ZORKI 5

[Krzys]

Can I get anyone's opinions on this camera? Also how thick in approximation is the width of the body?

 

[Rol_Lei Nut]

Nice, if you can live without slow speeds (nothing between 1/30 and B).

Lever advance and wide rangefinder base make it better than earlier Zorkis, if only they had added the blasted low speeds!

Usual Soviet camera caveats apply.

I no longer have one, but if IIRC, it was the same base size as other Zorkis. My Zorki 3 measures 141x32 mm at the base.

 

[Martin Reed]

I had, in fact still have, a Zorki 6 which is very similar but loads from the back. I thought the world of it when I was a teenager in the '60's, and imagined I was using a Leica (I had a vivid imagination then). But being realistic, the lack of low speeds is a major hindrance. Mine also had a strange habit of ripping the film sprockets up, the tension in the drive must have been out of kilter. Also the viewfinder leaves a lot to be desired, and the Industar 50 is only marginally better than the lens in a Diana.

 

[julio1fer]

My Zorki-6 is 32 mm thick at the base, the -5 should be the same. I like this camera a lot. As for the lenses,

the Industar 50 is only marginally better than the lens in a Diana

Well, maybe YMMV. I've never shot with a Diana, but my collapsible I-50 is a pretty good lens - sharp and contrasty.

 

[srs5694]

I've never shot with a Diana, but my collapsible I-50 is a pretty good lens - sharp and contrasty.

I've got a couple of non-collapsible I-50s on Zenit M39 SLRs, and they're OK. Here's the result of some informal lens tests I performed some time ago. Based on that, the I-50 isn't as good as more modern 50mm lenses from Pentax, Chinon, or KMZ (the Zenit maker), but it's a bit sharper and/or higher in contrast than a Tamron 28-70mm zoom. I've got a cropped 11x14 print of a photo I took with an I-50 lens on Kodachrome 64 hung on my wall. (I didn't happen to have a long enough lens for the subject when I took the photo, and I wanted to change from horizontal to vertical framing, so I cropped appropriately.) IMHO, it holds up surprisingly well to the extreme enlargement.

 

[Xmas]

Both my Zorki Vs lenses are comparable with contemporary elmars? but they do need the elmar hood or (Fison) clone.
The lever wind (on both) is like turret of T-34 tank - budget for service.
Noel