Zenith E

Now it was not a good camera. No Zenith could ever be described as good. A typical soviet work horse. Heavy, solid, not the best tolerances. Very definitely not the white heat of technology. This is a very manual camera, even down to the aperture, which had to be preset and stopped down manually before shooting. The E model benefitted from a selenium light meter. Not that it was really part of the camer, so much as built into the same body. The settings had to be dialled into the meter, the needles matched and then the readings transferred onto the shutter and aperture controls. Cock the shutter. Focus the camera - no focus aids, just a plain ground glass screen, stop down, and fire.

I can't say many shots worked out very well. Maybe the focus wasnt sharp and sometimes I forgot to stop down. Don't get me started on using a flash! Then came developing the pictures afterwards. I used a cheap ex-school Gnome enlarger to produce muddly, dusty images and enjoyed every minute.

This was my pride and joy right up until I got married and had children. Can you imaging what it was like trying to fiddle with all of those controls when trying to photograph a baby.