Will Gunadi Photography

Got it!
For some reason receiving a package from California is always blazing fast here in Texas, two and a half-days consistently.

Here it is:

Not another rangefinder, interestingly, but an SLR. A Zenit 3M to be exact.

As far as my reading goes, this camera is exactly the Zorki 6, which I like a lot, minus the rangefinder assembly, plus a prism and a mirror box. That means I’m getting a small-ish, all metal, industrial-styled SLR. Yay!
I like this camera already, it feels good in my hands.

The overall build quality is amazing for an FSU camera.  And it’s in a pretty good working condition, film advance is smooth if a bit heavy (remember, they have to move a whole bunch of additional stuff with the mirror in place). The shutter speed sounds correct, we’ll see with the test roll.

The mirror assembly looks complicated, even though the mirror didn’t automatically come back down after taking a picture, which is pretty odd for a camera manufactured in 1965.

Usually, a Zenit 3M comes with a 50mm lens, either the Industar 50/3.5 (a Tessar clone) or more uncommonly a Helios 58/2 (a Biotar clone).  But this one comes with the Mir-1, which is bordering rare !!

What is a Mir-1? you may ask.

Mir-1 37/2.8 is one of a few lenses that wins the Grand Prix award in the 1958 World Fair in Brussels Belgium.  For what reason? I have no idea.  But the manufacturer seems to be pretty proud of that fact because it is engraved on the front of the lens barrel.

What is the performance like? I will find out soon, but since this is a clone of German optical formulas, it can’t be *that* bad now can it?

The glass is clean, but the lens barrel is quite dirty, old gunk in the small grooves of the focusing and step-down aperture rings but the aperture blades are clean and dry.  I cleaned the body as much as I can.

Now the viewfinder.  It’s big, not as big as Olympus OM-1, but close, and nothing but the image in it with depth perception.  Really beautiful, it’s like looking at a mini ground-glass.

Finally, there’s film in it.  And since there’s no way to find out what kind it is until I opened the back, it’s a *mystery* :)

So I’ll see if I can develop it when I finished it.

Finally, if the Zorki 6 is any indication, this camera will be very conducive to satisfying photography.

Addendum:

The film was broken inside the camera, something caught when I tried to advance the last frame and it snapped when I rewind it.  Therefore no found film.  But since it’s a Kroger branded film, not some ancient Russian film as I would have hoped, it’s not a big deal.

Continued in Part II.