Tales on Film

The first time I had to load a Fed camera, it became clear, that it’s not the easiest thing to do, so I thought I create a small tutorial on how to load these kind of cameras.

Loading film

First, you need to turn the switches on the bottom plate, left and then turn 180 degrees, this allows you to slide the back off the camera.

The easiest way to load a film, is to take out the take-up spool of the camera, and attach the leader to it.

Then put the canister in the camera, pull out the film with the take-up spool and place the take-up spool in the camera also. Make sure you turn the take-up spool a couple of times before putting it in the camera. Most Feds and Zorkis turn anti clockwise, so keep this in mind when rolling the film, otherwise your film will detach and roll around the transport mechanism. It’s no fun to try and take some film out of that mechanism, I had to do it once and had to ruin the whole film.

To make sure you put the film in correctly and to put some tension on the film before closing the camera, wind the camera a half turn. Make sure to put some pressure on the film, so that it attaches correctly to the small teeth of the transport mechanism.

Now close the back, by sliding it on again and turn the switches on the bottom the other way, check if the back is properly closed, take 2 testshots and you should be fine for shooting.

Rewinding film

When you want to rewind the film, make sure you fired the shutter, then either turn or push the knob around the shutter button as far as you can. This will release the lock on the transport mechanism and allow you to rewind the film. If you don’t do this, you feel a lot of tension when you want to rewind the film and if you keep on trying you can rip your film. I have unloaded my first 2 rolls in a changing bag, because I didn’t know this and couldn’t figure out how to rewind the film without detaching the take-up spool.

Another one of the russian camera collection we have over here, is the Zorki 4. The Zorki cameras are derived from feds which on their turn are derived from the Leica II. Zorkis were manufactured by KMZ in Krasnogorsk, a suburb of Moscow. The design of all the rangefinder Zorkis stayed basically the same over the years and the Zorki 4 contains all the advantages of the Zorki I, 2 and 3 in it’s design. That are the shutterspeed from 1 sec to 1/1000th of a sec, the variable flash sync speeds and the self-timer on the front. As most Russian cameras it’s built like a tank and the rewind knob is just a PITA. My Zorki 4 is manufactured in 1962, you can find the year of manufacturing from the first 2 numbers in the serial number on the back.

Some tips about using a Zorki 4. First and foremost, as with most Russian cameras don’t set the shutterspeed before you cocked the shutter by advancing to the next frame. Another thing that’s hard to find out the first time using a Zorki is how the rewind works. You need to fire the shutter and then turn the small wheel clockwise until it completely stops, raise the rewind button on the left side of the viewfinder and turn the wheel clockwise till you can’t feel any pressure anymore. On certain take-up spools it can happen that at the end of rewinding it feels like the film is stuck, don’t pull too hard or you could tear the film. That type of take-up spool takes so much film that it’s hard to pull the leader out of the spool, so don’t and open up the camera to take the film out of the spool by hand. The Zorki also has a little lever for changing the viewfinder diopter level, if the viewfinder seems blurry change the position of the lever and it will be better.