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This little camera was inspired by the Kodak "Bantam" of 1935, but re-designed by important Russian camera designer, I. Shapiro, who later designed the Smena-1 and the Leningrad.
The body is made of bakelite, the shutter has only two speeds: "B" and 1/50th sec. ("M"), and the aperture has only two settings: wide open and half open. The small bellows is leather, there is a simple folding frame-finder on the top, and a small metal mechanical film counter (with only two dots) on the back. There is a small metal folding foot to stand the camera up in a vertical position and the shutter release is a simple lever under the lens.This camera also came in several other colors of bakelite (source: www.nightphoto.com). |
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It's interesting to mention, that prewar Smena (or Original Smena as they call it) initially had a little bit different characteristics indeed. First of all, lens planned was 6.3/50mm (and not the 6.8/50mm as we used it). The second important thing - Original Smena used to have another shutter with speeds: 1/25s, 1/50s and 1/100s. The conceptional version was intended to give 45 images 24x36mm on perforated 35mm film, or 8 images on black paper-backed 35mm film ... |
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