What do you think of Zenit E gents?
I think mine is the EM.. Th 'E'may have an inbuilt selenium cell TTL meter.. though I wouldn't expect it to be coupled to the shutter speeds.
CLUNKY.. is the word that instantly springs to mind! Built like a woman's Olympics shot-putter, they wee oft sold in the 80's with a Centon mirror lens and a 'sniper' grip, for birding; and folk often quipped that they weren't a Camera, they were Russian Army Surplus! Issued to squaddies in the cold war to crawl under the wall and see what the Yanks were doing in West Germany... with orders that if caught, they didn't need a gun, they were to use the Zenit as a club! Multi-functionality! Bit like a Rambo survival knife that takes photo's! (lol)
Taking M42 screw fit lenses; they were oft spotted sporting much more expensive lenses, like genuine Pentax, or Ziess; Principle, and its still true, was that the camera was just a light tight box to hold the film; the lens was what put the picture on the film, that and the film mattered, so stuff the 'camera' put your cash in the glass and save the rest for film.
Principle has merit, and was sort of why I used OM's in the 90's; which makes reasonable comparison, The Zenit's are fully manual, and clunky to work. They are not the easiest handling cameras, and H&S had yet to be invented! No attempt was made to round off sharp corners or even de-burr things like the strap brackets! Mine has nicked me a few times, bludy thing! Controls were limited.. just four shutter-speeds, down from 1/500th; that are a little difficult to change; Film rewind was peculiarly fiddly with a pop up spindle rather than a crank. BUT, everything tended to work, in a pretty deliberate and positive way, if not particularly 'nice' one. With a decent lens; and a little know-how, they could return great results; and they were 'cheap', and nie on nuclear-hard indestructible! By the 90's though, they were an 'old fashioned' camera, without any easements, and handling that was a negative easement for most! M42 screw lens mount, was particularly out of fashion, in the face of quick-release bayonet mounts; and whilst there was a good choice of lenses for them, a lot were like the camera, east german or russian 'primes' that were similarly out of fashion. When you could pick up an OM10, with an f1.8 Zuiko 50mm lens, and the auto-exposure electrickery for £20ish, folk almost couldn't give them away; they were often only a £30 camera brand new. BUT, they did serve purpose; you wouldn't expect an Olly 10 to last too long in the hands of an 11 year old, kicking it around their toy-box, or being dragged around the woods by a keen birder.
Now? e-bay has seen a lot pulled off the top of wardrobes or out of attics, or dug ot of former soviet states, and they can command the sort of prices they probably didn't when new! A lot f that is they often have the cult Helios 44 on the front, that a lot of digital legacy lens shooters rave about for the 'Bokeh', and sell for that alone, or as a very cheap way to have a 'dabble' at film photography. But now pretty much ALL film cameras are 'obsolete', I have to say that their cult status has inflated prices beyond so much of the competition they don't represent much of a 'bargain'. There are a lot of much 'nicer' cameras out there that are a lot easier and nicer to use for very similar money..
Quick look at evil bay; and there's a few Zenits there, ranging in price from maybe £10 to £40; for comparison, Nikon's F801 was a pro-range camera in the 90's. Auto-Focus, metal bodied, it was a 'great' camera, that is still very usable today, thanks to taking AA batteries rather than dedicated Lith packs, for around £50. Admittedly body only, but still. Not so desirable these days, as they are an AF era camera, they don't have that 'classic' film camera look, or the big difference in handling to a modern DSLR; but does sort of offer a bench-mark. The obsolescence of film has squashed the market down to a very small band, in which you have cameras that are of a similar age, that sat on the shelf in the shop with £1000's between them in price, now sat side by side o e-bay, with a only a few quid difference between them, and what was valued them when new, by way of picture making ability, is now often almost an irrelevance, judged by their 'classic' appeal, where looking 'old' actually seems to have more value than being 'useful'....
Back to your query; in contemporary context, its a slightly awkward but useful camera; and t does have that slightly quirky 'old' camera appeal. For the 'cheap' priced they command on e-bay, though I wouldn't buy one. And with a notional £50 budget, I would be looking very very hard at that Nikon F801, it was actually a camera I 'almost' bought back in 1995; That would likely push the budget up into the £100 area and have me looking at the more 'traditional' manual focus FE or FM's, that are less a camera, but are the more 'traditional' manual focus icons... from which I would probably back off and come back down into the sub £30 range again, and looking at NON-SLR's.. Just spotted a rather nice Zess Ikon 120 medium format 'folder' with 10.5cm lens for just £29.95! I actually have the Ikonta... that's a cracking camera, and REALLY has that 'antique' look and full manual feel! Delvers fantastic image quality to, provided the bellows aren't perished! There's a few Olympus Trips and canon range-finders, and choice of the Konica C35 which is another in my little stable; that delivers cracking SLR rivaling results... and ultimately, i that sort of budget, my little Olympus XA2 would probably come out pretty high in the list of, and bang on the money, and brings me back to OM10's, that for an SLR are similar prices.
Not that the Zenit isn't a decent camera; in ts way its great one; but in that price range, there is just that much more that is so much better value, more interesting and or more 'useful'.
For some-one new to film, a Ziess folder is probably a leap far to far into an alternate reality; so 35mm would probably be the better bet; Daughters dabble with film, left her exited, but frustrated by the Zenit, it was just too 'fiddly'. But I had to pry the little XA2 out of her hands though! With a fixed lens and point and shoot usability it was a nice progression from her i-phone; and about the picture, not the camera. The easier to use OM10, some-where between the two, offered a reasonably happy compromise. My all manual Sigma MK1, M42 Ricoch copy, is a lot more intuitive to use than the Zenit and does have TTL swing needle metering; I love; it's a very happy compromise, for me, that is easy to handle and has just enough 'easement' to be usable and not too much faff, as well as having that classic manual camera style and feel. daughter 'liked' but still found a tad daunting, though she did love the prime lenses. Rvals to that would be other Richoch copies of the 70's which could beg a bit of careful research; or paying the premium for a genuine Pentax, which given the relatively small premium that is would probably be the 'safe' bet. But the 'burget' Russian Zenit and East German Practika, I have to say would't make my short list; they were always 'cheap' cameras, they always had quirky handling, and in the world they now live, where high end cameras that offered so much more than they ever did, are so much more depressed in price, you ca get so much more camera for little or no more money.. and I would either be inching the budget up to get one, or keeping it bargain basement looking at non SLR's.
But that's me! usually far too sensible.. the Zenits, I DO have to say ARE an experience in their own way.. have hug on to mine for quarter of a century, despite it giving me razor cuts, it must have 'some' perverse 'charm' going for it! So if you can afford to waste £25 on one, what the heck! But I wouldn't have too many great expectations, and I'd probably say it was worth making a slightly safer first step to film with something a tad easier to use and less quirky, and more likely to delver decent results straight off the stops.
So back to you really.....
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