A Zest of Zenits

J

johnf04

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My first SLR camera, in 1970, was a Zenit 3M, like the one here. This one, I bought about 15 years ago. It failed, half way through a film, and I had to reglue the shutter tapes.

The Zenit Es in the picture have production dates from 1967 to 1980. I have another Zenit E, with M39 lens mount, which is waiting for a shutter overhaul.
 
I have a 1973 KMZ made Zenit E with the 58 mm Helios lens which I bought for 5 dollars, a heavy but a reliable camera with a now sought after swirly bokeh 58mm lens for all the mirrorless digital camera fanatics of the weird bokeh club of the present time.

I remember buying a new Belomo Made Zenit E (T ) from Kmart (Canada) in the early 1980s and it was pure junk, every one did not have the take-up spool hooked up to the internal gearing and I promptly got a refund after the third try with a different sample.
 
I went on local art show this weekend. One digital photog has Zenit 12 just for display.
With 50mm pancake it was sexy.
 
Back in 1972, I bought my first "serious" camera, a demo-model Yashica TL-Super. Shortly thereafter, I saw a Zenit E with 58mm Helios f2.0 and ER case at another camera store for the incredibly low price of $69.95.

- Murray
 
Zenits (and Lada cars but that's another story) were ever so popular in my country (Greece). Russian immigrants of Greek descent were bringing them and selling them with the bucket loads during the 80's. There would be open markets in central streets in Athens every Sunday - Zenits were the single most popular camera they were selling. Very often they would try to sell them with lenses that did not match like K-mount just so that they sell them as a set.
 
I would have loved to have a Pentax, or a Canon, in 1970 - I couldn't afford one (I was a student). I was able to buy the Zenit through a friend of my dad's, who owned a shop.
 
I lived in FSU so I had little choice - Zenit (ET if remember correctly) was my second camera (after Smena 8M). When the country collapsed and life changed and I could afford something else I happily got rid of Zenit. And there is no love lost (same goes for that non-existent country)...
 
Hi,

This is my oldest Zenit beside a Zorki to show the relationship.

Zenit%20%26%20Zorki%203-XL.jpg


And, when I find one at the right price, I'll get the last one with the Pentax K mount and the DX reader but the 212k will do, fttb...

Regards, David

PS (EDIT) This is the first version of the Zenit, it was followed by the Zenit-S (or Zenit-C). There's an English instruction manual for the second (C or S) version here:-

http://www.zenitcamera.com/mans/zenit-s/zenit-s-eng.html

It contains some useful info about things that were common to the Zorki and Zenit like cassette loading and so on.
 
David Hughes said:
....
This is my oldest Zenit beside a Zorki to show the relationship...
Click to expand...

Thank you for showing this! I read user reviews on RRF, but it was never shown like this.

valdas said:
I lived in FSU so I had little choice - Zenit (ET if remember correctly) was my second camera (after Smena 8M). When the country collapsed and life changed and I could afford something else I happily got rid of Zenit. And there is no love lost (same goes for that non-existent country)...
Click to expand...

I meet as customer one immigrant from Turkey here in Canada. He was kid and then teenager and he was dreaming to get Zenit as the only camera he would be able to afford by working hard in Turkey. But he only purchased it here in Canada.

As for FSU, it never disappeared, ghost of communism came from Europe to Canada recently. Sometimes my wife and I think what this virus is chasing us....
 
Lets see, I've got six of them now. A pair of E's (one only good for parts), a Cosmorex SE which is a re-branded E, a pair of TTL's (one working but meter is dead), and the latest is a hammertone grey ET that has shutter and lens issues.

I was going to swap the Helios-77M-4 1.8/50 on the ET with the Helios-44M 2/58 on the TTL for a better field of view, but will have to clean the sticking aperture blades in it first.

PF
 
Thank you, David. Yours is really first one!
I was looking at Zorki-S how to operate video in Japanese and read Russian reviews.
Service chapter is available in Mayzenberg's and another books as well.
I think, I'll try it... I have one photo project where RF LTM lenses working as "macro" on Zenit-S is perfect match for it.
 
Been tempted but never bit. All the cheap ones I've seen have been in-op and I didn't want to learn Zenit repair. Closest I've come is a Ricoh SLX-500 that had basically the same feature set except for TTL metering (which was not working on my sample). Gave that away and only have a Fujica ST605n now for M42 mount. You just have to keep at least one M42 mount body around.
 
I'm not SLR guy, but RF. Zenit-S reported to be close to Zorki, which I serviced before.
 
I briefly owned a 2005-production Zenit KM+: Last of the Zenits! They finally addressed the old shortcomings by giving it a bright viewfinder with 90%+ coverage, full range of shutter speeds up to 1/2000, even a built-in winder. Worked pretty good too but noisy enough to scare away wildlife.
 
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