Never Judge a Book...

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Pictured, my latest acquisitions; a Soviet-era Zorki-4 camera, familiar to anyone who follows old-school film photography as one of Russia's 'knock-off Leicas', and an Opinel No:08 gardening knife I picked up on my trip to Kirkby Lonsdale yesterday. The Opinel purchased new from a wonderful surplus/outdoors shop in the town; and the camera was waiting for me in my veranda when I reached home this morning. The first - the Opinel - is of a quality, as always that belies its purchase price: they are among the best value for money utility knives on the market, with keen and easily maintainable edges, simple and robust construction, and always a lifetime's use ahead of them.

The Zorki is from a stable of Soviet cameras that used to attract scorn and avoidance 'from those of us in the know - sadly me included' back in the day, and were usually relegated to the status of 'beginner' cameras, such as the Zenit: the SLR that most of us - me included - started out on as they were so cheap to buy. These days there is a lot of interest in these chunky old Communist artefacts, especially in the interesting qualities that their lenses apparently offer, aesthetically; so I decided that thirty quid was not a great deal to lash out on an experiment, and took a punt. When I got back this morning and unpacked the camera, the first thing I noticed was its solidity and build quality: to be honest, not far off that of the Leica IIIa that cost me ten times as much a few years ago [blog posts passim - just search on Leica]. Really very impressive, so I look forward to getting some film through it to see what it can do! As always, I'll keep you posted...

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