Above a shot of complete series, upper left, Mir, upper right, Zorki 3C, lower left Zorki 4 and
finally on the lower right the Zorki 4K.
The Zorki 3C was developed from the 3M the difference is the new topplate which now houses a flash
synchronisation mechanism. This is the entire difference between the 3M and 3C.
The 3C saw more then 45.000 units produced after that it was followed up by the Zorki 4. Oddly enough
it goes cheap on ebay. A 3 or 3M goes for almost 100 dollars while the 3C only goes for 30 to 40
dollars. Production for the 3 and 3M was 87.000 units.
Offcourse the 3C isn't quite the looker. The 3 or 3M is way nicer in the looks department.
But functionality is the same.
My Zorki 4 was built in 1963 and my Zorki 4K was built in 1975.
The 4 has the Industar 50mm and the 4K has the Jupiter-8 50mm (Zeis Sonnar clone).
And it came with the original leatherlike carrying case. It was in an overal
good condition so I couldn't resist buying it. In some photos it's equipped
with a Turret Finder (also known as the Universal Rangefinder). A rare but
very usefull piece of equipment. The Turretfinder shows the "correct" view for
the lens you are using, it has five minilenses for this purpose. It has a 28,
35, 50, 80 and 135 mm minilenses. You just turn the Turret to get the correct
minilens to see what your lens does.
Let's turn to the Great book from Princelle for it's History.
The Zorki 4 was produced from 1956 to 1973 with a production of 1.715.677 million
cameras and was the first of the Zorki cameras to be exported in mass to the West and
beyond. Usually this camera came with a Industar 50 lens and in some cases
with the Jupiter-8 lens. The first Zorki 4's were engraved, but this changed very quickly.
Later versions of the 4 had painted on letters (like this 4). This 4 has the Cyrillic markings but
it can also be found with Latin letters.
The Zorki 4K was produced from 1972 to 1978 with a production of 524.610 cameras
(Princelle also mentioned 36 produced in 1980). The 4K is fully identical to the 4
but with a rapid advance lever. In almost all cases this camera came with the Jupiter-8
lens (which is a Zeiss Sonnar clone) of very good quality. The 4K seems to be more an
"export" camera. Cyrillic Versions are known. The 4K was produced after the Mir.