(or, "From Russia with some love")

Zorki 2C (actually 2S)... I picked this one up at a camera show in trade. It was missing a lens and a film takeup spool.
The early Zorkis are a near identical part for part replica of early Leica cameras, although not completely up to the same build standards.
The Zorki was made by Krasnogorsk in Russia in the early to mid 1950's.
It needed a little cleaning and the film pressure plate needed to be loosened just a bit. For the adjustment and to test the shutter curtains, I had to disassemble the body and then reassemble. Not as bad as it sounds.
In cleaning, the driver's right side strap lug broke off the body, leaving a big hole. I epoxied the lug back in place to close what would be a huge light leak, but I would not stress the repair with load bearing usage.
The rangefinder was a bit off. In attempting a calibration, the adjustment screw got messed up. So I would need to guestimate distance when using it.
The lens came from an online auction, pretty cheap, mailed directly from Russia (St. Petersburg).
It is an Industar f:2.8 / 5cm, and a close copy of one of the Leica lens designs.
Lettering on both camera and lens are in Cyrillic alphabet. I can decipher some of it because of the similarity to Greek.

This morning we were ahead of the snow with some nice soft sunlight and temperatures in the 40's. So I loaded the camera with Fuji 200 and headed out to the old mill dam at Rockford Beach on Big River for a test of camera and lens.

Loading the film was the worst part of the test. These cameras have no back door, and film must be loaded through the bottom, inserting both spools while trying to get the film through the thin tight space between pressure plate and shutter frame. It generally hangs up when it reaches the far edge of the shutter frame, and has to coaxed through. Or the film has to be trimmed a certain way with scissors. I do a little cheat, inserting a piece of card stock into the space to protect from the edges of the shutter frame while inserting the film behind the card. The process is still a bear. Don't try it if you are in a hurry!

First frame with the elephants was exposed at home, to ensure that the film transport was still working.

I had the park to myself. Camera and lens did mostly good. Guestimation of distance was interesting, since the scale on the lens is in Metric.
Shots of the water were at 1/25 second, the camera's slowest speed. Other shots were mostly at 1/100 or 1/250.
There was a little bit of patchy flare fog in some of the shots having to do with bright subject areas. I used a good shade hood on the lens, but it showed up despite. Probably due to a little coating damage on the front element, which I was informed of before purchase.

Please click on thumbnails to see enlarged.
All images are Copyright 2015 E.J.Kowalski.
Thanks, Ed