Photo Sniper: What is it worth?

[lubitel]

Hi folks,

a friend of mine wants to sell this really nice set with Zenit ES, helios 44-2, and this super duper big lens (dont actually know the mm/fstop number), and color filters

assuming it all works, what do you think it can go for?

thanks

 

[nzeeman]

here in serbia i found that for about 50 euros. which mean that in some western country its value is about 100-150 euros.

 

[lubitel]

I was also thinking of 100 to 150, but that seems like too little for such a pretty set 🙂

 

[jaapv]

THIS guy is asking 1000 $ for it. 😱 He may be overdoing it slightly, say by a few hundred percent points.Anyway it is still VERY usable and rather good optical quality.The weakest link used to be the Zenit body.

 

[doubs43]

I bought mine from Kievcamera of Atlanta more than a year ago for $160...... brand new. Mine is in a different style carry case though.

The lens is a Tair-3 (or 3S) 300mm f/4.5 optic that has much higher quality control than most FSU lenses. They are reportedly checked individually as they leave the assembly line. It's an odd semi-auto lens that muct be "cocked" for each picture. A bar under the lens is pushed up by the trigger action to release the aperture blades to the pre-set value as the picture is taken.

The lens mount is M42 so it can be mounted on any of the M-42 cameras but only the cameras designed to work with it will allow metering at full aperture. There's a connecting wire for that purpose.

In the US I'd place value at about $150. Considering the quality of the Tair lens, that is a fairly cheap way of getting an excellent 300mm lens plus much more. My set came with a multi-coated 50mm lens, filters, shade and other extras.

While it's possible that some were used for military purposes, the real intended use of this set is bird watching and recording. The word "sniper" is very misleading.

Walker