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Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Leningrad

I have not (yet!) Leningrad in my collection, but another collector was kind enough to entrust me with his one for a little troubleshooting. It enabled me to discover this atypical thing.

This camera has been designed in the 50s by GOMZ (future LOMO, best known to us for the Lubitel), marketed between 1956 and 1968, at 76,000 copies according to J.L.Princelle. Surprise, although GOMZ and KMZ production units are different, even competing, some parts are common with the Zorki 4: the shutter assembly, the long exposures timer, the selftimer (the camera was also sold equipped with KMZ made lenses, Jupiter 3 or 8). On the other hand, it was planned to use Kiev-Contax cartridges, different from the Zorki ones, to load the film. Shutter cocking and film advance are controlled by a spring, you just have to wind up to allow a dozen views. This mechanism seems a little tricky, and does not work very well with film cartridges of the trade (I made a wedge that prevents the cartridge from getting askew, and the film to get stuck). Another complication, the rewind button, rather than directly on the axis of the cassette, is joined by a set of gears (to leave room for the rangefinder). The best innovation of this camera is precisely this rangefinder, and I think it is unfortunate that it has not been used on other cameras: the sight window corresponds to the visual angle of a 35mm lens, with frames for 50, 85 and 135mm. Another genius idea, the fixed frame corresponds to the window at (almost) the vertical of the lens, it's the image corresponding to the entire field that rotates when you turn the focusing ring. Consequence: no possible parallax error horizontally! Realization requires a complicated assembly of several prisms, this rangefinder was certainly more expensive than the Zorki one. I forgot: you can adjust the viewfinder to your sight by rotating the eyepiece.

I love, I asked our friend Irina to try to find one for me!

I got my Leningrad since, but on eBay, not by Irina. Can be seen on the "Cameras servicing" pages, it is a newer model than the one presented here, with improvements.