Zenit EM complete CLA ongoing thread (pic heavy)

Don't forget that shims and washers can be home-made from scrap material, and while generic replacement screws may look different, they will work.

I recently replaced a Zenit 412 shutter curtain: The metal lath attached to the rubberized silk had some sharp edges which eventually caused one of the ribbons to break, and by the time I got to it, the curtain itself had stretched out of shape. Not quite ready for use yet, because the shutter curtain bounces at the end of it's travel, enough to re-expose the film.

Btw, may I remind that getting the shutter travel speed indentical on both curtains may not be the preferred thing to do, since the curtains do speed up a bit. They start a bit slow and build up more speed at the end. Therefore, you should aim for a bit wider slit at the end (left side, looking from back of camera).

I have set the EM so that the slit width is almost a full stop wider at the end. So slit is something like 2mm at start, and closer to 4mm at the end. I have now shot several rolls of film this way, and the exposures seem uniform. Or at least soviet tolerance uniform?

Niglyn said:

I have purchased a few 'new' or mint cameras that would never have worked from new. These were imports or purchased from outside the UK, as every official UK Zenit was fully disassembled and rebuilt by the importers, before sale in the UK.

Click to expand...

Was this experience on both KMZ and Belomo made samples?

(As I repeatedly hinted at I still do not understand such sloppy quality control, not even for the home-market, let alone for export. But when I look at the shit offered us today, and bought due to its price, I might be too critical on the past...)

AgX said:

Was this experience on both KMZ and Belomo made samples?

(As I repeatedly hinted at I still do not understand such sloppy quality control, not even for the home-market, let alone for export. But when I look at the shit offered us today, and bought due to its price, I might be too critical on the past...)

Click to expand...

I have also bought a couple of cameras that were sold "mint, never probably used" condition. That usually means, that they are cameras that were broken straight from factory package and then left to some warehouse, later to be sold by some ebayer that found them. Now I usually just buy cameras that have some usage marks. Of all USSR cameras I bought and that had been used, all of them still worked.

Comparing bicycles and space rockets, the quality of manufacture is sky high these days with digital cameras, but the complexity is also much higher. Like, 4 out of 5 of digital cameras I bought were either DOA or needed 1 or 2 service visits within warranty period..

AgX said:

Was this experience on both KMZ and Belomo made samples?

(As I repeatedly hinted at I still do not understand such sloppy quality control, not even for the home-market, let alone for export. But when I look at the shit offered us today, and bought due to its price, I might be too critical on the past...)

Click to expand...

I only have a single, post-USSR Belomo Zenit, so I can't really say much, except that it seems to work.

Politics surely had a big influence on quality, see "A question of politics" here:
https://kosmofoto.com/2021/01/read-this-before-you-buy-a-soviet-camera/

The miniseries "Chernobyl" has a particularly striking scene, when, immediately after the disaster, a team is assembled to decide on how to report the incident, ultimately, their response is decided by Marxist-Leninist doctrine, and everyone's actions are praised, even as chunks of the nuclear reactor's core are littering the ground.

I imagine that a successful USSR factory manager would need to be very resourceful at finding ways to meet production quotas! When I see older style parts reappear in newer cameras, it's easy for me to conclude that factories were forced to use obsolete, even previously rejected components in order to meet said quotas.

Hello.

I bought Zenit E in really good shape. Everything is smooth and shutter works correctly. But few days ago, Bulb mode stopped working. Shutter works correctly, it stays open when I lock the shutter release button. But mirror doesn’t lock up.

I’ve opened the Mirror mechanism cover and noticed one thing: when the shutter is pressed, mirror goes up, curtains are opened but the mirror falls down like on 1/Xs shutter (the lifting gear doesn’t stop in the locking position). When I release the shutter button, Curtain is closed, but the Mirror mechanism doesn’t move at all, like it should. Can this be fixed or not?
Here is a slow motion video on Youtube:



Thanks a lot!

-Sven

Hello Sven!

Yes it seems the "flipper wheel" isn't in the right gear tooth at all. When in Bulb mode, the filipper wheels lastmost edge (W) should be under the pin (P) keeping the mirror in up position while you press the shutter button. In your camera, the wheel edge goes too far past the pin, clockwise. This will also affect normal exposures, not just B.

Why the gear is not at the right tooth if it previously was, is strange. Or has the mirror mechanism mount bracket (at the left in your video) got so loose, that the pin (P) is not correctly aligned to the flipper wheel anymore?

It could be that the flipper wheel screw (in the middle of it) has come loose? If you turn camera upside down, will the gear slip out of tooths?

Hi Sven,
I have a few leftover parts from a Zenit TTL If you need something.

Niglyn said:

Sorry, yes you are right & I'm confused & got the groups & forums muddled.
Go to Facebook & join 'Zenit Camera Club' In the files section of this group, you will find my most excellent guides there. )

Click to expand...

