What do you know about the Zenit-E?

[Jack Conrad]

I have the Helios MC 44M-4 variant with a KMZ logo.
MC as in multi-coated with 6 aperture blades. M42.
I use it on my Oly e-520 and it fits fine with the adapter.
It's a nice lens. Sharp in the center even wide open. It has nice smooth character. It also has relatively low contrast compared to my other standard lenses. Not that that's a bad thing though, since it's easy to bump up the contrast post process.
I've read low contrast is indicative of the Zeiss Biotar character as well. Makes sense since it's the same design.

I had to open up the lens to clean a touch of fungus behind the front element and also opened the back to keep the auto aperture pin in the pushed in position. It was easy to open it up, though when I opened the back there was a greasy little metal part stuck inside that had no conceivable purpose. When I say greasy I mean it was sitting in a blob of grease. Otherwise, the metal bit would have been rolling around making noise. It probably just landed there during the assembly. Kinda rough.
The focus ring is rather stiff, but generally usable, just a little slower than some.

I have other lenses I prefer such as the Pentacon 50/1.8 since it's a little smaller and focuses so close, though I think the Helios is a little sharper.
I made a few direct comparisons with the Pentacon, a Pentax M-f1.7 and my Minolta 58/1.4. It was mostly a wash at f2. The helios and the Pentax M are neck in neck in sharpness at smaller fstops, but again, the Minolta is no slouch either.
As far as character I love the Rokkor, but that's a very subjective conclusion.

 

[santino]

I figured out that my MC Pentacon 1.8/50mm is much sharper than the Helios but has terrible bokeh (here the Helios can score). One of the best M42 primes is IMO the 1.8/50mm Carl Zeiss Jena Pancolar, as far as I know it's a different design than the Pentacon.

 

[Joao]

That's interesting - I did not know there were Imperial and Metric versions
--joe.

Some FSU cameras and lenses were exported to the UK and sold there trough the TOE (Technical and Optical Equipments); most, if not all, of those lenses used Imperial measures.

All my three Zenits E work without problems - apart from the unreliable or dead selenium meters.

 

[raid]

That's interesting - I did not know there were Imperial and Metric versions!

I also used mine on an Asahi Pentax S1a for a while, just to add to the database.


Asahi Pentax S1a by joecentric, on Flickr

...a cute little camera in its own right, compact, fully mechanical and uncomplicated. I should look around for another one of these days.


Cheers,
--joe.

It goes down to 1,6 or 1,7 feet. It cannot be meters.

 

[David Hughes]

Heavy old fashioned camera with a better than you'd expect lens. People laugh at you when you ask about repairs because they are cheap to buy. It the same problem that you get with FED, Kiev and Zorki.

Many years ago I had to take a series of photo's for an instruction manual and one of the pictures (a close-up) would have been very dangerous if anything had gone wrong. I didn't want my MF SLR destroyed and so used a Zenit with the Helios for the shot. The lab printed the 35mm film to match (contrast etc) the 220 film shots and no one noticed anything.

Regards, David

 

[santino]

But it won't probably ever be a collectible because of the large amounts of produced Zenits. Somewhere I read, that it's the most common camera in the world. Is that true?