeeman]

Excellent shots as always!