| Author: | | Senior Member Registered: October, 2018 Location: Paris Posts: 215 | | Review Date: January 9, 2019 | Recommended | Price: $50.00
| Rating: 8 |
| Pros: | light, wide angle, center sharpness | | Cons: | vignetting & soft corners in full frame | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 10
Value: 10
Camera Used: K1, z70
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An excellent surprise for the price !
Not really sharp on the corner on full frame ; vignetting is important before F/8 (but who want to use a wide angle in full aperture ? except for night sky eventually...)...
But everything else is perfect. Distortion exists at 24mm, but really moderate for the focal lenght, color are beautiful, center sharpness is outstanding for the price. Oh yes the price ... this lens cost abolutely nothing, as wide angle primes for pentax full frames are so rare and expensive !
Proxi photography is a welcoming bonus, but don't except to do real macro pictures without extension tubes.
I m really happy with this lens, i know it's not perfect, but would a lens costing 5 or 10x the price really give you the difference for the price you'll pay ?
See exemple at F/4 :
Crop on the centre, really sharp :
Crop on the bottom right corner, a bit disapointing :
Other pictures :
Full article in french : https://lenaick.wordpress.com/2018/12/26/miranda-24mm-f2-8-mc-macro-ff/#jp-carousel-1407 | | | | | | | Site Supporter Registered: October, 2009 Location: Denver, Colorado Posts: 2,030
2 users found this helpful
| | Review Date: July 15, 2013 | Recommended | Price: $90.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Sharpness, Colors, Construction, Price | | Cons: | None, except it's hard to find! | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 9
Value: 10
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The Miranda 24mm f/2.8 is a great value in wide angle primes. It is well-constructed of all-metal, smooth focusing and has large + clear DOF markings. Mine is a PK-A version with a 52mm filter thread, 5 rounded aperture blades and a black satin finish. The aperture ring is narrow and close to the camera body when mounted, but with the 'A' setting this isn't a problem. The focusing action is short (it is a 24mm, after all), slightly heavy without being stiff, and about 1/2 turn from close-focus to infinity. It is nearly identical in size, weight and diameter to a Pentax A 28mm f/2.8.
Performance is nothing short of amazing. Clear, sharp and truly beautiful color rendition, as good as any of my short focal length A or M series PK's. I also own a Sigma 24mm f/2.8 and find the Miranda delivers more clarity and sharpness overall.
'Macro' is an overused term, but at (roughly) 8" close-focusing it can do a respectable job on flowers and small subjects. Bokeh is decent wide open, slightly nervous stopped down, the curved blades must help here.
Vertical distortion is no worse than the Sigma Super-wide and might be slightly better. In any event it is easily corrected with LR or other PP programs.
Flare resistance is good, perhaps not equal to smc coating but not far behind. A generic 52mm WA hood helps quite a bit.
At about $100 USD, it is half the price of most 24mm manual focus primes and can compare results with any I've seen. If you find one, buy it! They are rare but do come up on eBay occasionally in PK mount.
Ron
| | | | | Site Supporter Registered: November, 2012 Location: North Wales Posts: 2,869 | | Review Date: February 18, 2013 | Not Recommended | Price: $40.00
| Rating: 6 |
| Pros: | 24mm wide angle, PKA | | Cons: | IQ lacking | | Sharpness: 4
Aberrations: 7
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 8
Value: 7
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I suspect mine was duff. 
As they say, pics are worth a thousand words. See the duffness for yourself. I was pleased to acquire the lens, prompted by the preceding reviews, and tried hard to find a sweet spot or a way or a reason: different f's checking and rechecking focus with live view. I failed.
PS: ricoh pin problem solved by using a jewellers file to take the square edge off the AF depression on the camera mount. Pin simply doesn't catch but readily rides out.
Miranda 24mm pentax k-r, jpg, no pp. Full size here
Pentax SMC-M 28mm, k-r, no pp. Full size here.
 | | | | | Site Supporter Registered: October, 2009 Location: Denver, Colorado Posts: 2,030
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: October 14, 2012 | Recommended | Price: $90.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Sharp, Good Color Rendition, Inexpensive | | Cons: | Slight Over-exposure, Lacks contrast in some lighting | | Sharpness: 9
Aberrations: 9
Bokeh: 8
Handling: 9
Value: 9
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Although I already own a Sigma Super-wide 24mm, I wasn't completely satisfied with the overall sharpness and quality of construction. I took a chance with an eBay purchase of the Miranda 24mm MC f/2.8 Macro, and couldn't be happier!
It is suprisingly sharp above f/4.0 and decent at f/2.8. Handling and construction are very good, with the exception of the opposite-rotating focus direction (opposite from Pentax and most other lenses I own). It just takes a bit of getting-used-to.
Comparing it to the Sigma 24mm and the 24mm setting on zooms I've tried, the Miranda is slightly sharper, especially between f/4.0 and f/5.6. At f/8.0, the Sigma and Miranda seem equal.
The colors are crisp and clear, but I've had to boost the contrast slightly, no worse than many other older lenses of any brand.
Aperture and focus functions are accurate, with a slight over-exposure (1/3-1/2 stop) in a few high-contrast lighting situations. In most lighting it meters correctly.
Flare is controllable with a wide angle (generic) lens hood. Without the hood it is prone to sidelight flare and reflection.
Overall I'd recommend this lens to anyone looking for a good manual focus 24mm lens, under $100 USD. The "A" setting is a real bonus and it has a useful "Macro" or closeup focusing range.
Ron
| | | | | | | New Member Registered: May, 2012 Posts: 15
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: August 19, 2012 | Recommended | Price: $25.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | overall performance, low distortion | | Cons: | build quality, flare | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 6
Handling: 8
Value: 8
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Ratings above are proper only when the lens used with analog body. With digital this lens behave bad- very sharp center and blurred corners.
