Zorki 4K

S

satbunny

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Jul 27, 2005
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Well. went to a camera fair and bought a Zorki 4K in good condition. Vey nice, only 20GBP and with a lovely black case, fingers crossed I'll be happier with this than the junk I bought from the Ukraine.
 
good luck with the 4K, there is a 50% chance that you bought a good one, thats my exerience with this model of FSU camera. inspecting it before you buy, increases the odds a bit in your favour .
 
Indeed you can never be 100% sure that the cam will work.

But I always do this before buying a camera : see if it's winding well, check the shutter for eventual holes, check how the shutter is reacting at all speeds and eventually if the self-timer is dead or not, then of course the viewfinder and stuff like this (and also always check for any eventual dioptrical correction lever, it can sometimes fool people into believing that the viewfinder is blurry/fuzzy) - about the optics I check if there's fungus or now, how is the lens itself (are there bubbles in the optical axis?) aperture ring working accurately or not, also if the focusing rings needs to be lubed or not.
 
I really dont know how a zorki or a fed can be bad, it really is hard to mess it up, must be a hell of a hangover to manufacture one incorrectly :) Most of the "bad" cameras are simply in need of a thorough CLA (or better yet, a rebuild), other than that, its it just not complex enough to be messed up during the manufacturin process.
 
grifon said:
I really dont know how a zorki or a fed can be bad, it really is hard to mess it up, must be a hell of a hangover to manufacture one incorrectly :) Most of the "bad" cameras are simply in need of a thorough CLA (or better yet, a rebuild), other than that, its it just not complex enough to be messed up during the manufacturin process.[/QU



I had a new out of the box Fed 5c jam up on the 2nd roll of film I put into it. yes they did make bad cameras at the factory. TOE in England was kept very busy with warranty work on the new Soviet gear they imported, and they got the better stuff from the USSR. an other time a new out of the box Zenit slr camera came with the built in take up spool not hooked up to the gearing inside the camera. I had a new wide angle lens for a Kiev 60 MF. fall apart in pieces in 4 weeks of light use. I could go on and on about this topic.
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Yeah, I know what you mean. But Zorki havent been manufacutred for a while, so I'm not counting the 90s stuff. Unfortunately modern build standards have taken quite a tumble, as was expected, it is hard for a huge concern to reorient itself in the market economy, that is only 15 years old. Its like trying to steer an oil tanker through a mine field... very hard. The quality seems to be creeping up a bit in the last couple of years, and there is a number of 3rd party "remanufacturers" that deal with products coming out of the former USSR industrial complex.
 
the last Zorki 4k was made in 1978 , that defective Zenit was bought new in 1975. from the late 1960s on ,the Soviet gear got worse and worse quality wise thru the years. I am sure some cameras in the 1950s came out as junk also, not as bad as later years, but it did happen.
 
Shoot away, satbunny! Sharing a pic of new gear at C&C always seems to bring good luck... give it a whirl.
 
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