The Zenit Photosniper is pretty awesome.
Zenit Photosniper FS-12
Tair 3S
Helios 44M-4
This is officially the weirdest but coolest photography thing I’ve ever purchased. I’ve always had an interest in old Soviet photography gear, partly because of where I was born but also because some of the lenses from that era are still sought after to this very day.
The Zenit Photosniper was initially a piece of USSR military recon photography equipment (you can probably see why that is with its design), but was eventually made and sold to consumers in the Soviet countries from the 70’s-late 80’s.
This original kit features a 300mm f4.5 lens mounted to a trigger assembly / stock. Pulling the trigger fires a second shutter button located under the modified Zenit film camera, activating the aperture and taking the picture. The lens has a whopping 16 aperture blades! Hilariously Soviet design all-around.
This kit also features the famous Helios 44M-4 lens, which makes some sweet swirly bokeh and was even recently used to shoot two scenes in Dune II.
My copy has some sticky aperture blades which seemed to go mostly back to normal after manually triggering the blades with the lens unmounted. I did adapt both lenses to my Nikon Z7ii which makes for significantly easier focusing of the manual lenses!
The camera itself is fairly sturdy and the metal construction makes it feel like a tank. I read through the English translated manual and watched a couple YouTube videos about its operation and its wonderfully Soviet designed in every way. I’ve been shooting exclusively digital for about 15 years, so I’m excited to run through a few rolls of Ultramax 400 this weekend and see what photos I can get.