Vintage Camera #038 – Zorki 4

Zorki 4

The Zorki 4 is another Soviet-era camera, manufactured in quite large numbers between 1956 and 1973. It was manufactured by Krasnogorsk Mechanical Works (Красногорский механический завод). This camera is very similar to the Zorki 3S but with the addition of a self timer.

I spent several days in Poland recently and had to think carefully about my choice of cameras. One of my go-to cameras for a holiday is my Canon EOS 1N but that was out of the question this time as there was already a film loaded. When I’m going through an airport it’s always much easier getting manual checks on films if they’re not in a camera. I should write a post with tips and my experience, because I see the questions over again on Facebook groups. I even ask similar questions myself occasionally if it’s not specifically airport security. There are ways to make it smooth and streamlined. My best experience hands down is always at Gatwick airport. It’s efficient, all the staff seem to know how to handle film and on this trip they even spotted it on the side while I was getting everything else ready for security scanning and said they’ll sort it, before I even asked. Top marks there.

My next camera of choice is my Bronica ETRS, it’s a lovely camera to use and has a great feel. After my experience in Finland where the shutter froze after I’d been out in the cold for a few hours, I was reluctant to carry the extra weight knowing the temperature would be down to -10°C on this trip (it went down a lot lower). Nevertheless I took it anyway and I’m glad I did. By the last day, it had warmed up to near-zero and was just warm enough for the camera to work.

For this trip though, the primary camera was the Zorki. It felt somewhat fitting to choose one of the old Soviet era cameras to take with me given the cold conditions. I swapped the lens having discovered a Jupiter lens on a non-working camera so I decided to pair that with the Zorki. This turned out to be a great choice.

Unfortunately, the subject today is rather sombre. I got on the train and took a trip to Auschwitz in an intense blizzard to do a prebooked guided tour of the two camps, Auschwitz and Birkenau. Read up on the Holocaust before you go. Even if you know what happened there, being there, hearing the stories and seeing the evidence really is a harrowing experience. But as the tour guide said, it must never be forgotten and the memories should be shared.

So here I am now. It’s been several years since I used black and white film, but it felt fitting to take one with me for this trip. I was already part way through a roll of Kodak Gold when I arrived so some of these are in colour. After the last few images on that roll I loaded my roll or Ilford HP5.

I’m very satisfied with the photographic results of this day out. Photography is about telling a story, and I find that a lot of my photos are more like holiday snaps, whereas this feels to me like a strong set of images. The weight of the location’s history definitely influenced this; my storytelling in photography isn’t good enough on its own.

Moving on to the camera itself, i did find it a little bit fiddly. Focusing was easy, that Jupiter lens has goregeously smooth focus and aperture settings and this was easy even with gloves on. Changing the shutter speed setting was more tricky; on my example the selection marker on the shutter speed dial is slightly out of line, and having to lift it up to change settings and lock it in place is tricky with thick gloves.

The rangefinder patch in the middle of the viewfinder has decent visibility and it’s easy to see when it’s in focus. When looking through the viewfinder, the composition you see varies significantly depending on the camera position in front of your eye. That will take some getting used to but I guess once you’ve used it for a few rolls you’ll get to know what it’s like.

the film advance mechanism works on mine, but I did have quite a few bits of blank space on the negatives where I couldn’t get it to engage with the shutter mechanism and it wound on a bit without recocking the shutter. The positive side is that at you can tell when it’s happened, and it’s after you’ve taken a photo, so you’re not losing pictures you’ve taken without knowing.

The below is a fairly uncurated gallery but I feel there’s some merit in sharing all of them. Especially given the significance of every sight there. As mentioned, the colour images are on Kodak Gold 200, the black and white are on Ilford HP5 Plus.