I just joined this group on Facebook and just joined this forum. I picked up a 1979 Zenit EM Olympic edition at an antique shop in Arkansas. Both of the shutter curtains have come unglued on the ribbon side. I've got a completely torn down, thanks to this thread, and have started gluing the ribbons back on. I've spent a little money on parts and a new spanner wrench but all in all I've learned a lot from the disassembly so to me it was worth the $20 I spent on the camera. Looking forward to getting it running and seeing what the pictures look like.

Thanks for all of the awesome information on this thread. It is helped me a lot!

Svenisko said:

Hello.

I bought Zenit E in really good shape. Everything is smooth and shutter works correctly. But few days ago, Bulb mode stopped working. Shutter works correctly, it stays open when I lock the shutter release button. But mirror doesn’t lock up.

I’ve opened the Mirror mechanism cover and noticed one thing: when the shutter is pressed, mirror goes up, curtains are opened but the mirror falls down like on 1/Xs shutter (the lifting gear doesn’t stop in the locking position). When I release the shutter button, Curtain is closed, but the Mirror mechanism doesn’t move at all, like it should. Can this be fixed or not?
Here is a slow motion video on Youtube:



Thanks a lot!

-Sven

Click to expand...

Hi,
Looks like the flipper wheel is totally out of alignment. It is a relatively easy fix, I have had a few 'new in box' with the same fault. My guess is the cameras were used, did not work correctly and then returned. Probably explains why your camera was mint. If the mirror mech is not aligned correctly, the mirror may be in the way during an exposure, at any speed.
The top will require removal. The prism removed (This is the time to also remove the old sticky prism foam and replace, else it will ruin your prism, as should be done on every Zenit).

Remove prism and the mirror mech. You can now look down and see the screw that holds the mirror lifting cam.
Loosen the screw holding the cam, but do not lift it before holding the gear next to it, with the spring on top, in position, use a screwdriver in the gear to hold it. Best if a second person does this.

You can now lift the cam and rotate it to the correct position, which should be so the start of the lifty bit on the cam is just in front of the bar that lifts the mirror. Looks like yours is too far back and the cam needs to be rotated counter clockwise, from the same view as your video.

You will find the full Zenit E service manual and my documents, written to help other Zenit owners, in the facebook group 'Zenit Camera Club' in the files section.

Please let me know how you get on.

AgX said:

Was this experience on both KMZ and Belomo made samples?

Click to expand...

Hi, sorry for the late reply.
The later plastic topped Belomo seem to be the worst. They sound & feel rough, have multiple light leaks and the ones I bought had faults from new.

To be fair, the ones I bought had been sitting around for 40 or so years and I am guessing they were returns that did not work. They were from East Europe, so designed for the domestic market, I believe the export ones were (slightly) better quality). All the UK ones were stripped and reassembled by the UK importer, so there were no quality control issues of the UK official import camera.

I bought a 'new in box' ET from Ukraine last year. The seller seemed to be a junk shop / house clearance. I was delighted when it arrived as it was one of the limited edition green topped ones. It is only poor quality paint, so most examples are quite marked up, but this was mint. This camera did not work due to the mirror not lifting at all. This was down to the mirror linkage arm not correctly adjusted. ALL Zenits require the prism foam replacing to avoid prism damage, so all my cameras have the top removed to facilitate this. It was a simple matter to adjust the linkage arm. These cameras also suffer light leaks more than others. I add additional light sealing below & on the front edge of the mirror, either side of the light sensor, to the side of the rewind post and add a baffle between the light meter window & the prism. Details found on the facebook zenit camera club group, files section. If you find these guides helpful, please let me know. The one thing Zenit got right, were the light seals in the back door. These are wool & felt so they never rot or require replacement. It is a shame they did not use felt under the prism, as it would have saved a lot of Zenit cameras.

Does anyone have an idea how to repaint logo on Zenit EM as it's not dented like in some other cameras. I can see faint marks where it was before, but there's no way I can paint so precisely over that by hand.

hiroh said:

Does anyone have an idea how to repaint logo on Zenit EM as it's not dented like in some other cameras. I can see faint marks where it was before, but there's no way I can paint so precisely over that by hand.

Click to expand...

I've never tried using acetone to transfer a laser printed image onto metal, but it seems like something which would work very well in this application. Just remember not to get acetone on plastics, including the body coverings, or painted surfaces.


This wasn't an option for my Zenit 122K's plastic covers, so I hand-painted the markings. My technique is far from perfect, but by scraping away unwanted paint using a sharpened disposable chopstick, I was able to achieve results that I was satisfied with.

In the 1990s I had a sign shop make white words for a nameplate out of white vinyl. I gave them a vector file on a floppy. I suspect there might be a place today that can do this.

Tried to do this about 12 years ago, but could not find a place that would accept my artwork.