Another Camera

This is my latest Ebay find.

It's a 1967 Zorki-4. Made in the former Soviet Union. It's a 35mm rangefinder camera, and one of the most numerous models made by the Soviets. The Zorki-4 model was made between 1956 and 1973. There were over 1,700,000 Zorki-4 cameras made in those years. It has a Leica screwmount lens, and can take Leica lenses (in theory).

The lens on it is a Jupiter-8, 50mm f2.0, a copy of a Leica Sonnar design.

The Soviet Union initially shamelessly copied early Leica rangefinder designs (as did early Nikons and Canons), but later their cameras weren't as close a copy as they were at first.

These things are really cheap, but they are robust and this was advertised as a working unit. The actual camera seems to work at all speeds, the focus and f-stop movement is really smooth, the rangefinder seems to work pretty well, and even the self-timer works ok. All in all, I'm pretty impressed with the workings of the camera, I expected more crude operations than it actually has. That's great. It seems to be gently used. Hey, even the pc sync terminal fires the old Kmart/Focal flash I have!

I'll have to check it out with film now. I certainly plan on using it.

But I thought I would put some pics of the camera itself on here, just to show y'all.

That red insignia on the top was on the Zorki-4 cameras produced in 1967, and states "50 Years Of Revolution" (or something to that effect). Definitely raises the "cool factor" a few points in my opinion.

Good thing I learned on manual cameras and know how to use those f-stop and shutter speed thingies.

The cost? A mere $39.99. But it cost me almost that much again to have it insured and shipped to me from Ukraine.

Looks like a great deal so far, but we'll see how the pictures turn out and if I've bought a shelf camera or one I can really use...