The Awesome Zorki 4: Russia's answer to Leica
Zorki 4 by Zorki
By Tim Smith-Laing
25 November 2007
There was a time when I simply took photos with my Dad's OM1, which is a pretty fantastic piece of kit to get to work with as a first camera. Then one day someone mentioned 'these really crappy cameras you can get from Russia, that take the most beautiful photos.' Come their birthday time I typed the words 'crappy Russian camera' into Google to see if I could track down one of these mysterious beasts by way of a present. And that was the beginning of a very special relationship indeed. After an hour or so of surfing I ended up buying not just one but two of the things: a brace of beautiful Zorki 4s. I've never looked back since.
Back in the beginnings of the Soviet Union, it was decided that the people should have access to the kind of cameras Leitz were making for their capitalist customers, and the first Russian Leica copy was born. The FED 1 was the first of several generations of USSR mass-produced rangefinders that would eventually see the Zorki 4 become one of the most ubiquitous cameras in the whole world. Despite legendarily patchy quality control and some potentially disastrous quirks, nearly 2 million Zorki 4s were produced between 1956 and 1973. In fact I'd bet that there's probably one quietly rotting in an attic within 200 yards of you right this moment. Now, go and find it.
Once you get past the inevitable niggling technical problems (slow shutter speeds, strange looks from people who think digital is the wave of the future) the Zorki turns out to be a miraculously good camera. Its standard prime is the incredible Jupiter 8, which despite retailing for around $30 dollars or less is tack-sharp, contrasty and renders amazingly vibrant colours. Just check out the photos below if you don't believe me. My Zorki 4 set me back a staggering $40 dollars including postage and lens, and produced shots that still astound me now. Unfortunately, word about these former-Soviet gems seems to have spread and prices on ebay have risen in the last year or so. But in comparison to cameras that produce images of a similar quality, the Zorki 4 remains an unbelievable bargain.
If you've never shot with a rangefinder before, like I hadn't, shooting with the Z4 is a bewildering experience. For a start it's a rangefinder. Rangefinders preceded SLRs by some thirty years, and gave birth to 35mm photography as we know it. Rather than viewing through the lens as you do on an SLR, on a rangefinder you focus by aligning two images in the viewfinder. Once you get used to the difference it becomes natural, and is actually frequently more accurate than focussing SLRs of the same period. However, vintage cameras are a very different beast to the modern camera. With the Zorki 4 you have manual focus,of course. No meter, obviously. No wind-on lever either, but a stiff, gnarly knob thing to turn instead. Oh, and the double image that's supposed to be your means of focussing is as tiny and faint as could be. But when you get that nigh-on-invisible second image to coincide perfectly with the main view of your subject, you're in business: press the button and wait for the satisfying snap of the cloth shutter.
Inefficient and tricky as this may all sound, it's exactly the same technology as the Leicas that Henri Cartier Bresson used to produce his incredible street shots. Okay, so Leicas are much, much better built, but the principle is the same. And when you get the hang of it, the Zorki 4 becomes one of the most amazing street-shooters ever made. Compared to modern SLRs (especially digital ones with ludicrous zoom lenses) it's vanishingly tiny and inconspicuous. Plus it's quiet, which is an advantage I'd never quite appreciated before. Oh, and it doesn't particularly matter if it gets stolen or broken, because, well, it cost nearly nothing. Fantastic! Last year my Zorki was my faithful companion in all the back streets of Rome for a full month, and barely attracted a glance in a city famous for its pickpockets and petty thieves. From the Vatican to the gypsy market in Porta Portese it never let me down once, and though I let myself down a fair few times, whenever I managed to get the shot I wanted, the Zorki made good.
So, if you want a camera with history, or an introduction to rangefinder photography, or the perfect budget street-shooter, or even just a paperweight, the Zorki 4 is the camera for you. Of course, it is notoriously unreliable; but that's just capitalist propaganda and pandering to the digital generation. There's almost nothing that goes wrong with a Zorki that you can't fix yourself, even if you've never opened up a camera before, like me. It's a lean, mean shooting machine that will probably outlive your children if you treat it right. And believe me, it really does take the most beautiful photos, and no one will blame you for taking the credit. All you need to do now is type the words "crap Russian camera" into Google. Dosvedanya!
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