As previously stated, I tried to adapt SMENA 8M 40mm, f/4.0 lens to some DSLR. After week with no camera at all today I got my almost brand new NIKON D70s with only 1k pictures taken. I took NIKON F mount ring from some broken SOLIGOR lens and glued it to SMENA lens. Of course because of registration plane (flange) distance I cannot get proper focus but still can do some tests, which you can find below. I find it pretty good looking. In order to get out of some 30cm area I would need to have entirely different camera

Continuing with USSR made SMENA 8M. I decided to take apart lens unit. It consist of upper cover with levers and lower unit with shutter blades, shutter spring-based mechanism and optics. There are three blades. They are mounted on pins located on the rotating plate. Plate itself is moved by the shutter spring mechanism underneath. In order to disassemble unit separating optics and shutter you just need to unscrew it hard. Most probably it will mangle focus limit pin, but I do not care about it that much. Inside you can find a lot of grease which is good. It

I got this one as an exchange item for some old LCD TV. It is 35mm film compact camera made in USSR. Having quite a big monopoly on the eastern market, Soviet Russia manufacturer brought over 30 million of these to the markets. SMENA 8M is a very lightweight camera. It is made mostly of cheap plastic, springs, levers and dials. No electronics at all. No light meter, no mirror, no motor to move the film. It has fixed lens at 40mm, f/4.0. It is made of aluminum. Mine wobbles a little bit while rotating its focus ring. Whole thing

It seems to be very decent lens. Especially speaking of build quality which is glass and metal with very little rubber and plastic. It is prime lens at 300mm with constant f/5.6. It is quite light. Has 3 rings. First to adjust focus. Second to adjust aperture. Third one is to open or close aperture. Second and third work together somehow. Below you can find 100% magnification (NIKON D200) of BTS antennas. Image is reasonably sharp with little haze, blur or soap. Shot at f/5.6 which is wide open. Target at 100m. Below you can find same target, but with

Made in Japan. This teleconverter fits on NIKON F cameras. It is a MF thing, however it has automatic aperture control as stated in its name “AUTO”. It increases focal length by the factor of 2. It came with a very elegant zipping pocket. It has a metal prong that joins lens aperture setting to the converter and then to camera if fitted with apropriate mechanics. I can mount my AI/S lenses but cannot mount my NIKKOR 50/2 due to excessive length of mounting bracket on the lens which goes to far into converter. Lens at 150mm with this converted

I was looking for NIKON camera that will allow me to use manual focus lenses with proper light metering. I found that D200 would suite this need. It a 10 megapixels camera with SONY ICX-483-AQA sensor. It seems that is the only camera using this one. It is more or less the same as on D80 only being capable of faster data read-out. It is a CCD type sensor. It has a lot of pro features like top LCD with work parameters. It has a lot of switches so you are free of going into menu to change anything. You

This would be my favorite and the only one digital camera, except one thing. It does not meter light on AI lenses, unfortunately. My copy already shot almost 50 000 pictures. It shows no wear at all, including battery. Design I think that being lightweight and having such a great battery (ie. low power consumption) makes this camera almost perfect one. It allows you to print A4 or event bigger with great quality. It has only 6 megapixels, but this does not count at all. It has CCD sensor and great set of filters atop of it. Pictures you take