Fotosniper

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I bought a Zenit ‘Fotosniper’ camera (it’s spelled ‘FOTOSNAIPER’ on the stock) a couple/three years ago. For various reasons, I never got around to using it. I already have a stack of 35mm cameras lying around (Olympus OM-1 that needs a battery adaptor so I can use legal batteries in it, a Pentax K-1000, a Nikon FM3A, a Nikonos IV, and a Nikonos V). But at the time, I thought the Zenit was ‘neat’, and that it might make a nice prop for a film I have in mind.

In cleaning up/out the house, I found the Zenit. Last night I decided I’d get it out and use it. The lens seems to be very good. I have a 16mm Krasnogorsk-3 movie camera, and its Zenit lens is nice. The camera itself is crap. It has a plastic body, and a maximum shutter speed of 1/500 second. It has TTL metering using LEDs to indicate proper exposure; but, like the OM-1 and K-1000, the aperture and shutter speed are manually set. There is a knurled knob on the right side of the camera with which you can wind up the timer for automatic shutter release.

The 300mm lens has a funky stop-down mechanism. You turn a ring to ‘unlock’ the aperture ring. This allows you to set the aperture, but leaves the aperture wide open. Pulling the trigger stops down the aperture and works the shutter. (You can also trip a lever to stop it down to your setting before pulling the trigger.) Ideally, the aperture will close an instant before the shutter is tripped. On mine, the aperture closes down long before the shutter snaps. There’s an adjustment screw to get them closer together, but it faces the lens body instead of the outside so I can’t get to it. Maybe I need a special tool? Anyway, there’s a rather large ‘clunk’ that might disturb the shot. I may as well leave it as it is.

The Zenit also came with a 46mm lens for using the camera off of the shoulder stock. I don’t think I’ll ever use it. I have other cameras that are much better.

I think I’ll go get a roll of B&W film and take ‘surveillance photos’ to see how it works. I’ll also have to revisit my script idea to see how I can incorporate it into a film as a prop.

2

Somewhere in all my boxes of crap, I’ve got the old version of that. It had a wooden gun stock, a 500mm f/5.6 stop down lens with a T adapter.

That wooden gun stock and big ass lens would get me arrested today, I’m sure, Homeland security and what not.

The lens quality was actually quite good. I had to change to an all matte focusing screen (type E for Nikon) to use it, tho. The micro prism and split image (type K) were virtually useless even wide open.

3

Ah, also, on that old lens, you used two rings for aperture. One ring let you stop down and open up with one twist. The other was the actual aperture ring. You had to meter stopped down, of course.
I like the new version of the gun stock in that link. Less real gun looking.

4

Mine has the two rings as well. That was the funky stop-down mechanism I mentioned.

Was your camera body plastic? How did you like it?

5

The lens had a t adapter, so I used my Nikon FM-2 on it.

To be honest, I don’t recall if the sniper unit I bought came with a body or not, as i always had it set up for my Nikon. (This was at least 20 years ago.)