The Russian Zenit Camera is Coming Back…

Well, there's a battle it's going to lose. As a schoolboy in the 1960s, it was the only SLR that I could afford. It had a good lens but nothing in the luxury department.
 
My first SLR was a Zenit E, pretty basic but very solid. I learned a lot from using that camera, had some good Pentacon lenses for it too. It, along with my first Pentax ME Super, was stolen in NYC in '81. For sure Zenit will have their work cut out to beat Leica.
 
The russian industry is capable of anything, but they do not have the history and the name behind like Leica, not even the stupidity of some customers willing to pay large amounts of money just because a piece of plastic has the Leica logo on it.
 
mickledore said:
If you think that was basic you should have tried the Zenit B. That was my first camera and I'll never forget it.

It had a damned good lens.
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Cardboard box!....... ;)

Well apart from the almost unusable built in light meter that was not TTL and out by at least two stops (I used to have a hand-held light meter for actual metering), the E and the B were pretty much the same IIRC. Both were pretty basic. Mine had the Helios 58mm f/2 lens and that was indeed pretty good.
 
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One thing you can say about the Zenit it always worked, as the Russians copied the Leica for many years, I would expect they still could, whether it would sell is another matter.
 
GeeJay57 said:
Cardboard box!....... ;)

Well apart from the almost unusable built in light meter that was not TTL and out by at least two stops (I used to have a hand-held light meter for actual metering), the E and the B were pretty much the same IIRC. Both were pretty basic. Mine had the Helios 58mm f/2 lens and that was indeed pretty good.
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Yes, I think they were almost identical though I seem to remember that the E had one of the top dials different. Can't remember which one, or what the "improvement" was.
Think the actual camera innards were identical.
The meter was totally useless - if it worked at all.
 
GeeJay57 said:
Cardboard box!....... ;)

Well apart from the almost unusable built in light meter that was not TTL and out by at least two stops (I used to have a hand-held light meter for actual metering), the E and the B were pretty much the same IIRC. Both were pretty basic. Mine had the Helios 58mm f/2 lens and that was indeed pretty good.
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mickledore said:
Yes, I think they were almost identical though I seem to remember that the E had one of the top dials different. Can't remember which one, or what the "improvement" was.
Think the actual camera innards were identical.
The meter was totally useless - if it worked at all.
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The E and B were the same model, the B just lacked the light meter. The EM was the improved version (and there was also other later similar models the Zenit TTL), notably it had a proper fresnel focus screen - compared to the E's cheap alternative which gave a very poor view with a green/brown tint and barrel disortion - and auto aperture stopdown meaning you could focus with the lens wide open and a nice bright viewfinder. I've never had a problem with the meter in my EM, I've even shot slides with it and had them come out well exposed the majority of the time, not bad considering the camera was originally my dad's and dates from 1978 so the selenium cells must be doing fairly good!
 
TheBigYin said:
Hope they make a better attempt of it this time than they did with my Fed 3b ;)
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Not the best example, part Lieca part Contax, bit of a mishmash, early ones were good.same as the Zorki
 
dizidav said:
One thing you can say about the Zenit it always worked, as the Russians copied the Leica for many years, I would expect they still could, whether it would sell is another matter.
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Are you saying the Zenit models were copies of Leica?
That confounds me 'cos I swear the Zenits are SLRs and the
FED rangefinders were copies(ish) of Leicas.
 
I think the "prettiest" Zenit produced was the 3M which iirc is, unlike the other Zenits, an M39 mount.

Still, I'd sooner have a "true" Leica rather than any of the Russian products /copies..........I suspect that I'm not alone!
 
Asha said:
I think the "prettiest" Zenit produced was the 3M which iirc is, unlike the other Zenits, an M39 mount.

Still, I'd sooner have a "true" Leica rather than any of the Russian products /copies..........I suspect that I'm not alone!
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I have both, very hard to tell the difference if you dont look at the name.
 
Ulfric M Douglas said:
Are you saying the Zenit models were copies of Leica?
That confounds me 'cos I swear the Zenits are SLRs and the
FED rangefinders were copies(ish) of Leicas.
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I wasnt saying the Zenit cameras were copies of the Lieca,s I was commenting on the fact the russians copied the leica for many years.
 
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