Smena

I have a Smena 6. I've shot exactly one roll of film through it. It had a light leak, which I think I fixed, and the absence of a rewind function is a pain. The lens wasn't too bad, though, and the shutter worked flawlessly. I should probably dig it out again at some point.
 
Sme like in smell. A in Na like in America.

I helped local student to load his grandfather Smena (no number) for first time.
Two cassettes were needed and film has to be re-spooled special way.
Amazing results on darkroom prints. I forgot in which earlier model film goes normal way.
I have 8m which I get almost like a gift. I forgot if I have to black it behind the lens. No light leaks. Size of viewfinder is bigger than actual FOV of the lens.

This is the thread with my 8m taken images.
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=147962
 
I have a Smena 8M and also a UK version of the Smena 8 rebadged as Cosmic 35. Many of the UK FSU cameras were inspected and adjusted by T.O E. and are said to be more reliable than their original FSU versions - I am not sure if this was the case of the Cosmic 35, but it is a fine scale-focus basic camera. I use it while traveling and I so far my opinion is positive. Does its job whithin its limitations.
 
i "grew up with a 8M.
Quite a crappy little camera, with basic functions that work but resulting images are not really sharp (unless you can shoot at f/11 where it's ok).
Had not a single hiccup through long years, tho, even in minus x-teen degrees in the snow.
Just a few months ago i dug out some old negs i shot with it, scanned the frames and the pics are...charmingly imperfect🙂
 
Student Photos

Student Photos

The reason for asking about the Smena stems from iamges I saw by one of our students some years back.

This lady went to Mongolia with all the high tech gear of the digital imaging age, plus a Smena 8, during semester break. The images from the Smena were some of the finest impressionist/abstractionist photographs I had ever seen. Panning shots of running horses. All darkroom printed.

I wanted to know, hence starting this thread, what it was like if the camera was used for quality 'happy snaps'.

Nice images nukecoke.

Cheers
Peter
 
Many Smenas are misaligned, many who didn't fixed it blamed it to be soft. If aligned, they are sharp. Plus you have to be capable of scale focusing and holding very light plastic (bakelite) camera steady.

You seems to have right groove for it with very good determination of it as the camera for "quality 'happy snaps''.

In the past it was the camera for youth. Smena means next generation. It was cheap, made in millions and designated for beginners. But in reality some families have this camera as the only one as they could afford. My wife family was one of them as low single income family in the Soviets.
 
I've got early Smena just to know how it's like to use it. When I were kid my friends had later makes and pictures were not so great, but my early make feels great and much better than later ones. Lens isn't surgeon's tool but hey, what we looking for? It sure does its task for what it were intended. Early Smena has separate winding and shutter cocking.
 
You need too film cassettes, one being the ordinary flm and the other to act as a take up spool and also hide the film from light when you remove it by the end of it.
Smena does not have a film rewind function, and it requires two film cassettes. When the film ends you just open the back and remove them.
That video sums up well on how to load it with film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxRJhZJGHLY

Be gentle when advancing the film and stop when you feel some slight resistance. Else yo will miss that frame. It does not have a hard stop for every frame advancing.
 
Joao said:
Great results !
Do you consider them better than the results you got from the original lens ? ... and, if I may ask, was it easy to adapt the Lomo lens to the Olympus ?

regards

Joao
Click to expand...
Thanks!
I bought the lens from ebay. The seller dismembered a Zenit M39 Industar-50, and put an 8m's lens on the base of the I-50. He made manage to set the flange the same with an Ltm m39 lens, with the help of live view from a Sony NEX camera. So in the end the converted lens can be used with ltm m39 to [the system] adapter.

Here is a neat job with using Industar-61's base:
http://forum.mflenses.com/lomo-t-43-from-smena-8m-conversion-t52972,highlight,+lomo.html

The lens' center resolution is on par with the 14-42mm kit lens of my E-P3. However the corners are just bad, even though the small sensor-ed camera is using the "best part" of the lens. Stopping down helps, as usual.

By the way the colour rendition from the lens is quite muted on my digital camera, not explosively saturated as you see on the samples from Lomography site. ("deep colour" they call it)
 
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