By Roman Yarovitsyn
The Zenit-18 is one of the rarest Soviet cameras: total production was only 7,001 copies (an oddly precise quantity). The kit lens MC Zenitar ME-1 50/1.7 is even rarer because camera cannibals pilfer the lens, leaving an empty hole in unwanted Zenit-18s.
For those who are familiar with the Zenit-19, its younger brother looks very similar. Closer inspection reveals the only difference is the aperture-priority auto exposure, but the shutter still sounds the same, iron hitting iron. The most interesting thing about the Zenit-18 is an arrow in the viewfinder, but the real surprise lies in the lens.
The Zenitar ME-1 was the only Soviet lens with square aperture! It was made to realise the transmission of aperture value into the camera light meter and the iris is made from only two blades. The auto exposure in any SLR is impossible with stop-down metering common for Soviet cameras. It needs full aperture metering and data transmission from the wink iris. There is easy to make with a bayonet mount but almost impossible with screw mount.
The plant in Krasnogorsk (KMZ) followed the way of East German Pentacon and added rounded contacts close to the camera’s screw mount. In this case all the dedicated lenses must be equipped with reply contacts intended to match with the camera’s electric pads. This way the aperture can transmit an analogue signal about preset ring position into the light meter.
The Praktica PLC3, equipped with the same electric aperture system, is a part of my little collection too. And I of course tried to match Zenitar with Praktica contacts, but the East German camera has three contacts versus two on the Zenit: no result. KMZ engineers designed their own system incompatible with Pentacon.
So, let’s look to the lens with such unusual diaphragm. I couldn’t resist to try this Zenitar with a modern digital camera, especially with the abundance of Christmas illuminations everywhere. A bunch of spotlights and New Years’ garlands force to look at the square bokeh as an art tool.
I took the Zenitar in my backpack along with my Canon equipment for work shoots. The first was a regional beauty contest, but I didn’t even try to use it for fashion catwalk pictures. As an almost all Soviet lenses, this Zenitar is sick with the same disease: a very tight focusing ring. When Soviet photographers got the first Western cameras after Perestroika they were extremely impressed how easily the focusing rings rotated. Tight focusing was a common problem of Soviet lenses: after all, what else can you expect from converted sights?
The only subject I tried to cover: a waiter through the glasses of champagne. Such a scene does not require an instant reaction and tracking autofocus, especially since I’m somehow unaccustomed to manual focusing. The second shoot was the conference of regional authorities about folk crafts development. Strange event, but illumination was fit for Christmas: multi-story LED garlands under the ceiling. Here I discovered that Zenitar is a good fast kit lens when its aperture is full open and the square turns to circle.
The clear square appears at f/2,8, but full open aperture is the same circle as of usual lenses. It’s strange, but out of focus spot squares are almost invisible on the ground glass. They appear only on the finished shots or at the LCD screen in Live View mode. Note, that the square diaphragm takes a random position depends how far the lens has been screwed into the camera.
Finally, the square bokeh is cute but not visible in every picture. Light sources must be strongly out of focus and that means that the scene must be deep and full of light dots far behind or extremely close compared with main subject.
When I discovered the Zenitar ME-1 my first thought was “this could be replaced by a square mask in the front of the lens close to the glass”. But now I’m absolutely sure that the same result is unattainable for any square hole outside the lens. Look at the completely sharp edges of these “circles” of confusion in any picture.
A square mask will not give the same result, the edges will be blurred. In my humble opinion Zenitar ME-1 is not a universal tool, it’s just one more paintbrush in the palette of an artist. Technically it’s just curiosity and a result of unsuccessful design.
To finish the test of Soviet 50mm kit lenses I used one more unusual tool: a Helios-44 “changeling”. Such redesign is fashionable now between photographic amateurs. It was interesting for me to reverse the first element of the lens’s glass to create an unusual picture pattern. But such really “broken” lens needs the same special subject as square-bokehed Zenitar: a lot of Christmas lights. That’s why it waited his hour almost a year after “reassembling”.
This fiend is absolutely unusable in an ordinary shoot, but I think it can become a beauty with a carefully assembled plot. Some portrait with deep scene behind, for example. By the way, manual focusing through the optical viewfinder is almost impossible with this modification. Any results are achievable only at Live View mode. But just look at the pictures: Merry Christmas!
