Etyud (a.k.a. Etude)
written by eggzakly
on October 10th, 2009
, 4 comments
(6 votes)
image from photo.net
This funny-looking plastic thing is, visually, probably the coolest camera ever made (in my humble opinion). It’s big, square, chunky and generally odd. You hold it upright, in the portrait position, to take a picture in the landscape position, which is another piece of oddness.
I got to take this one out for a spin, but sadly it doesn’t belong to me, it belongs to a friend of mine. I’ve had it at the top of my wish list for a looong time, but they can be hard to find, especially in good condition with a good lens. As they were cheaply made to begin with they haven’t survived well. And understandably so – when you hold it in your hands it feels like it could break apart at anytime.
Etyud was produced by MMZ in Minsk between 1969-1984 and it takes 6×4.5 pictures on 120 film. It was made as a consumer camera, hence the name which means “student”. It has a 60mm meniscus lens, an aperture of f/11 and a choice of 1/60s. or bulb for shutter speed, and a tripod thread.
You switch between shutter speeds using a small metal switch below the lens – this is one of those times you feel like you’re going to break the camera and possibly rip the entire lens off. On paper, this is a relatively slow camera, which would need slow film (50-100 iso in sunlight) – however, these shots were done on 100 iso film, and they came out generally underexposed, so I’ll probably use faster film if I ever have one of these cameras in my hands again.
I had a lot of fun with this camera. So, pleeeeeaase, Santa, I’ve been a good girl, you know what I want!
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