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This camera cost me just under 6 dollars. It's an SLR, and it has absolutely no frills. No, wait, it has a frill, a light meter. Which is broken. It came to me and I put a roll through it and got a bunch of crap. It sucked. So, since it was cheap, I started digging around and trying to figure out if it was fixable. It turned out that the mirror needed adjusting. This is an easy adjustment, which only requres a small jeweler's screwdriver. Once the mirror was adjusted, I quickly shot a roll and was very happy with the results.
One of the things that's pretty nice about this camera is the Helios 44M lens that came with it. It's pretty fast, and uses the same type of mount as old Pentax and Exacta cameras. There are lots of very cheap, very good used lenses available for this mount. If you don't like Soviet lenses (which are actually quite good), then put in a Pentax.
This camera got me buying more lenses. I'm a bit of a wide-angle fan, so I got a Mir-1, but always was interested in the fisheye Zenitar and Peleng lenses. After selling a few cameras from my collection, I ordered a Zenitar 16mm from Moscow. Once it showed up, I realized it wasn't compatible with my Zenit E. That led to the purchase of a Zenit 122 and a Zenit 12SD. More about them later...
Toy Cameras
Rangefinders