Zorki 4

Produced by the KMZ factory in Krasnogorsk, Russia, the Zorki 4 was possibly the most popular of all Zorki cameras, with 1,715,677 cameras made. The Zorki 4 was also the first of the Zorki cameras to be exported in large numbers to the west.

When the Zorki 4 rangefinder was introduced in 1956, its contemporaries included the Zorki S, Zorki 2S, FED 2b, Leica M3 (introduced two years before), Leica IIIg, Nikon S2, Canon VT, Canon L1. The Zorki 4's production run outlasted all of them. When it morphed into the Zorki 4K by 1973, its contemporaries included the FED 4b, Leica M4 and M5, Nikon F2, and Canon F-1 and Canon Canonet QL 17 GIII.

The Zorki 4 is basically a Zorki 3S with a self-timer. It retained all of the features and strong points of the 3S. The early bodies have vulcanite body covering, engraved shutter speeds, and strap lugs. Later bodies have fabric covering and the shutter speeds (1/60 and 1/30 instead of 1/50 and 1/25) are silk-screened. By the mid-sixties, the strap lugs had disappeared.

Operation

As with other Soviet-era rangefinders, the shutter speed selector rotates when the shutter is released, and should not be changed until after the shutter has been cocked. If you change the shutter speed without cocking the shutter first, the setting pin can be broken when you advance the film and cock the shutter.

Links

• Zorki 4 manual by Mark Tharp NB: as of June 2006, the hosting service was degrading this web page with the very worst kind of pop-up advertising: fake spyware/virus alerts and offers to "proof" the viewer's computer by installing "protective" software that is actually a trojan. (See this for more information about the way your computer may be trashed.) As usual, all of this is Windows-specific. If you must use a Windows computer for browsing this site, do so with extreme caution, do not believe any unfamiliar alert that you read, and run a known spyware program on your computer (certainly not anything pushed by any advert that you have just seen) immediately afterward.
• Another Zorki 4 manual
• Russian Camera Collection (includes all Zorkis and the Mir)
• Zorki 4K
• Zorki 3 & 4
• Matt's Zorki 4
• Yet another Zorki 4
• Living image on the Zorki 4
• Zorki rangefinder cameras
• Rangefinder Cameras of the Soviet Era (includes beautifully restored and modified examples)
• Photoethnography's page about the Zorki 4
• Alfred's Camera Page about the Zorki 4
• How the FED/Zorki shutter works