First (ish) roll from my new to me Kalimar SR200

A few weeks ago, I got a Helios 44 lens, which happened to be attached to a Kalimar SR200/Zenit E camera. The seller wasn't sure the camera worked, but mechanically, it seemed to function. The light meter even seemed to work!

The first roll I shot in the camera came out totally blank. Which was disappointing. I think the issue is the film holder is very fiddly, either from wear or age. But I'm happy to report that the second roll was totally fine! I got 32 photos, despite the back being opened once accidentally during rewinding...

These are the small-sized scans from my local photo lab. I think this is Fuji 200 film. I've tweaked the colors, crop, and alignment in capture one slightly. The photos with bugs in them have been cropped rather severely though (the Helios is not a macro lens, though it does have a fairly short minimum focus distance).

I took most of these images on a quick coastside stop back from a camera shop where I gave them the 135mm lens that also came with this camera. Like me, they assessed it as being worth no money, but were happy to take it and try to sell it for $5 or so to someone who might be in need of it. I'm hopeful it'll find its way to someone who will appreciate it and put it to good use. It was in very good shape, just a focal length that was already covered by three of my other lenses on various systems.

Anyway. These photos were all shot with the Helios 44. It was kind of fun shooting the camera with its kit lens. I didn't trust the light meter at this point, so these were all taken on a sunny day, at f16 and shutter speed 250, for my 200 ASA film.

These are kind of throwaway shots, because I didn't think the camera worked, and had just run another roll of film through it that came out blank. I think that first blank roll was user error, somehow. I'm still not sure what went wrong. In any case, I did get some images that I enjoy off of this second roll!

Cropped, straightened, and colors adjusted

Cropped very much! Colors adjusted.

Just fixed the alignment here.

Three oil rigs in the distance...

There's definitely something funky happening in most of these photos. I think most of the issues are due to the back being opened while film was being rewound. I had rewound more than half of the roll and I don't have much intuition for how long I should be rewinding, having only rewound five entire rolls of film before, this being the fifth.

The film spool popped up and offered no resistance when turned, and didn't seem to want to go back inside the camera, so I opened up the back. There was definitely film visible... So I'm hoping the optical defects and light leaks are a result of that, rather than something with the camera.