Optical Review Blog No. 60 – Auto Miranda 1:3.5 f=135mm

Miranda produced a lot of excellent lenses, from wide-angle to telephoto and everything in between. The 135mm f/3.5 is an interesting addition. It might not be the best choice for portrait-length lenses, but it still works great for what it is. Don’t get me wrong, there are better and faster lenses in this category, but the 135mm f/3.5 has one thing: affordability with a lot more bang for your buck than you would expect. And while it might not be the fastest or a focal length I like (yes, I still struggle with 135mm), it works for the limited number of times I’ve used it. Honestly, for this review, it’s only the second time I’ve mounted this lens.

Lens Specifications
Make: Miranda Camera K.K.
Model: Auto Miranada 1:3.5 f=135mm
Focal Length: 135mm
Focal Range: ∞ – 1.5m
Aperture: f/3.5 – f/22, x Blades
Structure: 4 Elements in 3 Groups

Build Quality
Despite being a bargain option for a portrait lens, the 135mm f/3.5 doesn’t skimp on build quality. The lens is all-metal and fairly long, but it doesn’t shift the centre of gravity, has good weight, and is well balanced on the Sensorex. Despite its age, the focusing remains smooth, and you can quickly shift from infinity to 1.5m with almost a full rotation of the barrel. The focusing helical is large and nicely textured, making it easy to operate. Like other Miranda models, the aperture ring has the interface cam, and the click stops are subtle, making it difficult to adjust and know when you’re at a stop. The one thing that surprises me is that, despite a low element count, the lens performs well. You will notice a small flower-shaped mark on the lens elements in my copy. This is not a fungus (Burlington Camera would never sell a lens that looks like that), but rather separation, which hasn’t affected image quality.

Image Quality
As I mentioned in the introduction, there is a small fault in the lens, with some separation between the elements, which has not caused any major problems with image quality. Despite everything, this lens performs well. The first thing I’m going to mention is how smooth the out-of-focus elements are, even with a ‘slower’ f/3.5 aperture. I don’t often wax poetic about that out-of-focus rendering, but there’s a smooth dreaminess to this lens, and in some cases, if you’re at f/5.6 and hit that focus sweet spot, you can get a bit of a swirl rendering. It shouldn’t surprise you to see that there’s no distortion, either barrel or pinching, with the optics, and even shot wide-open, there’s no vignetting or fall-off in your corners, and even at f/3.5, the image is still sharp. Although you do see better sharpness when stopped down to f/5.6. While there’s no engraved stop for f/4, it is there, but I didn’t include it since it’s not on the lens barrel. The lens’s best-performing areas are between f/5.6 and f/16, although there are no concerns about stopping it all the way down to f/22 if you need that extra bit of depth of field.

Applications
At 135mm, it is on the longer end of the portrait focal length range. As a great budget lens for portrait photographers, the Miranda 135/3.5 delivers excellent subject separation even when stopped down beyond f/3.5. While I wouldn’t use it for couples photos, it is a great lens for headshots and three-quarter and half-length portraits, especially when you have a lot of space to work. It also makes for a great lens for documentary photographers, giving you a long reach in a small form factor. Enough reach to capture the action without directly influencing said action. So if you are also a street photographer of this type, it would also be a great choice. You can also use it to capture architectural details, limited sports, and wildlife photos.

The Low Down
The Miranda 135/3.5 surprised me with how well it performed, but then again, it shouldn’t have, since I’ve never encountered a bad Miranda lens! But what makes this lens even better is how inexpensive it can be on the used market. Most options go for around twenty to fifty dollars on the used market, which is pretty awesome for a lens that delivers solid performance. Considering that the 105mm f/2.8 is going for a hundred dollars more than the 135mm. And while I would like to find one eventually, I’m pretty happy with the 135mm even if I don’t use it that often. It’s an inexpensive lens that is far from cheap.

Further Reading
Don’t just take my view on the Miranda 135/3.5, check out these other reviews.
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