Of course, there's also the FS-12, my favorite oddball camera... http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Zenit_Photosniper
Before you buy a Soviet Camera
21–30 of 69 posts
Re: Before you buy a Soviet Camera
#22“There were several cameras I bought, boxed and with factory seals and signed certificates of worthiness, and yet when opened revealed a camera which could never work,” says Javier. Next paragraph: "Why did the myth about the low quality of Soviet cameras appear?" Errr... am I missing something here? Sounds pretty obvious to me?
It's mentioned in the Zenit-E review[0]: "Most Soviet camera designs were perfectly sound – it was more often that the construction itself was lacking. TOE engineers learned on the assembly line, then went back to the UK and stripped and reassembled every single camera that came into the UK." I grew up in Poland and my dad said the exact same thing - that when he was young, if you managed to somehow buy yourself a br…
Designs were sound since they were stolen by KGB from the West.
Re: Before you buy a Soviet Camera
#23The headline seemed to be a warning, so I immediately wondered if this was about another source of radioactive lenses.
Re: Before you buy a Soviet Camera
#24Old soviet lenses, like the helios, can be lots of fun and fit relatively easily on a mirrorless camera. The Chinese Holga is also a magnificent piece of plastic. See Mathieu Stern for inspiration. [1] [1]: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYX22a35sKhA0T6ee7uZfvg
I have three Soviet lenses (Helios 58/2, Mir 37/2.8, Jupiter 135/3.5). My father got them in early 1980s with a Zenit camera. I then used them with an analog Canon EOS, then Canon DSLR and now on a mirrorless EOS-M.
I went trough dozens dedicated AF lenses (Canon and 3rd party) but these three have always been with me and I'm not going to give them up. As you said, lots of fun.
Re: Before you buy a Soviet Camera
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's mentioned in the Zenit-E review[0]: "Most Soviet camera designs were perfectly sound – it was more often that the construction itself was lacking. TOE engineers learned on the assembly line, then went back to the UK and stripped and reassembled every single camera that came into the UK." I grew up in Poland and my dad said the exact same thing - that when he was young, if you managed to somehow buy yourself a br…
Designs were sound since they were stolen by KGB from the West.
You are underestimating the Soviet engineers.
Re: Before you buy a Soviet Camera
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's mentioned in the Zenit-E review[0]: "Most Soviet camera designs were perfectly sound – it was more often that the construction itself was lacking. TOE engineers learned on the assembly line, then went back to the UK and stripped and reassembled every single camera that came into the UK." I grew up in Poland and my dad said the exact same thing - that when he was young, if you managed to somehow buy yourself a br…
Designs were sound since they were stolen by KGB from the West.
And one of the funny things I've noticed over the years is that often, the technology that was stolen (or sometimes legitimately transferred) from the west often more-or-less failed, or was superseded, in western markets. In the railway sphere, Alco and Fairbanks-Morse diesel engine designs dominated, long after they disappeared from American rails. Turning to home computers, many 1980s Soviet home computers were PDP-11 clones. Modern Ural motorcycles are a result of technology transfer from BMW dating to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
Re: Before you buy a Soviet Camera
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's mentioned in the Zenit-E review[0]: "Most Soviet camera designs were perfectly sound – it was more often that the construction itself was lacking. TOE engineers learned on the assembly line, then went back to the UK and stripped and reassembled every single camera that came into the UK." I grew up in Poland and my dad said the exact same thing - that when he was young, if you managed to somehow buy yourself a br…
Designs were sound since they were stolen by KGB from the West.
I mean..........urgh. It's an unbelivably convoluted topic and I feel like just dismissing it as "stolen by KGB from the West" is simply unfair.
Yes, a lot of designs were simply copied from western equivalents. But also a lot of designs weren't, or were actually improvements over western designs in some crucial ways(washing machines being overbuilt because repairs were unlikely, so certain components were upgraded to last longer). Soviets(and the rest of the Eastern block) had plenty of brilliant, incredibly skilled and competent engineers and designers and thinkers, and they all did the best with what they had access to. It's a topic worthy of tomes of literature.
Re: Before you buy a Soviet Camera
#28I had an East German camera (a Praktica) for a short while; my aunt brought it with her from England. Seeing the comments about Soviet build quality, I'd note that it also applies to Soviet satellites as well.
The lens was wonderful, but it didn't take many rolls of film for the shutter to give out. I switched to a Minolta SRT202 after that, before I ditched film for digital. I suppose I could have gone with a Pentax K-1000 and kept the lens, since it was the same screw mount.
Re: Before you buy a Soviet Camera
#29Re: Before you buy a Soviet Camera
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Designs were sound since they were stolen by KGB from the West.
And one of the funny things I've noticed over the years is that often, the technology that was stolen (or sometimes legitimately transferred) from the west often more-or-less failed, or was superseded, in western markets. In the railway sphere, Alco and Fairbanks-Morse diesel engine designs dominated, long after they disappeared from American rails. Turning to home computers, many 1980s Soviet home computers were PDP…
I have a Soviet fountain pen along the same model as the Parker 21/51. I've had three 21s develop a crack in the same place as the cheap plastic becomes very brittle with age, but no such issue with its Soviet twin. The Soviet one also uses a more old-fashioned button filler mechanism that holds more ink than the Parker's aerometric bladder. I used it a lot for note-taking in school.