first roll of film through my Zorki 4K (help)

Hi Philiet and welcome to this nice and friendly forum. I am sure you are going to like it here.

I am not quite sure what you refer to when saying "looking down", but it seems that you have some extra space (too much space?) over your main subject in some of the photos. May I ask, if you are wearing glasses? The viewfinder of the 4K is not that big and it can be hard to see the whole frame without getting your eye really close to the viewfinder - and even then you sometimes have to "wiggle" your eyeball a bit to see the edges of the frame.
 
Hello,

Thanks for the nice welcome. I do wear glasses yes and it is entirely possible I wasn't properly getting my eye in there.... If you notice, a lot of the shots appear as If Im looking down at the subject. I'm 6ft 6 for starters. People have told me that its the parrallax aspect. Not sure what to think. What do you think of my exposure? I used a handheld meter. Some days it was overcast one day sunny.
 
It's not parallax. You just have to get too close to the #@%& viewfinder to frame well when wearing glasses. And you don't want your glasses scratched either.

The Zorki has an adjustable lens in the viewfinder to correct for your vision, IIRC - you may want to try it without your glasses on. I also wear glasses, and find it easier to use a separate viewfinder in the accesories shoe, as I also want to read easily the speed and aperture figures, DOF, frane counter, etc.
 
That's exactly what I hate about the Zorki-4. The VF is awful - without glasses. With glasses, hopeless.

Before anybody asks, the FED-2 isn't any better, either. But at least it has a much more accurate RF going for it.
 
batterytypehah! said:
That's exactly what I hate about the Zorki-4. The VF is awful - without glasses. With glasses, hopeless.

Before anybody asks, the FED-2 isn't any better, either. But at least it has a much more accurate RF going for it.
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Awful? My only complaint is that my 4K's viewfinder has no borders! Try as I might, I can't see where the edges are supposed to be. (No, I don't wear glasses, and yes, I do have my eye pressed tight up on the ocular.) Other than that, it is bright and has good contrast, and gives a very nice 1:1 magnification.


Steve
 
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It's true that none of the FSU rangefinders has very good viewfinders and the Zorki-4/4K is worse than most. I don't find it much of a handicap because for most situations I can allow for the undefined edges and adjust the final image by cropping. No good for slides of course!
 
Your exposures are OK - some of them a bit dark (first 2 rows mainly); nothing that couldn't be fixed in Photoshop with a little "Lighten Shadows" though. But then again, it is a matter of taste and what you are trying to achieve.

I suppose you have been using Pan F? I never learned to handle that film - tried many times. Always got very small range of grays and rather low contrast. I prefer FP4 or Fomapan 100 - much easier to handle with better contrast and tonality IMHO.
 
stevebrot said:
Awful? My only complaint is that my 4K's viewfinder has no borders! Try as I might, I can't see where the edges are supposed to be. (No, I don't wear glasses, and yes, I do have my eye pressed tight up on the ocular.) Other than that, it is bright and has good contrast, and gives a very nice 1:1 magnification.
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Yeah. That's what I mean by awful. It doesn't show you what you're shooting. Sort of defeats the purpose of a viewfinder.

Maybe the 4K differs from the 4, dunno, but mine sure isn't bright, either.
 
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