Lomo Smena Symbol
written by specialblewah
on November 8th, 2008
, 2 comments
(6 votes)
It’s called the Symbol because of the symbol scale on top of the lens mount that allows you to select the shutter speed based on light levels (symbolized by degrees of cloudiness). The distance scale on the manually focused lens includes symbols indicating head-and-shoulder portraits, full-length people, and mountains. The aperture is selected by changing the film speed ring in the front of the lens (limited to GOST 16-250, but functionally equivalent to f4 to f16). The upshot — while it seems to be a generic point and shoot, it is actually a fully manual viewfinder compact camera!
The shutter
You can set shutter speeds using symbols or numbers.
Shutter speed – 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250
Lens
The Smena Symbol has a T43 f/4 LOMO triplet lens. The T43 is the standard lens for all Smena cameras and is still in production today.
Viewfinder
There is some barrel distortion, but the colour is at least neutral. Parallax compensation consists of the familiar set of extra lines to demarcate the field of view when focusing closer.
Focusing
The lens’ focusing range is from slightly less than 1m to infinity. Handy is that the lens has two distance readout scales. The one on top of the lens barrel features four stylized symbols: a buste (1m), two figures (1.4m), a group (4m), and a house with a tree (10m).
The Symbol is an improved Smena 8m with a film advance lever (replacing the knob) coupled with shutter cocking, what makes the camera much faster and more convenient in use. Smoothly working shutter release lever replaced the crude button on top of the Smena 8M body, sadly the cord release socket was deleted.
So come on people buy one or borrow this camera. the choice is yours.
LOMO ON!
http://www.lomography.com/smena/smenasymbol/
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