Filter jam

No it’s not something you buy in a jar and spread on your toast. It’s a predicament I’ve been in for the past week.

I bought this camera for my collection. It’s called a Zenith 80 and it’s a Russian copy of the first Hasselblad cameras. It’s lovely piece of kit, but when it arrived, it had a filter stuck on the front of the lens. I tried everything to get it off – rubber gloves, pliers, etc. Someone suggested I use a hacksaw to cut two small grooves in it, then slot a steel rule into the grooves and use that to twist it off. Even that didn't work. I reckon the previous owner must have superglued it on the lens.

In the end, in desperation, I resorted to eBay and, to my delight, found someone selling a standard lens for the camera. I reckon I must have been the only one in the world with a Zenith 80 body looking for a standard lens. I was the sole bidder and got it for £19. It arrived this morning and it fits and works a treat. Also I now have a rather fetching paperweight in the shape of another 80mm f/2.8 lens with a stuck filter on it.

Did I mention that the camera came in an outfit case with spare back, collapsible rubber lens hood and some filters? Also with it came a 65mm wide-angle lens with two whopping great filters in their own little compartment in the lid of the lens case.

I confess that, when it comes to old cameras, as opposed to the digital camera I used for my work, I'm a collector first and a user second, but this is an outfit crying out to be used. Watch this space. Meanwhile, here’s a pic of the outfit.