Zorki 4k newbie

[Ash]

Apologies in advance if these queries have already been answered, I couldnt find the posts when searching!

I got a Zorki 4k about a week ago from eBay (bargain at under £20). Appears to be working fine, my film's half finished and I'll develop it this week once I've finished it. A few things I wanted to comment on and ask about;

I'm more of a b&w photographer, and red filters have lived on most of my lenses.

Unfortunately the cost of a red filter at 40.5mm (Jupiter-8) seems stupid (£10-£20 new, none available second hand that I can find). Having filters from my SLR's, I had bought a Cokin adapter to fit, but the size of the filter holder obscures the corner of the viewfinder.

Has anyone found any better ways to combat this? I'm bidding on a 40.5-49mm ring now (to adapt a larger red filter to the lens), but this will probably look as silly as the cokin adapter on the end of such a tiny lens.


Also when I went to set the film count dial, I couldnt work out how to do it until I put real pressure on the top and slowly twisted it. Is this the correct method? or should I have loosened what looks like a flat-head screw?


Aaaand finally, on the left side of the camera, the lever to adjust the viewfinder, if pushed too far the image appears to drop slightly. Should this happen? I noticed it when I went too far in the wrong direction setting up the focusing.


Thanks,


EDIT: I also forgot to ask at what distance people have had real problems with the parallax error, and how much I should be compensating

 

[Max Power]

Hey Ash,
I cannot help you with your filter question...except to say that there seem to be vast numbers of inexpensive 40.5mm filters on the US eBay site.

For the film counter...Don't loosen the screw, just turn the counter to line up with the little dot on the top cover. There ought to be some resistance, that's how one avoids shifting it by accident.
The lever under the rewind is the diopter adjustment. I've found exactly the same thing as you; the frame becomes larger or smaller and radically out of focus as I move it back and forth until I find a comfortable spot.
As for parallax error, I can't really tell you at what point it becomes a problem. A year or so ago I bought a Petri Tele/Wide finder to mount on the shoe and since then, whenever I'm close in, I use it. That said, I would imagine that depending upon what you are trying to frame, at about 2-3 meters, you're going to have to shift your focus a bit South-East.

Kent

 

[Jocko]

Hallo Ash,

As you may well know, SRB - here: http://www.srbfilm.co.uk/index1.html - will sell you a filter for about a tenner. It does seem a lot; but I also use red filters incessantly and you have to remember that the Soviet lenses you are most likely to use in the future - your Jupiter 8, the Orion 15 28mm, the Jupiter 12 35mm, the fast J3 etc all take the same size filter. One size fits (nearly) all, so it is not such a bad bargain.

Regarding parallax. I believe that viewfinders generally show very slightly less than the view when focussed at 10 feet-3 metres. As Kent says, at significantly closer distances, with a 50mm lens (the effect is not so drastic with wide angles) , have your subject a little nearer the bottom right hand corner of the viewfinder than you might otherwise wish. To be honest, the dangers of parallax can be exaggerated - a few test shots will give you a good idea of what to expect. It is no big deal. Your lens will only focus to 1m, so the worst problems need not be of any concern.

And the dioptre correction "drop" is perfectly normal!

Cheers, Ian