The Zenith B My first camera. (Photography)

Member Name: Markh5682

Product:	Photography
Date:	03/04/09 (365 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You had to learn all about photography it to use it effectively.

Disadvantages: You had to learn all about photography it to use it effectively.

I posted this review in Ciao café the other day and it seems to have gone down well, so I thought I would share it with you. I hope this is the right category (Thanks to Colin for getting it moved to the right category :) )

Introduction.

Most of you who have read my reviews will have realised that they are mostly photographic equipment reviews, here is a review of the original camera that got me interested in photography in the first place and my experiences with it, it is an old obsolete model which is not included on any review sites, hence my posting it in here.

When I was a young lad I wanted a camera that could take close-ups (macro) for a project I was doing at the time, as well as normal family and holiday snaps, but knowing very little about cameras, I went to the branch of Wilding photographic in Wigan to find out more.

Once in there I explained all this to the man in the shop and he showed me a Zenith B camera, which looked very impressive and businesslike compared to my grandmothers little plastic Kodak instamatic, impressed with it I asked "how much?" £30 was the reply, I was rather shocked at that, £30 was a week and a half's wages at the time.

I decided that despite the price I would get it anyhow, so I left the shop very pleased with my new camera, some film, a couple of Hoya close-up filters of different strengths and a 2x extender for telephoto work, with all the extras that brought the price up to nearly £40, 'shock horror', two weeks wages blown on a camera, - was it a good investment? - Read on to find out.

What was available at the time?

During the 1960's and early 70's most 35mm SLR cameras were prohibitively expensive, the Likes of Pentax, Canon and Nikon catered mostly for the professional market, Pentax did have some lower priced cameras aimed at the serious amateur but they were still expensive to most people, most affordable amateur SLR's came from behind the iron curtain, the well known Praktica company from Dresden, East Germany had several models aimed at the amateur market and with their Carl Zeiss lenses were very capable cameras for the time.

But the Zenith cameras from the Soviet union were the best known, they were shipped from Russia by their thousands, and because of their relatively cheap price, they brought affordable SLR photography to the masses, most photographers at the time cut their teeth on one of these.

The Zenith B

The Zenith B was a large Russian made SLR of very basic specification, it was manual operation only, they were mechanical cameras (no batteries to run out here) the shutter was spring driven and the self-timer was clockwork, they were built like a tank and weighed a ton, and the controls were fiddly to say the least, they did not even have a light meter,

The lens

The Zenith B came with two lens options, one option was with the 50mm industar f/3.5, mine came with the much better Helios 58mm f/2 lens, the minimum aperture was a very modest f/16, the lenses used the universal Pentax 42mm screw thread mount, and there was no mechanical linkage to the camera to control the aperture, so that was done manually, changing lenses was a lengthy job as they had to be unscrewed to remove them, and another one screwed back on again.

The shutter

The shutter speed was controlled by a very small metal dial on a very strong spring, changing the shutter speed meant pulling up this dial and turning it to the desired setting, but because of the sharp edge on the dial and the strength of the spring it left an impression in your finger and thumb so you didn't want to do that very often if you could help it, the shutter had a very limited range of 1/30th to 1/500th of a second plus B, the shutter was cocked by the lever that advanced the film to the next frame, when the spring loaded shutter was fired it made a very loud clunk that could be heard quite some distance away, which made taking wildlife or candid pictures very difficult as the racket would alert your subjects of your presence.

I tried taking pictures of some buskers playing to a crowd in Cornwall, using the 2x extender that I had bought so as not to be too close, but after the first shot the noise of the shutter alerted everyone to the camera, the buskers started playing to the camera and half the crowd were posing for the picture, completely ruining the natural and informal nature of the pictures.

Changing the film.

Loading the film was a lengthy process, I always bought the 36 exposure films to cut this down to a minimum, when loading the film first you had to open the back of the camera via a small slider which you needed to get your finger nail under to move it, then you had to lift the rewind knob, then you had to insert the film cartridge and push the rewind knob down again to lock the film cartridge in place, then slip the end of the film under a spring on the take-up spool, and try and engage the holes in the film edges onto the sprocket wheel, close the back and wind on the film a couple of times whilst checking the if the rewind knob is turning, if it doesn't turn (and it often didn't) then you had to open it up and do it all again, then you had to reset the frame counter manually after every film change.

