Smena 8M

Several new pictures of different Smena-versions added. Funny (for me) to read that many models would be hard to find. Aidas and Alain know they are possible, but not easy nor cheap...

Smena rules

yea, Cosmic-35M is not easy to find nowadays ... as well as commemorative one ...

Juhani, this comparison of fake and not fake black 8M is most helpful. Bill and I were trying to find it recently on your site for reference but I guess you took it off from there, since we were not able to locate it... Thank you for posting it here..

It is there, but due to re-organisation it is in another file. And I still haven't found out how to deeplink anything. My personal computer helpdesk's (17y old son) latest job was updating my laptop...

Smena rules

Oh, the Cosmic 35.
This was my first 35mm camera as a teen. It was the poor man's, or occasional photographer's, or learner's camera. It was by far the cheapest 35mm camera one could buy.
Everything about it was basic. No exposure meter, plastic body, you had to cock the shutter before pressing the shutter button, and distance setting was also manual.
But it had a few shutter speed settings. The only thing about it that wasn't basic was the lens, which was terrific for such a cheap camera. I took some friends and parties shots with it, with a separate flashgun mounted on the shoe, and everyone was stunned with the resulting pictures when they were developed. They were very sharp with beautiful colours and contrast.
When they saw the pictures everyone was asking me to take their pictures with it. And it never disappointed, I even shot a wedding with it. You only had to be careful with the manual settings, but the lens could compete with the best high priced cameras for beautiful results.