KMZ Mir-1 37mm f/2.8

Put a Mir-1 next to a Carl Zeiss Jena Flektogon 2.8/35 and you are looking at the same idea twice. D.S. Volosov at GOI took the Flektogon as his starting point in 1954 and came out with a six-element retrofocus at 37mm, two millimetres longer than the German lens it was derived from. Four years later the Mir-1 was one of the Soviet lenses in the set that took the Grand Prix at the Brussels World's Fair, and plenty of copies still carry GRAND PRIX Brussels 1958 engraved on the silver barrel.

The design exists because of the mirror. A rangefinder wide angle sits deep inside the body, and an SLR mirror needs that space to swing. A retrofocus layout pushes the glass forward to clear it, and on the early Zenits the Mir-1 was the widest lens most owners could actually buy. Check the mount before you order one. It shares the nominal 39 mm thread of Leica screw mount, so it will screw on, but the flange sits at 45.2 mm instead of 28.8 mm. On a rangefinder body it threads in and then will not focus or couple.

Expect what a coated retrofocus from the mid-fifties usually gives you. The edges of the frame improve as you stop down, and contrast is gentler than any modern multicoated 35. For black and white that can work in your favour, since negatives tend to print with open shadows instead of punch. Against the light it will flare, so a hood earns its place in the bag. The 60 degree view takes in interiors, street corners and crowds without the stretched perspective of a 28.

The preset diaphragm is the part that takes practice. You set the taking aperture on one ring, focus at full aperture, then turn the second ring until it stops against your setting. Nothing stops down for you; forget that last turn and the frame is exposed wide open. Close focus ends at 0.7 m, which rules out tabletop and detail work. The filter thread is the bigger nuisance. It is the fine-pitch M49x0.5, not the standard 49mm x 0.75, so an ordinary 49mm filter from your drawer will not screw on, and the same goes for most screw-in hoods.

Most early M39 Zenits had no built-in meter, so a handheld reading is the normal way to work. Take the exposure in Zone Light Meter, put that f-number on the preset ring, and make the stop-down turn the very last thing you do before pressing the release. Because you focus wide open and shoot stopped down, the meter reading and the ring setting have to match by hand every frame.

KMZ built the lens until an order in January 1963 stopped production. After that it moved to ZOMZ in Zagorsk and later to the Jupiter plant at Valdai. The Brussels engraving turns up on many copies, and the later ZOMZ and Valdai copies carry their own factory marks rather than the KMZ name. At about 200 g it is light on the camera, and the long Zenit flange makes it simple to adapt to mirrorless bodies. For an M39 Zenit owner who wants something wider than the kit 50, it is the obvious lens to hunt down. Anyone who needs close focus or wants to share filters with a modern kit will find the 0.7 m limit and the odd thread wearing thin.