The fifth camera in the 12 Months of film series is the Russian made Zenit TTL. Bought for £12 at a car boot sale, I have been shooting with this camera throughout January and its certainly been an interesting and problematic experience. The first problem I encountered concerned the light meter and the fact that it didn't work at all. The battery it requires is somewhat obscure and the one purchased based on a forum article didn't fit. I managed to get round this problem by using a free light meter mobile app called, (rather imaginatively) 'LightMeter', which as it turns out did the job rather well. The second problem concerned the lens which I have to say was a bit of a Frankenstein's monster. A previous owner had what looked like, taken a hacksaw to the back of the lens and cut into it thus allowing it to attach to this particularly camera body. It was a clunky setup to say the least and one that meant shooting with it was painfully slow at times. I'm not sure many photographers will be using this type of camera/lens combo at the Sotchi games this Winter, not in a professional capacity anyway.
Having said that, I rather enjoyed shooting with this relic of the cold war era. It's typically Russian. By that I mean it's not particularly comfortable to hold, angular, and all the lumps and bumps seem to be in just the wrong place making it quite fiddly to get a nice firm grip. The max shutter speed was only 1/500th second, something that could potentially cause problems in the middle of the Summer, but thankfully wasn't an issue at all in January's gloomy light here in the U.K. Everything was rather basic, especially compared to a modern DSLR, but that's part of it's charm as with other film cameras, and the reason why many people are choosing this medium again. The Zenit TTL is very well made, metal body and knobs. It certainly puts many modern cameras to shame in this department and it's nice to see that some manufactures have responded to this by releasing beautifully made, retro styled modern digital cameras which hark back to this era. Fuji, I'm looking at you, the X-T1 looks lovely. The shutter makes a very satisfying clunk when fired, everybody around you will know you've just taken a picture and there's no stealthy quiet mode. But the beauty of this camera is that there are no frills, no fuss, it just gets on with the job at hand and I'm sure will continue to do so for many years to come. Now if you will excuse me, I'm off to scour the internet for one of these elusive batteries. Wish me luck.
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| The Zenit TTL |
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| Looking down on the asa, shutter speed and counter dials |
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| Clean looking design |
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| Shutter button and control dials |
Really pleased with how the shots turned out, a few lovely light leaks creeping in here and there. The cabin in the woods shot looks decidedly spooky, just a shame it wasn't ramshackled and decaying.
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| Bruce |
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| Cabin in the Woods |
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| Brancaster Overy Staithe |
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| Fungi |
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| Rope |
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Seal viewing trips
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