Zorki 5 & 6 – A Brace of Otherwise Unwanted Cameras

You know how it is, you see something on a certain auction site very near the auction end with a sensible start price and no bids so you put just the minimum on with no expectation. Then spend the rest of the time willing someone else to put a bid on so you don’t have to buy it?

Just me then

I didn’t need another Zorki 6 paperweight, the one I had was enough and I was planning to try and unstick the shutter to get that one going again. But this one looked a bit different even though the photos weren’t good and there was no description.

When it arrived it didn’t look like my £10 plus postage had been particularly well spent. It matched the photos and looked really rough. The Industar 50 lens was fitted with a homemade lens hood of cardboard and black tape, the camera with a homemade soft-touch shutter release made of a wood-screw and carved rubber, perished surgical tubing on the winder lever and the back was covered in glue where it appeared film box lids had been regularly taped. In short it looked like a photographer’s camera which was what I must have noticed in the first place.

And it worked straight off. The lens was clear and the movements smooth, every shutter speed seemed correct and the second curtain closed with a satisfying thwop. The film winder was silent and so smooth I could hardly feel it. Unlike every other Soviet camera I have tried with a lever wind, normally they feel and sound like you are trying to winch a car out of a ditch.

The 5 came sometime later at the same price, without a lens and described as not working, although not used would have been a more accurate description. As it turned out Zorki 5’s are quite straight forward to service and it took very little to get it to work. The only real issue with the 5 was that one of the strap lugs turned out to be held in by superglue, hence the black tape covering the hole. Zorki 6’s for reasons outlined below are not so easy to service.

Both cameras have been derived/evolved/developed or however you feel about it, from the Leica ii via the Zorki 1 and it’s derivatives. Enough to be an improvement in some ways without losing all the feel, balance and functionality of the Leica, but they are definitely not ‘clones’. Build quality in these Soviet cameras from the late 1950’s and early 60’s is reasonable, certainly nowhere near as bad as they became later with the Zorki 4K and other cameras.

The 5 was only made by the KMZ factory for a couple of years, 1958 and 1959, the 6 from 1960 to 65. Both are said to have been intended as cheaper, lower specification versions of the Zorki 4. The main difference being the absence of a slow shutter speed mechanism, just keeping the limited range of shutter speeds from the Zorki 1/Leica ii. Both cameras were probably supplied new with Industar 50 lenses, the first of the 5’s with a collapsible version,

The 5 from the top plate down is essentially the same as a Zorki 1 (or a Leica ii for that matter), bottom loading with the shutters and mechanisms held in a crate that is accessed by undoing a few screws and sliding the outer shell off. Above that both cameras have the addition of a lever wind and a combined viewfinder and rangefinder, large and bright with a clearly visible rangefinder patch. There is even a dioptre adjustment for the viewfinder and you are supposed to be able to change shutter speeds both after and before cocking the shutter. Though I always stick to after to keep in the habit as much as anything.

The 6 has everything held in a monocoque structure where the camera body and shutter crate are all one piece. Accessing moving parts and lubrication points that are quite readily accessed on a 5 seems impossible on a 6 without dismantling large parts of the camera. Although getting past the lever wind causes the same problems with both cameras.

However this construction does mean the 6 has an opening back and a fixed take-up spool. Easy loading and no need to cut the film leader. Which leads to a major drawback, the door is held shut by a slider with a tab to pull up. Now whereas Canon, Zeiss, etc, when using a similar method of closing the door on their cameras from the same period incorporated a safety device, or at least protected the catch, the Soviets in their wisdom did not. So almost anything can snag on the tab and release the catch. Getting the camera in or out of a bag or pocket, or just having it swinging on a strap can result in the door coming open and ruining the exposed part of the film. The bottom loading 5 of course does not suffer from this problem.

One other point against both cameras is the position of the shutter button in the centre of the winding lever, it is quite awkward to hold the camera and put a finger there. My first finger falls quite naturally on where the shutter button is on a Leica ii/Zorki 1, but on these later cameras that is where the rewind release has been positioned. I have seen comments on the lines of that this is ‘an alternative shutter release’, it isn’t. On both my cameras pressing it with the shutter cocked will trip the shutter, but both curtains are released together so no photo is taken, and looking at the mechanism repeated use might well be damaging to the camera as well.

So which is the best? Well I also have a Zorki 1 so it is no contest really, a case of don’t fix something if it isn’t broken. The viewfinder/rangefinder of these cameras is easier to use than the Zorki 1’s, but not by much and it makes the camera larger and uncomfortable in the hand, not helped by the position of the shutter release. The lever wind is something of a pain and of no real advantage, and the opening back of the 6 would be a positive in it’s favour only if only it stayed shut. Otherwise all three are much the same camera and of the three the Zorki 1 the most user friendly.

As an end note I’m sure both cameras are also capable of taking photos of subjects other than castles (though why would you?), and probably of views not taken through archways as well.

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