In the early 80s and my early teens I started to read some photography books and they all told me that I needed an SLR if I wanted to be serious. Once I'd actually worked out what an SLR was I found that the catalog store in my home town, Argus, that carried a Zenit EM SLR camera complete with flash gun and camera bag for 35 pounds. I didn't actually have 35 pounds but some negotiating with the parental units about taking on some additional household chores and I got the huge, black, solid metal, Russian camera for my birthday. Actually, I think I even got the camera a few weeks early, which was unheard of in our house, but we were going away on our first family vacation to abroad. Abroad meant instead of pulling our tiny caravan to the northern extremes of Scotland we were actually taking a ferry and going across the Channel to France! Whoopdeedoo I hear you say but when your hormones are going crazy as a young teenager and you get to go to beaches where half the women were topless instead of beaches were you needed to wear your anorak, to protect you from the rain, and a bottle of deet, to protect you from the midges (tiny mosquitos only worse), it is a big deal.
But back to the camera; in a geeky habit that remains part of my make up to this day, I'd read just about every book I could find at the public and school's library on photography in anticipation of getting an SLR. I already knew a fair bit about light readings, shutter speeds and apertures before ever holding the camera. This was a good thing or I may have quickly abandoned the Zenit and moved on to the next toy. There was nothing automated about the EM. EM could have stood for "Everything Manual". There wasn't even a battery in the beast although, unlikely some earlier models, it did at least have a light meter built in. The meter resided over the top of the lens. I would be another few years before the Russians worked out how to take readings through the lens in their consumer models.
On the long drive down to France I devoured the camera's manual, loaded one of the three films I'd bought for the trip, and taken my first two shots. Little did I know that an obsession with photography was beginning in me, as a love for all things French took over my Mum and Dad. The Zenit EM was my constant companion on that vacation and many that followed.
I loved the EM in spite of all it's quirks. Perhaps this was because my first real camera; it looked, felt and smelt like a real camera. Perhaps it was because I didn't have an alternative; I was a kid and couldn't just take the camera back to the store to exchange it for something simpler to use. The shutter made a slurp noise as you advanced the frame and primed the fabric shutter. Pressing the shutter release took some effort and resulted in a loud mechanical slap as the mirror bounced up and down. The shutter release had a small surface area which you could easily see embossed in your index finger after giving your digit the work out required to expose a frame. You had a limited range of shutter speeds to choose from and it was hard physically to pull, turn and release the selector to get the speed you wanted.
You had to take your light reading to find the appropriate aperture long before you put the viewfinder to your eye. When you did you were greeted by a ground glass screen with a small, round microprism area at its center. No split prism focusing here which meant it took a good while of focusing left and right until you were reasonably confident that your subject was focussed. There was nothing else to see inside the viewfinder but the view; no meter reading, shutter speed or aperture. The view in my modern F717 digicam can get so cluttered with feedback, including where it is focused, what the exposure will be, how much battery and memory I have left, the white balance and what the histogram of the current subject is, that it's hard to see the actual subject. No such issues with the EM. You had to be deliberate and patient to take a picture which was all right by me as film was expensive on my limited pocket money.
As for ergonomics, that word wouldn't reach England for several more years. There was nothing subtle about the EM. It was square and angular. It was heavy. If your camera strap was too long and this thing swung and hit you on the hip while you were carrying it from one shoulder, you'd know about it. Rewinding the film with the tiny thumb wheel was a long winded affair that led me to open the camera back prematurely more than once on exposed film as I was convinced it all must be back in the canister already.
Despite, or perhaps because of, the Zenit's crude mechanical nature and tractor-like engineering it made a great learning tool. I learnt about photography because I had to if I wanted to get a good shot, and the embarrassment of not getting a good shot after lugging this monster around was not an option. I'm not sure where newcomers find the inspiration to learn the technical aspects of photogaphy anymore. Modern cameras, even, and sometimes especially, the modest models, are technological marvels that want to do everything for you and often take a lot of persuasion to be convinced to let the picture taker set anything manually. Focus, aperture, shutter speed - why learn any of it when a computer inside your camera knows it all already? I sometimes hear people asking how they can learn the technical aspect of photography. Part of me wants to lend them my old Zenit so they can shoot a few rolls of film for a cheap education but it's long retired now, sitting on a shelf to remind me of how I learnt those lessons myself.
Regards - Martin
I covered it up. The camera doesnt have an active hotshoe. you need to run a small cable from the flash to the connector to get it to work.
Traded the Miranda in for a shiny new Yashica FX-3 with a 50mm lens. Eventually traded that in for a Pentax Program Plus with a Sigma zoom lens. My images suffered drastically and it wasn't until later that I learned the difference a good lens makes (the Sigma zoom was a 28-80/2.8-4 that cost $60 NEW !!!) The old Yashica 50mm lens was fantastic in comparison. Anyway, I dumped the Pentax when the Minolta Maxxum 7xi came out and haven't looked back since. I still own the 7xi and one of my first lenses, but have added a couple newer high end bodies (the 7 and the 9) and lots of 'G' series glass. I picked up a used Rollei TLR and had it cleaned & repaired for a total cost of $400 a few years back and occasionally have fun with that. First digicam was a 1MP Kodak; the F717 is my second.
