Anyone with a Zorki 1 or Fed 1 that needs TLC?

[comp_wiz101]

Hello all, I'm starting to like the slim lines of a Leica look-a-like to complement my heavy Kiev 88 gear. Does anyone have any Zorki 1 or Fed 1 Cameras that they are feeling ready to get rid of?

 

[rxmd]

It doesn't get much slimmer than the Zorki 3 you already have, and the viewfinder is much, much worse.

Philipp

 

[comp_wiz101]

Really? If the VF is that bad..... well, thanks for the heads up. 🙂

 

[Xmas]

Fed 1, Zorki 1 and Leica II have the early leica II widely separated viewfinder/rangefinder arrangement. The viewfinder is not that bad I can see the whole frame and I almost have a white stick and accompaning dog...
Most people who have one will want to keep it unless it is a parts body, come to think I could do with a parts body...
To summarise you need to try one of the three, before rejecting, they are way compact with a collapsible , but a bit noisy, the shutter make a metal slap sound.
Noel

 

[Gordon Coale]

My Zorki 3M towers over my Leica IIIc and the Leica IIIc looks like a porker next to my friends Zorki 1, which is quiter than my IIIc. The little FEDs and Zorkis are small.

 

[ZorkiKat]

Sorry....I love them all. Like them so much that there's a lot of them here.

If 25...30% bigger and larger and heavier isn't much, then the Z-3 is as big as the Zorki-1 😀 No, the viewfinder isn't bad at all. It's just smaller. And at least it allows seeing the scene in the usual 2:3 format in one glance. The bigger brighter viewfinders of the later Zorki don't allow one to see the entire frame- right to the edges- in one glance. You'd have to move your eye a bit around the frame to see what's there in the corners.



Jay

 

[vicmortelmans]

I started with a Zorki 4 a couple of months ago and now obtained a Zorki 1 (mainly because it's smaller and more elegant than the Zorki 4). I was a bit afraid of getting a worse viewfinder, but to my surprise, it seems to turn out on the contrary.

The Zorki 4 always gave me problems for correct framing, because you don't see a real rectangle in the viewfinder. It's all very vague. (see also my participation in the thread about adding framelines to the Zorki 4 viewfinder!).

The Zorki 1 is a bit dimmer (but not all that much) and gives a clear framed view (but I should test if it matches the actual 50mm framing). The only disadvantage seems to be the rangefinder, which is clearly dimmer than on the Zorki 4. Having view- and rangefinder separate is something I'll get used to very easily.

Groeten,

Vic

 

[ZorkiKat]

Vic

The RF/VF shifting bit between focusing and composing isn't really harder or significantly slower than doing the same with single RF/VF windows. It becomes secondary in nature, and once you learn the ropes, you won't really miss shots. Much of the 'disadvantages' are really perceptual, though a single
VF/RF window is really an improvement. But improvement depends on the VF design. It works for finders similar to the ones found in M3.

In FSU single RF/VF windows, the RF patch is usually tiny and any time gained from not switching windows is often lost in figuring out whether the tiny ghost image in the patch is really aligned or not. The magnified view of the RF-only window is enlarged and nothing else is there to disrupt the coincident images.
Focus confirmation is usually quicker.

The Zorki-1/FED-1 RF image is usually bright, though some examples can be found with dim or faint images. Fault this to the age of the camera: time and elements can make the VF bad.

Jay

 

[reagan]

"...and I almost have a white stick and accompaning dog..."

I'm there. I wear glasses all the time and the Zorki.1 RF/VF was easy to get used to. It's size and simplicity fits the kind of carrying/shooting I enjoy. Fits it so well, in fact, after my wife gave me my first Zorki.1 for a Father's Day, I have since bought two more Zorki.1s and two Leica.IIIs.

 

[wolves3012]

I'll second Jay's comments on the finders - the Zorki 1/FED 1 is no slower in practice. I find my Zorki 1 easiest to focus in very poor light, even though (say) the Zorki 4 is brighter.

As for the noisy shutter, my quietest is a FED 1, by far. The Zorki 1 is also quieter than my other cameras, but they do seem to vary.

 

[ZorkiKat]

As for the noisy shutter, my quietest is a FED 1, by far. The Zorki 1 is also quieter than my other cameras, but they do seem to vary.

The shutter noise level in FED-1 and Zorki-1 varies, even within the same variant. Some just are really quiet. One of my Zorki is the quietest cloth FP camera I have, making less noise than my Leica M3.

Part of the factor is the construction of the shutter crate. In the FED and some of the early Zorki, this crate was made of several pieces of rather thin metal. The metal the factories used changed. In the later Zorki, the crate was stamped from a single piece. It was also thicker, which made it absorb the force a closing shutter makes and made less noise.

Then there is also the laths used. FED and Zorki original shutters had the cloth wrap around the laths. Replacement shutters (and perhaps those in the last production runs) which are usually found in repaired cameras used crimped metal laths.

The tension of the shutter, as well as shutter cloth thickness are also proportionate to the noise produced. The shutter cloths used in FED and Zorki
varied in thickness. Some were as thick as 0.4 mm, but most had 0.2 to 0.3 mm. Thicker cloth meant heavier shutters, and heavier shutters required more tension.


Jay