Unloading the film wasn't much better, you had to depress a button to disengage the shutter and film sprocket, then rewind the film using a knob which because of its shape and low profile was difficult to grip, and keep turning and turning until you felt the resistance of the film slacken, then open up the back of the camera, then lift up the rewind knob to release the film cartridge again so that you can remove it. "Phew!"

I bet you wouldn't complain about having to change an SD card again after all that.

Build quality

Despite its rather primitive design and fiddly controls, it was a very well built camera, everything worked as it should, and it never broke down once, nor had any problems in all the years that I used it, and it got a lot of use over that time, this camera was built like a tank with it's all metal construction, it weighed in at a huge 1kg with its standard lens attached, it was definitely built to last a long time, and it came in a strong leather case to protect it from any damage when not in use.
I have seen these being sold on Ebay for a lot more than I paid for mine, still in good working order after nearly forty years, which is a testament to their build quality and durability.

Taking Pictures.

When I got this camera and read the instruction book, it told you how to change the film, wind on the film, change the aperture, change the shutter speed and press the shutter, and that was it.
As this camera does not have a light meter or any auto functions whatsoever, everything has to be done manually including working out the exposure.

When I first started I followed the guide inside the film, for 100ASA (ISO) film, that was a shutter speed of 1/125 then f/16 for bright and sunny, f/11 for bright and cloudy or hazy sun, and f/8 for dull and overcast, so I set it to one of these depending on what the weather was like, but I used to get some pictures that did not come out, the problem was that if it was bright and sunny I would set the appropriate setting for that weather and leave it set on that, whether I was out in the sun, or in the shade, but after a couple of wasted films, I soon learned to read the light and set the camera accordingly, for example if it was bright and sunny but I was in the shade of a building I would treat that as a dull day and set the camera for that, problem solved, after a while I learned how to expose for any lighting conditions accurately and that was without using a light meter at all.

Once I had learned how to do that, the camera was quite easy to use even with its fiddly controls, which you get used to after a while anyway, after a while I bought a second hand Sigma 28mm wide angle lens for it, this camera was much more suited to wide-angle photography than it was telephoto.

As for the macro shots, I managed to get some good ones with this camera despite its limitations. I am still taking them, but now with a modern camera and a proper macro lens.

Likes.

It was my first camera.
Build quality and durability.
You gain a lot of experience using a camera like this one.
Universal 42mm screw fit lenses were cheaper.
Manual control.
No batteries to run out
Ideal for wide-angle photography.

Dislikes.

Fiddly controls.
Changing film took ages.
Slow to set up and use.
Noisy shutter
It is heavy.
Longer learning curve meant wasted film and missed shots at first

And finally

Was the two weeks wages spent on this camera a good investment? - Yes it was.

Because of the cameras limited capabilities, I had to learn all the basics of photography before I could even start to get any decent pictures from this camera, I learned how to read the available light and get an accurate exposure whatever the conditions, I learned what shutter speeds and apertures did and what all the numbers meant, these skills have stood me in good stead ever since, even the most modern camera light meter cannot get the exposure right all of the time, so being able to put the camera into manual mode and use your own experience to get it right when the camera wouldn't is a useful skill to have, even in these days of automatic this, that and everything else.

On top of all that, I got years of service from it, plus I got some great pictures with it as well.

But eventually the time came to upgrade to a new camera, so I bought a brand new to the market at the time, Canon AE 1 Program with a motor-drive and a Tamron 80 - 200mm zoom lens, but that was not the end of the Zenith, I carried on using that alongside my Canon for the wide-angle shots, a role that it was suited to very well.

In the end I gave it to one of my relatives who wanted a camera to take family snaps of his children as they were growing up.

Thanks for reading. - Mark.

Summary: It was a good investment that taught me a lot.