Since for some time I have been asked about the manual for Zenit ET, and I ddin’t have one, I decided to describe the basics.
1. To open its body you have to pull up the small hand wheel on the top used to rewind the film.
2. To rewind the film you have to use the small hand wheel on the top together with a metal ring around the trigger button (you have to push that ring down - not the trigger - and hold to rewind the film)
3. Exposure meter: just right to the ISO/DIN ring and hand wheel you can find a scale built in the body of the camera. There is a indicating needle and a indicating ring. When they are overlying then it means that the adjustment of shutter time and aperture is OK. When the needle and the ring are in the different positions then picture will be overexposed or underexposed. Use the shutter time knob, aperture ring on the lenses to gain the proper adjustment.
4. Self timer spring and button are placed in the front of the camera.
5. The exposure meter in this camera is not TTL (through the lenses) and the sensor is placed just above the lenses. During examining the exposure try not to cover the sensor with your fingers.
6. As you probably noticed it is manual camera. It is not an electronic device. There is no film winding engine, no auto focus etc.
In 2005 I have got my first digital camera. I couldn’t afford digital SLR, that is why I decided to buy somethin between compact and dSLR camera - a hybrid one. Konica Minolta A1 DiMage was my choice. What does hybrid mean? The camera is actually compact one, but with much bigger body (as big as some of the old slr cameras), and what is the most important for me - whit all the knobs for manual adjusting - typical for dSLR cameras. Instead of prism it has additional small screen in the viewfinder - which is kind of prism replacement, so you can look through the camera like in SLR one. Another important thing is full manual option of the lenses, however the fixed ones. With that camera I started to learn some of the rules of photography. Finally I had opportunity to take photos all the time. I took at least about one hundred thousands of photos with that camera. It survived hard weather conditions of archaeological excavations in Poland and Ireland. The only problem was the higher ISO modes, as many of the compact cameras and cheap dSLRs, the high ISO was actually not for use due to the noise of the dcc, and finally the dcc died. According to the official statement, all dcc in all A1 and A2 had design malfunction and they were day by day consumed by kind of corrosion. Luckily dcc was replaced for free by the Sony service.
