Broken Zorki from ebay?

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mynameislee2

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Hi,

So, my first mistake was buying a 36 exposure film to test my Zorki 2c which I bought from ebay, it's taken a while to finish. Now I've got the film back from the developer and it's not good news. They gave me the negative roll back and didn't charge me 🙂

I am now the proud owner of 1 complete image, a couple of half images and 32 blank images. I got hooked on photography when using several digitals and have since bought several film cameras (Yashica 124g and a Holga). This is the first time I've used a film camera without a light meter (except the Holga but that only gives you a sunny and cloudy button which I believe doesn't make any difference). I'd read about sunny 16 and it seemed even I might get acceptable results using it.

The film was an Ilford 400 Super XP so I set the shutter to 500. I did change this to 250 on a couple of the shots to see what would happen exposure wise (which tuned out to be a wasted experiment). The appeture was changed on each shot based on my best guess at either light and/or what I wanted in focus.

Looking at the negatives, can anyone enlighten me as to why the shots are blank (completely clear). First I thought they might just all be completely underexposed but on at least a couple of shots I changed the shutter to 250 so I would have expected some kind of difference.

I found another thread discussing shutter curtains, could this be the problems, maybe their stuck and I got lucky on one shot?

Any advise would be much appreciated.

Regards,
Lee
 
Hi,

Erm, camera mechanism newbie question 🙄 - If I unscrew the lense and peer in should I be able to see the curtains moving from there?

Regards,
Lee
 
no problem and yes take lens off and run it through all speeds and see if curtains stick. It sure does sound like they do. If they do keep doing it at top speed see if they loosen up if not get a clean lube and adjust. This is a nice camera.
 
Yep, you should 🙂

Unscrew the lens and test all the speeds, if something is terribly wrong in there (like causing all your shots to be heavily overexposed) you should easily spot it.
 
Many thanks for all of your replies. I'll take a quick look this evening but it sounds like it might be a christmas break project.

The frames that were completely clear on the negatives, does that mean they were completely over exposed or completely under exposed?
 
Er, no. If they´re clear on the negatives, it means they didn´t get any light at all, which is I think what happened in this case - it looks like either the curtain doesn´t move at all, or the slit between the curtains doesn´t open so that the first and second curtain move together.

If they´re black on the negatives, it means they got too much light. It´s surprisingly difficult to make them go completely overexposed accidentally.

Unscrew the lens, fire the shutter a couple of times at all speeds including "B" and see what happens.
 
Clear means the curtains have not opened at all....no light at all. By all means you should run the camera in an attempt to loosen up the mechanisms but failing that there are some very good tech men that can CLA and repair the camera. Eddy Smolov in Brooklyn and Fedka in NYC.

Hang in there its a fun way to shoot once all works well.

Ray
 
And the other question I should ask is can I check the curtain movement without having a film loaded. Doesn't winding the film cock the shutter and presumably in some way prime the curtains?
 
Pearing into the lense hole...

Pearing into the lense hole...

Ok, I just had to look at this as soon as I got home from work. I've still got my coat on 🙄.

I have a light shining into the lense hole so I can test to see if I can see the reflection of it between the curtains as they move.

Here goes.....while doing this test I have the collar at the base of the shutter release button pointing to the '.'.

On 'B' the first curtain moves, exposes the back plate. When releasing the shutter button the second curtain moves. I believe this is a good thing.

On 30 the same thing happens 😕. The second curtain doesn't move until the shutter button is released. The shutter mechanism sounds/looks like it just runs out of steam before it can trigger the second curtain to close, the first curtain hasn't quite dissappeared from view either. When the shutter button is released completely the first curtain dissappears and the second curtain flies across completely.

On 60 and 125 both curtains move and I can see the light reflected on the back plate so there is a gap between the curtains.

On 500 I'm having trouble seeing any reflected light, maybe occassionally but I can't be completely sure.

Many thanks in advance,
Lee
 
Lee,

If you took those shots recently in the UK then you can forget sunny-16, you'll be lucky to hit sunny-5.6 at this time of year! I took some shots a few days ago (overcast) using 1/60 at f/4.

When you fire the shutter on the 2C, on B, what you say happens makes sense - it should stay wide open until you release the button. On 1/30 (doesn't it have 1/25 not 1/30??) you should be able to make out the whole frame for an instant. Higher speeds should get harder and harder to judge and at 1/500 it may well be too narrow a gap to make out.
 
januaryman said:
You do know about not changing the shutter speed until you've cocked the shutter, right?
Click to expand...
The mechanism on a Zorki 2C shouldn't break from changing it with shutter uncocked, it doesn't have slow speeds.

If the mechanism behaves exactly the same on B and on 1/30, there's a problem with the shutter. However, it shouldn't have the effect mentioned in your first post; the shutter opens, so there should be no unexposed frames.

I agree with Ron about the lens cap. 🙂
 
Sounds like your speeds of 1/60 and higher _may_ be working somewhat as they should. Just the 1/30 setting sounds like a malfunction. You may be fiddling with the aperture too much. Start over and get two 12 exposure rolls of 200 speed.

On the first roll, just use 60, 125 and 250 . Go outdoors during the day and limit yourself to just use the 125 and 250 speeds at f5.6, f8 and f11. (f11 if its sunny, no clouds).

On the second roll, duplicate some of the first roll's shots at the same lighting conditions and shutter speeds, just a couple, then also try some shots under darker conditions with slower shutter speeds.

This will give you some indication of the camera's possible faults and also if some shutter speeds are usable or not. (the slower shutter speeds -30 and under-are where a lot of cameras that need CLAs fail)

My suspicions are the first roll will yield some acceptable results. Also remember to take the lens cap off or just leave it off and out of reach for a couple of days. 😉
 
Were the images that did come out at beginning of roll

Were the images that did come out at beginning of roll

If so, I can tell you I had a similar problem with my Kiev, because the film came loose from the takeup after 2 or 3 shots. Did you advance the roll until it actually stopped in the canister, or did you use the counter and then rewind the film.

I don't know how the Zorki may, or may not, be similar to the Kiev, but I found that a screw for the film takeup spool had worked loose.

So, you may want to put a dummy roll in and run it all the way with the back open. Film tensioning on loading seems to be critical. I would probably not use 36 exposure rolls in old transport mechanisms like these.
 
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