Zorki 4 Questions

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texchappy

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Shot a few frames on the Zorki 4 over the weekend and that leads me to a couple of questions.

1. Even after looking at the manual I still can’t figure out how to reset the number of shots. I can see the bloody thing sitting on top of the shutter cock/advance wheel but can’t see how to move it. Any help? BTW, shot about 12-14 snaps already, should I worry about it now and how will I know when I’ve got 36 (guesstimate?)

2. Came with it’s leather (?) case but that smells so I took it off (didn’t like it much anyway). The Industar didn’t have a lens cap. Where/How can I get a lens cap of some type?

3. Related closely to #2, can I get filters for this lens?
 
Press on the knurled circle in the middle of the counter disk with your thumb, and rotate it. There is a little black dot on the casing, to the left of the counter - I align to that. Rotate it until number 12-14 is next to the dot.

If it's an Industar-61, it should be a 40.5mm filter thread. I'm not sure of the outside diameter, but any clip-on type of cap for 40.5mm thread should work. Same for filters.
 
Press in with the ball of your thumb and turn while holding the wind knob tight with the other hand as the counter dial is spring loaded unless some kitchen table mechanic forgot to place the washer spring back in.
You can loosen the top screw on the wind knob ever so slightly if the counter dial does not budge. A drop of rubbing alcohol on the film counter knob can help sometimes.
 
"Follow on question: what would be a good 90mm to try on this camera?"

You can try a Jupiter 9 lens in LTM if you can find one that is shimmed properly.
I got a newish Black J-9 in the early 1990s that had to be shimmed to work properly.

Do not use any 85/90 mm lens with a tongue type cam on the Zorki 4 or pretty much most of the FSU LTM cameras as it will jam up with the camera's RF cam.

I tried a 90mm Elmar on my Zorki 4 and it worked fine focus wise but you might run in to problems using a tele lens that is made to a Leica standard on the Zorki.
 
texchappy said:
Oh, went back and looked and I was told it was an Industar 50 (f3.5) if that makes a difference.
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I believe it will make a difference. I'm sure someone that knows the lens will be along soon.

For a 90mm lens, there is the Jupiter-9 85mm f2, but they seem to have become quite pricey. Other possible lenses might be the 90mm Elmars, some of which can be pretty cheap. I'm not sure what other options there are.

Something to be aware of with the FSU cameras is that the cam follower on the little lever can catch on the cam on some lenses. Not all lenses have a circular cam - some just have a bit that sticks out, and the cam follower can get hooked behind this partial cam, making it difficult to remove the lens.

Leicas don't have the same issue because the cam follower has a little wheel that can ride up over the ends of the partial cam. FSU cameras just have a bit of metal, either with a rounded end of much smaller diameter, or a larger diameter bit that's the outside of a pie shape with sharp corners. The Zorki 4 has the latter.

My CV 90mm f3.5 Apo-Lanthar has this partial cam affair, and I just tried it on my Zorki 4. It's a bit iffy, but setting the lens to closest focus moves the partial cam far enough into the lens body to keep it clear of the cam follower. The RF coupling seems to work as well - a distant object got a good RF match with the lens on infinity. The index mark on the lens didn't get terribly close to vertical - stopped a bit short, although one end of the partial cam did manage to engage with the cam follower. Usable, I'd say, but I wouldn't make a habit of it. (On the other hand, well worth considering if there's a Leica in your future.)

You'll need an add-on viewfinder for focal lengths other than 50mm. I have the little FSU 85mm finder that can be had cheaply, but it's not that great. The image is rather small - it actually slightly reduces the apparent size of objects.

The turret finder is much better optically - it magnifies/reduces various focal length fields of view to a decent size, and has a cross hair in the middle as well. Doesn't look as nice or as compact as the single-length ones, and the eyepiece is quite far from the camera's viewfinder, but it's pretty usable. Note that there are two types. They are both offset from the hotshoe, one to the left, and one to the right when viewed from behind the camera. For Zorki/Leica use, get the one that's offset to the left so that the shutter speed dial can still be seen and readily adjusted with the finder in place.
 
texchappy said:
Why so? I was thinking of a vintage 90 elmar maybe.
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Leica used the Leica standard Focal Length of 51.6mm, and not the Contax standard 52.4mm.

All of the Russian lenses were made to the Zeiss Contax standard. But there were deviations in actual focal length, and it was common to have individual lenses adjusted by a repair shop for each body.

So an FSU LTM body might not be compatible with a Leica lens to get accurate focus with the RF especially if it is a fast standard 50 mm lens used at full bore or telephoto lenses where critical focus is a must with its shallow DOF.

I could have lucked out with using a 90mm Elmar on that particular Zorki 4 or I never went past f8 and everything appeared to be ok as it has been many years now when I tried that combination.
 
texchappy said:
Oh, went back and looked and I was told it was an Industar 50 (f3.5) if that makes a difference.
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The lens takes the same filters and cap as the Elmar f/3.5. That should be 36mm slip-on type. You'll pay silly money for a genuine Leica cap or filter but there are alternatives.

As for the true LTM lenses, yes they can give problems with focus, as others have pointed out. Faster and longer lenses used wide-open and close-up are the worst end of the scale. For wide-angles and slow lenses you'll most likely not see an issue. As noted above, just make sure anything you attach has a full-barrel cam or it may not come off without removing the film and back and holding the shutter open to get at the RF sensor.
 
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texchappy said:
Why so? I was thinking of a vintage 90 elmar maybe.
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Because the RF cam follower lever thingy-bits in FSU cameras are calibrated differently from Leicas. Some FSU lenses can be readily shimmed by adjusting the position of the optical unit within the helical assembly (Jupiters 8 and 3). To shim these for a Leica, they are adjusted to be sharp at 1m. This means that the cam on the lens will be in the wrong position when there is an RF match at infinity (and a corresponding error for distances in between), but depth of field (even wide open) helps to mask the slight focus error. Shimming the other way, for precise focus and RF match at inifinity, would result in an error at 1m, and this would be much more noticable due to the reduced depth of field at the closer distance.

So, the RF and cam follower stuff is set up for a 50mm lens, and in a 50, the optical unit and cam move as a single piece. When focussing a longer or shorter lens, the glass will need to move by a different amount to acheive focus at various distances, but the cam still needs to move the same distance as it does in a 50. To get the cam follower to move by the correct amount, such that the RF has a match for a given distance, there is a double helical affair inside the lens. Basically, a mechanical converter, where the glass moves by the bigger or smaller amount, while the cam moves the same amount as it would for a 50mm lens.

I'm not sure what the implications are for shimming a longer lens from one system to suit the other. If it is shimmable (depends on the design of the mechanicals inside), it should be possible to set things up for close focus, but I'm not sure what happens to the error at longer distances - the optical unit moves more than it does for a 50, but I don't know if the error is linear, or somehow multiplied.

In general, the amount of compromise or error depends on the focal length, and the aperture you're using. For shorter lenses, there is little issue - I used a 35mm J-12 quite a lot on my M2 and IIIf and never had a problem, although I tended to use it stopped down (f5.6 or smaller). I have to say that I haven't tried longer lenses for Leica on the Zorkis, or the other way round. For the longer lenses, I suspect stopping down a fair bit would be needed to get decent depth of field to cover the error. I don't think wide aperture 'bokeh specials' are a practical proposition, but daytime snaps in decent light might be okay.
 
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