Pros.:
- cheap wide angle
- IQ (sharpness, color rendition, contrast- over expectations)
- distortions acceptable corrected
Cons.:
- susceptibility to flare, which is impressive (the second, third, (etc) sun)
- plastic front; it is not rattling, but it is not the metal...
- my lens has a ricoh pin...
| | | | | Veteran Member Registered: September, 2008 Location: Tre, Finland Posts: 1,229
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: December 26, 2011 | Recommended | Price: $40.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Great colors, sharpness, low distortion | | Cons: | Corner performance wide open, CA | | Sharpness: 8
Aberrations: 8
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 10
Value: 10
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This is nowdays actually my most used lens and while it has some shortcomings I still think it's great value for money. For a while I had both this lens and Sigma Superwide II 2.8/24mm and after some rough side by side test shots I decided to sell the Sigma. Because Sigma has been extensively reviewed on the web I thought I'd write a quick comparison between the two (from my memory):
Size: Miranda is a bit smaller
Min focusing distance/max magnification ratio: Exactly the same on both lenses, close focus not macro.
Build quality: Similar quality. Both are sturdier than most modern lenses but not exactly Takumars. Both lenses I owned had the A-setting and automatic exposure worked well.
Sharpness: Wide open center sharpness is excellent with both lenses. In the corners Sigma performs much better from wide open and Miranda catches it by f8
Flare: Tested both lenses without a hood and while both showed considerable flare Sigma was worse and produced completely washed out images even when the sun wasn't in the picture (but close). I later used the Miranda with a generic ebay metal hood and didn't have bad flare issues.
Distortion: Both lenses exhibit barrel distortion but Miranda is better than Sigma. Miranda needs only half of the Sigmas correction in lightroom.
Color: Miranda wins here, the colors are bright, natural and they really pop. Sigma produces cooler colors which IMO need more pp.
CA: I think Miranda was a bit worse here, but the purple fringing it sometimes produced was not difficult to fix in pp (lightroom slider)
So there you have it. If you can get this Miranda 24mm cheap and don't need exceptional corner sharpness at wider apertures I really recommend this lens. I've used this lens for street shooting and usually at f5.6-f8 so for me the performance wide open isn't all that important.
btw I think this lens was made by Cosina (maybe in response to the well-reviewed Sigma) and can be found in different guises too
| | | | | New Member Registered: October, 2011 Posts: 9 | | Review Date: December 25, 2011 | Recommended | Price: None indicated
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | light, feels good, pin sharp, nice bokeh, macro | | Cons: | non as yet | | Sharpness: 10
Aberrations: 10
Bokeh: 9
Handling: 8
Value: 10
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 I have just got this lens and so have not really put it through its paces yet however my initial thoughts are 'wow' and 'wow again'. It's extremely sharp and the colours and contrast really pop. It's light weight but feels quite solid. Mine was a present so I don't know how much it cost. It is as new and handles extremely well and smoothly. As far as flare is concerned, I have not noticed anything untoward as yet.
And on my K5, the Ricoh pin problem is not a problem.
Regards
Chris
| | | | | Senior Member Registered: August, 2010 Location: United States Posts: 278
1 user found this helpful
| | Review Date: October 19, 2010 | Recommended | Price: $50.00
| Rating: 9 |
| Pros: | Very Sharp, good color, good contrast, cheap. | | Cons: | Ricoh Pin! Over Exposure. | |
I picked this up on ebay not long ago and I have to say I was surprised by this little gem. I have not had enough time to test this lens completely, but from what I've seen so far, this is a great little lens. I do not have another 24mm lens to compare this to so I put it up against my Pentax-A 28mm 2.8. This Miranda beat my 28mm hands down, in all aspects with exception of color, for which they are head to head. This lens is extremely sharp and renders detail flawlessly. It has excellent color and contrast. Although not a true macro, this lens will get very close to the subject and since it's a 24mm, can be used to add a different perspective on the subject then the more common 50 and 90mm macros. I don't know for sure, but my guess is it gets down to 1:4 magnification. I am extremely happy with this little lens and I recommend you pick one up if you can find one.
Beware the Ricoh pin! I own several other lenses that have the Ricoh pin and have never had a stuck lens. The first time I put this on my camera it got stuck. I was able to remove it with the brute force method and have since neutered the lens (removed the R-pin). It was very easy and gave me a chance to clean the sand out of the inside of the barrel.
My lens was slighly miss treated, looked like it had rolled around in the bottom of someones camera bag for years without any attention. Scratched and scuffed and full of grime. I had to do some serious cleaning to get it back in order. Build quality is so so. It's definitely very plasticy. Focus ring is smooth and long enough - about 2/3 rotation from infinity to close up. Very easy to get things into focus.
This lens does seem to over expose images. I don't know why exactly. You will need to set your exposure compensation to somewhere in the neighborhood of -1 to get proper exposure.
EDIT:
After further use with this lens, I have some more to report. It exhibits very odd flair characteristics. When shooting inside in dim light, beware natural light coming in nearby windows that are roughly 30 degrees off the direction you are shooting. I get a soft whiteish cast (ghosting?) across the opposite 1/3 of the image. Not sure exactly what is causing it, but my guess would be that the front element is reflecting the light from the window into the lens (even though the window is not in the frame) and causing the ghosting. I definitely need to get a hood.
On another note, this lens can be a little soft wide open. Above f4 everything sharpens up nicely with optimum sharpness reached between f5.6-f16.
At this point I'd have to say that this lens, although still very good, is not deserving of the 9 rating I gave it. I think an 8 or 8.5 would be more fitting. Still a good little lens, and I still highly recommend it if you can find one.
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