Industrial

Zenit - made by ZENIT Krasnogorsk company, was one and only available and popular
in the 80s 35 mm SLR camera in Poland. Many people bought this camera in order to
resell it (during their journeys abroad). What is interesting, these cameras were very
popular abroad (Turkey, Greece, India but also Western Europe countries and USA),
because of their low price. Possibilities of these cameras are limited (it is one class lower
than e.g. Praktica), but they are good enough in most of photographed motives.
Nowadays there are still many people taking photos with these cameras. My personal
contact with Zenit began in 1985. I couldn't buy Praktica so I bought Zenit 12xp. I was
very proud of having this model (at that time it was something new: in viewfinder instead
of needle indicator there were 2 red diodes). I was taking a lot of pictures with this
camera (at school, during my holidays). It's worth to mention that standard lens 2/58
Helios 44m-4 was bringing really good results. Not many people know that it is a copy of
well known lens 2/58 Biotar Carl Zeiss Jena, which was the best standard lens for
Exakta, Pentina, Pentacon and Praktica in 1936 - 1960. I bought other equipments so I
sold Zenit, but I still have some Soviet optics elements. On this website I will describe
only chosen bodies, like e.g. Zenit 12xp. In addition I will describe most of Russian,
Ukrainian and Belarusian (Soviet) system lenses with thread, made by such companies
like: ZENIT Krasnogorsk, Lytkarino, Kazan, Wologda, Arsenal Kiev, Minsk. Attention!
German lenses with M42x1 thread, made by Carl Zeiss Jena and PENTACON and
additional accessories for Praktica were described in the section PRAKTICA. Zenit is still
noteworthy because it is still produced and many people take photos with it.