SLR Camera Repair Manual Zenit 1 - Zenith Photography

Unless you are a camera technician, this is a problem that has to go in for repair. The mechanical hold is defective or broken. Please weigh the cost of repair vs buying a used camera
You can buy a used/refurbished AE-1 Program in the $80-$140 range. Call several repair places by looking on the internet, some will give a free repair estimate.

You can download a user manual here:

http://www.butkus.org/chinon/russian/zenith_122/zenith_122.htm

Try craigcamera.com

The camera may have tricked itself into thinking the film is at the end. I know that's not likely in an older manual focus SLR, but just fer grins, try pushing in the little pin on the bottom.
It could just be that the camera mechanism has jammed. When was the last time it was in to a repair guy for Clean, Lube, Adjust? Those AE-1 cameras are getting to that age where they need maintenance.
I had to get a couple of my manual focus SLRs in for CLA service too.

http://www.rugift.com/photocameras/manuals/zenit-122.htm

One of the shutter blades is faulty or is being obstructed. Either that or you're using flash to take pictures but using too fast a shutter speed, most SLR's have a flash synch speed of 1/60 or 1/125 of a second.

The first problem will need a professional repair, but it may be a fairly straightforward one. The second problem would require that you read the user manual for both the camera and flashgun.

Cameras suitable for the Zenit фото cнаипер (Zenit Fotosnaiper/Zenith Photosniper) are usually very difficult to find as they're specially modified versions of normal Zenit SLR cameras which incorporate a special additinal shutter release button on the baseplate.

Photosniper versions are generally expensive but broken ones can be cheap. Regular Zenit SLR's are very cheap and often free on Yahoo FreeCycle but I've never yet seen a Photosniper version on there.

Ebay is a good place to look but normally they are sold as part of a complete Photosniper kit. If you do see a body only for sale then the Photosniper versions always have a letter "S" at the end of the name, so a Zenit E is a regular model and a Zenit ES has the modification which makes it a Photosniper SLR.

All Zenit SLR cameras are mechanically very simple and most do not have any complex electronics. This is good, because it means that you can buy a cheap broken Photosniper camera and a cheap regular Zenit SLR and swap the baseplate with the additional shutter button to a regular Zenit to convert it for Photosniper use, the modification usually involves drilling a few holes but it's not difficult.

Hope this helps you to find what you need.

rootseya,
pentax error codes are in the repair manual for camera repair technicians. the camera needs repaired.take or send your camera to a camera repair shop for an estimate.

In most film cameras, a battery is not necessary to manual advance film using the lever. Your Canon AV-1 is no exception. I have owned two cameras from the same group, the AE-1 and the Canon A-1. Neither required a battery for manual film advance.

Make sure the ring around the shutter release button is set to "A", otherwise the shutter won't release and the film lever won't work correctly. If the ring shows an "L", the shutter release is locked.

Here's a graphic of the batteries that can be used in your AV-1: