photo from week 253 - Vesna

The Vesna was made in the Soviet Union, and it was sheer coincidence that I found this hat in a charity shop for 50p in the week I was using it. In Cyrillic characters, the hat bears the name "Sevastopol", a port on the Black Sea.

photo from week 253 - Vesna

There was not much light, even next to the window, on this November afternoon. I used 1/30th second at f4.5 and guesstimated the focus, it could have been worse!

photo from week 253 - Vesna

Soviet era cameras never had much of a reputation for build quality or reliability, whether these overlapping frames and shredded sprocket holes are due to the design or simply lack of maintenance, I don't know. It was certainly quite difficult to wind the film on, I suspect it could do with some lubrication.

Week 253 - Vesna

This unusual Soviet era camera uses 35mm film, but takes 32mm x 24mm frames rather than the standard 36mm x 24mm. This example is in poor cosmetic condition, but appears to be working.
In keeping with its era, I've loaded it with some Rollei Retro 100 black and white film.

photo from week 252 - Eastar S2

Technically this was one of the better photos on the roll, the focusing ring problem did mean quite a lot of the mid-distance shots were out of focus. I was lucky with this one, using the closes focus distance and an aperture of f4, the lens seems pretty sharp.

photo from week 252 - Eastar S2

This was taken at the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield, I placed the camera on the floor, set the focus to the closest setting, and used a one second exposure, though I can't remember what aperture I used, it was probably around f5.6

photo from week 252 - Eastar S2

It was apparent that the rangefinder is significantly "off" when compared with the focus scale on the lens, there appears to be some slippage of the focussing ring, so I only really felt confident at infinity and the closest setting, though using a small aperture where possible should help compensate for any focussing errors.
This horse chestnut tree is one of my regular local subjects.