Hi, I'm new! Suggestion about Zenit ET

Hi Everyone,

I'm new on the forum, passionate about Russia and photography. So, I decided to give a try to old Russian cameras.

I bought a 1984 Lomo LK-A in Peter and it is very nice. Recently I bought on ebay a Zenit ET with Helios 44M-4 (not arrived yet) lens and, after reading some articles, I've discovered that it is most probably a plastic one made in Belarus in the 90s and not the one from KMZ.

Do you think it is still a good camera to have?

And what about the lens? I could also give it a try mounting it on a modern DSLR.

Thanks,
M.

Hi Marcus,

Welcome! BelOMO made a lot of these plastic Zenit ETs, they are really easy to find, in fact I still know a guy in Russia who has these sealed brand new in the boxes. I guess good thing about these if you're planning to actually shoot with it, it's much lighter than it's metal counterpart, other than that it's the same camera. Lens is pretty decent, people like them, it makes a unique bokeh, I've seen a lot of people get very nice results shooting video with it. It won't mount on Nikon DSLRs correctly as you won't get infinity focus, but if you have a mirrorless it'll work pretty nicely.

Cheers,
Vlad

Hi Vlad,

I will surely use it for street and portraits in one of my travels. I will also try to mount the lens on a Canon DSLR.

Cheers,
M.

There is almost no problem with mounting M42 lenses on Canon DSLR.
Only some of M42 lenses can bump against mirror when they are focused at infinity.

Hello and welcome to the fourm Marcus.