It's alive!

After a bit of fiddling about on the weekend, I discovered a wonderful thing: the match-needle light meter on the Zeiss works. Both of them, actually. But only in "A" mode. I'm not sure whether this was a decision made in the design process, or whether it's just a quirk it's developed over the last 40 years. Could be either, and as someone who refuses to read the manual in depth, I may never know...

I'm pleased - while I have a light meter on the way, it does mean that I won't have to rely on carrying it with me in future. I'll just have to bear in mind that it's not an aperture-priority mode - which I use mostly when the Minolta isn't sulking - it's a shutter-priority automatic mode. It'll take a little getting used to, and I wonder whether I'll still be thinking in terms of depth of field rather than speed of subject...

--

In other news, I completely fucked the first film I put through the Zeiss. Tore it clean in half, as it were. I wasn't aware (translation: i didn't read the manual) that I needed to turn one of the locking screws on the bottom to "R" before rewinding.

--

as you can tell, I like to learn things the hard way.

Zorki 4 - 'the Golden Rule'

"Cock the shutter, set the shutter"

I imagined this would be a fairly easy thing to overlook, however, I was surprised by how easy it was to not get this in the wrong order. I guess maybe I'm used to using the Minolta, where I never set the shutter speed anyways (as it's constanly in Aperture Priority mode - yeah, lazy, I know), so it's not something I often think about. And with the Vilia, I stick strictly to Sunny-16 as well, so shutter speed is hardly ever in my thoughts.

I like to take snaps, I do pay attention to aperture, focus, and metering, but shutter speeds have always been a distant second.

It's like I was training myself for the Zorki.

Yeah, right. Convenient, though.