>>4183294You can and should develop black and white at home. A dev kit costs maybe a 100 bucks and used equipment pennies. It's about as complex as making outmeal and all you need is a sink. Color is more technical as you need to be careful with temperature and such, and chems are way more expensive. The camera you have is about as dependable as any East Bloc camera ever was. Don't trust the light meter but it's a good opportunity to learn exposure values for normal conditions. It is all mechanical so the battery only powers the light meter. First thing you should do is cycle through all the shutter speeds and dry fire to see if the shutter clearly hangs or jams at some speeds. It's pretty common for 1/30 and slower to become sticky. You can try and recalibrate the shutter yourself, google around for a guide on how to do that, it's not really rocket science. The camera uses a very common M42 mount so you can find a ton of lenses for it for pennies on the dollar. If you're cash strapped look into brands like Cosina, Porst and Pentacon. Soviet lenses like Helios are overpriced for what they are imo. If you feel fancy then grab some Takumars.
Pic related, found mine in a flea market for 5€. Looks and feels crude but just keeps on trucking.
