Zorki

Zorki (Russian: Зоркий, meaning sharp-sighted) is the name of a series of 35mm rangefinder cameras manufactured in the Soviet Union between 1948 and 1978.

The Zorki was a product of the Krasnogorsk Mechanical Factory (KMZ), which also produced the Zenit single lens reflex camera (SLR). The first Zorki cameras were inexpensive Leica II copies just like the FED, but later models were considerably different from the Leica.

When using most Zorki cameras, the shutter speed should only be set after the shutter has been cocked. Setting the shutter speed before the shutter is cocked can permanently damage the camera. This especially affects all Zorki cameras with slow shutter speeds under 1/30 of a second, in particular the Zorki-3 and Zorki-4.

The first Zorki was the Zorki (called "Zorki 1" by some for clarity, although it never had a number in the name), an exact copy of the 1932 Leica II rangefinder. It featured a 50mm f/3.5 Industar-22 lens, a collapsible lens which looked like the Leitz Elmar but was actually a copy of the Zeiss Tessar. Introduced in 1948, the "Zorki" was the first 35mm camera made by KMZ. The Zorki S of 1955 added flash synchronisation.

The Zorki 2 (1954) was similar to the Zorki but featured an updated rewind mechanism, a self timer and strap lugs. There was a later flash version called the Zorki 2S.

Introduced in 1951, the Zorki 3 was somewhat similar to the Leica III. It offered a number of improvements over the original Zorki, including a large combined viewfinder with the rangefinder builtin, a removable back, and a larger and faster Jupiter-8 (lens) (Zeiss Sonnar copy) lens. It also added a new mechanism for slow shutter speeds with a separate selector dial on the front of the camera. This mechanism was unreliable, so the improved Zorki 3M of 1954 (also produced in 1955) combined all of the shutter speeds on a single dial. The Zorki 3S, introduced in 1955, was a Zorki 3M with flash sync.

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