Flying Zorki

[HuubL]

Remember the very nice first model Zorki-4 + J8 I got about a month ago to use in the FSU contest? Well yesterday on my evening walk-the-dog-walk it lost its mint minus status. While I was shooting a couple of horses running around against a nice warm sunset background, Farah decided that she had waited long enough and started her own running around behind my back. Unfortunately, she forgot that the leash she was on was only 8m long. So the Zorki was catapulted from my hands, made a 5m flight and dived, J8 top-down, into the tarmac. Although, the camera remained in one piece, there were scratches to the winding knob and it no longer turned, the top cover was severely dented, and the rangefinder didn’t work anymore. The front of the lens barrel had a bad dent, but surprisingly the glass was unscratched.

With the help of Wolves3012 excellent sticky thread “Zorki4K – How to CLA” I opened up the top and managed to fix the RF and remove most of the dent from the cover. Everything seems to work again, but of course only putting a film through will tell if it’s really fixed.

So, I’m on the look out for another nice series-1 Zorki-4 with a spotless J8. Zorkis are easy to find, but most are the younger models that lack the nice etched script and framed windows. I will bide my time and meanwhile shoot the Fed-2 that arrived this week for the FSU contest.

Lesson learned: when taking a camera while walking the dog, put a leash on the camera and let the dog run free.

 

[Jocko]

Oh Huubl, I know how you feel. Much the same happened to me with my first "real" camera, a Zenit 12xp, which died on the cobblestones 🙁

I think that the trauma got me into RFs....

All the best, Ian

 

[robin a]

Bummer.........Robin

 

[Xmas]

A hood always helps as well, if you are lucky all you need is a new hood.

Only been lucky once ever, so understand.

Noel

 

[dee]

if I am wearing a hood I can still not-bounce a camera !

dee'spraxia .

 

[Xmas]

dee

The camera needs to be wearing a hood when you drop it otherwise you will be well upset, if one of your LTM is damaged. If it lands on the top plate, it wont help but you might be lucky, I always use a lanyard on a strap ring.

One of my zorki case straps broke last weekend I was lucky it broke in the knapsack! The other cases look like they need new straps so it is find a cobbler time.

Noel

 

[HuubL]

I opened the viewfinder housing of my flying Zorki again, to improve on yesterday's RF adjustment (it was dark yesterday evening and we didn't have a full moon as a far away object marker 🙂). I also forced the winder axis back to perfect vertical and cleaned the prisms and lenses in the VF and RF. Wow, I thought the VF was clear when I got the camera, but todays cleaning made a large difference. The VF is so much better now!
I'm getting a bit more confident that I can take the Zorki apart now and reassemble it without having the ususal surplus of screws remaining. I'm thinking of buying a cheapo Z4 to replace the scratched knobs and winder to restore my Zorky to the mint minus status it was before flying. I'm beginning to think that flying Zorki's are a fun project. Another project will be removing the dent from the J8's filter thread. Would it be feasible to take the lens apart?
Thanks for your compassion guys!

 

[freeranger]

You see that every cloud has a silver lining? Would you have gained all of these skills had Farah not taken your camera for a walk?
You should reward her with a nice new chewy bone. 🙂

 

[HuubL]

You see that every cloud has a silver lining? Would you have gained all of these skills had Farah not taken your camera for a walk?
You should reward her with a nice new chewy bone. 🙂

Freeranger, don't worry about Farah. My wife told her all evening it was the boss' stupid own fault to mix up the leashes 😉.

BTW, that sounds a lot like a famous statement of Holland's most famous football player Johan Cruijff: "ieder voordeel hep s'n nadeel" (every advantage has it's disadvantage) 🙂