Zorki IV rangefinder adjustment

Can anyone point me to instructions on adjusting the rangefinder

on a Zorki IV?

 

I've searched and to date haven't found any posted anywhere. Thanks!

When you look on the front of your Zorki you'll see two screws near the rangefinder windows. Behind those are the screws to allign the rangefinder. Horizontal allignment is beneath the big viewfinder window and vertical allignment is under the smaller rangefinder window.

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<a href="http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?s=b387e379a3f24dbcc76483e387432079&threadid=895">total cla</a><br>

and some helpfull <a href="http://rick_oleson.tripod.com/index-58.html">sketches</a>

Why couldn't Leica do something that simple?

Leica couldn't figure it out when they copied it.

Volker described the adjusting of infinity focus. On my Zorki 4k, there was no adjustment screw for the vertical focus, only for the horizonal focus.

 

If you need a near field focus adjustment, thats more tricky. First you need a lens with an accurate rangescale that you trust. Put the

camera on a tripod and aimed it at a object exactly 1 meter from the plane of the film in the camera. Adjust the rangefinder focus. If the rangescale on the lens is close to 1 meter (doesn't have to be exact), your near field adjustment is correct. If it isn't, take off the lens and then use a pair of pliers to carefully move the cam on end of the RF lever arm in the camera, be carefore not to bend the lever arm. If the rangescale indicates the focus point is more than one meter, rotate the cam upward (towards you or away from the camera) by just a little bit. If the focus point is less meter, rotate it the other direction. After the adjustment, put the lens back on and check the focus point at one meter again. This will be a series of trial and error attempt. One the near focus adjustment is done, recheck the infinity focus.

Peter is correct! The screw is for infinity focus.

I started with a Juptier 8 on my Zorki 4 and found infinity was close to 4 meters.

 

So I put the old Elmar from the IIIf on it and the problem was the same.

I then adjusted infinity with the Jupiter and checked with the Elmar.

 

Near focus is tricky and again I checked with the Elmar and then with the Jupiter and found some difference. So I adjusted close focus as described by Peter with the exception that I measured the distance from the filmplane, the removable back is great, and adjusted the lever until it was as close as I can see.

The Zorki with Jupiter and the Leica with Elmar are now as close as I can tell from the distance scale at distances up to 3 meters, which is the lenght of my tape measure.

Thanks for the help, fellows! I will see what I can do following your advice.

 

I own a bunch of cameras including an M6 classic but Zorki's have a nice character to them. I am glad that Voigtlander copied them for their new model rangefinders ! (????)

 

By the way, when I showed my wife my new-old Zorki 4 she remarked that it was an old outdated camera of little use. (She is a native of Belarus.)

there used to be/is a wonderful site with all kinds of useful repair tips for classic cameras, including te zorki. it had a great index. i used to have it bookmarked, but that was a long time ago. i wonder if that site still exists??