This is a new Miranda 35 mm camera which I've added to my growing Miranda camera collection - the Miranda Sensorex II. When I say new, I of course mean new to me - the camera is about 40 years old!
Miranda Sensorex II Images
My Miranda Sensorex II Camera
I picked this up from my usual source of vintage cameras, eBay, and paid about £15 including postage for the body without a lens. For the pictures above, I used the lens from my Sensorex.
The supplied viewfinder is not in fact the correct one for this camera, but is the one which was supplied with the Auto Sensorex EE2. There is a little viewport next to the eyepiece which gives a view of the shutter speed set on the camera, and on the EE2 the speeds were repeated on the bottom of the dial to support this feature. On the Sensorex II, there is just a view of the bottom of the shutter speed dial, so it's not adding much information!
I was surprised to find that once I put a battery (a modern 1.5v call) into the battery compartment, the metering is still working and responding to light. I haven't checked its accuracy, but I would expect it will be fine as long as the film speed is set slower than the actual film fitted to compensate for the increase in voltage.
The camera needs a good clean and there are some areas of paintwork on the back door which are a bit battered, but other than that everything seems to be working correctly. In fact, with the metering working, I considered taking this camera on my trip to CenterParcs in a couple of weeks, but unfortunately I don't have many lenses with the aperture coupling arm, so I'm going to stick to my original plan and take my Miranda G.
Miranda Sensorex II Description
The Sensorex II has all the features which most of the Miranda series of cameras had, namely
- Replaceable viewfinder with waist and eye-level options available
- Dual lens mount - internal M44 thread and external bayonet
- Excellent engineering
The Sensorex II had a similar metering system to the original Sensorex, using a match needle system visible in the viewfinder with the light sensor fitted to the mirror, which enabled it to be used with any viewfinder fitted to the camera. The user needed to set the maximum aperture of the lens fitted so that the coupling arm could be calibrated for the lens fitted.
The differences with this camera seem to be purely cosmetic changes - for example, the switch which sets the lens maximum aperture is fitted to the film rewind crank, rather than having a separate switch fitted to the front of the camera. Also, the styling of the viewfinder is more in keeping with the viewfinder fitted to the Sensomat series, and the big plate fitted in front of the viewfinder on the original Sensorex is gone. I would expect the camera was produced simply to refresh the current offering to make it more appealing with other manufacturers bringing out new cameras.
Miranda Sensorex II Specifications
- Miranda Sensorex II 35mm SLR camera
- Manufactured about 1972
- Removable/Replaceable viewfinder
- Miranda dual mount - M44 + bayonet
- Self timer
- Front mounted shutter release
- Shutter range 1 sec to 1/1000 + B
- Match needle metering system
- ISO range 25 to 1600
- Film type reminder
- Auto reset frame counter
- Film type reminder
- Shutter cocked indicatore
- Lens / camera aperture coupling arm
- Switch to set lens max aperture
- Body Ser No: 8323832
- Manual available on-line here
