Cosmic Symbol

PK7360. Less common to find early version of export Symbol, under name "Cosmic Symbol". The big quantity of Cosmic Symbols were released for United Kingdom market, but very few of these cameras can be found with bronze-coloured lens. Serial numbers on the shutter housing. 

PK7365. Even more uncommon variation of the particular export camera. Under name "Cosmic Symbol" again. White name markings on black background, black logo on white background. Still bronze-coloured lens. Serial numbers on the shutter housing. No otherwise different.

PK7370. Camera identical to PK7360, but with serial number stamped on the bottom plate already.

The Smena Symbol (also marked "Смена Символ" "Smena Symvol", or called Cosmic Symbol) is a 35mm camera that features a LOMO T-43 40mm f/4 coated triplet lens. It was produced from 1973-1993 by LOMO in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia. Production estimates are in the 10s of millions.

In essence, the Symbol is an improved Smena 8m with a film advance lever (replacing the knob) coupled with shutter cocking, which make the camera much faster and more convenient in use. Smoothly working shutter release lever replaced the crude button on top of the Smena 8M body, sadly the cord release socket was deleted. A flash is now synchronised by a hot shoe contact instead.

The lens - similarly to the Smena 8M - is equipped with symbolic scales: weather symbols as additional shutter speed scale, and the distance scale with distance symbols, meter values and feet values mixed. Below the lens tube is a second speed scale, a numeric one running from 1/15-1/250 + B. The weather symbol scale has a smart indexing system allowing double distance of the weather symbols compared to value distances on the numeric scale- that is, the weather symbols are apparently more widely spaced than the shutter speeds, which are on the same ring. The symbols are indexed by white squares appearing in holes beside the symbols; the holes are at two different distances from the body.

The aperture scale (inside the filter thread, so unusable if a filter is fitted), doubles as a film speed scale (marked in DIN and ГОСТ-ASA) when using the weather symbols to set the shutter speed.

EGPhotography x