# Native speakers, need your help to choose a proper translation of camera description



## SovietCollector (Jul 9, 2017)

I am writing descriptions of the film cameras in my own collection, but English is my second language so I decided to hire a translator for this job. There are several translators available to hire, so I asked them to translate the same sentence from Russian to English. Please could you help me to choose the best translation, which sounds most natural for native speakers:

1) "The Zenit-18 has an electronically controlled breech-block with a vertical slide shutter that was innovative at the time of its release."
2) "Zenit -18 has the most advanced for its time electronically controlled louvered shutter with vertical travel."
3) "Zenit-18 has the newest for its time electronically controlled louver shutter with vertical retrace."
4) "Zenit-18 has the latest for its time electronically controlled vertical-travel louver shutter."
5) "Zenit-18 has a state-of-the-art electronically controlled vertical-travel louvre shutter."

Thank you very much for your help!


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## Derrel (Jul 9, 2017)

The Zenit-18 was equipped with an electronically controlled, vertical travel focal plane shutter, and was a state of the art camera at the time of its introduction.


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## limr (Jul 9, 2017)

Derrel said:


> The Zenit-18 was equipped with an electronically controlled, vertical travel focal plane shutter, and was a state of the art camera at the time of its introduction.



This ^^^

ETA: One minor edit. "...and was a state-of-the-art camera..." When the phrase is used as an adjective, it gets hyphenated. (Yes, I am an English teacher  )


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## vintagesnaps (Jul 9, 2017)

None of those five really... so Derrel's seems best.

Maybe #4 is the closest, but there seem to be errors in all 5 of them. Wondered in the first one if it should have been 'breech lock'? not sure on that. And I think 'louvered' is the best choice for use of that term. 

Good thing you asked. It seems to be somewhat challenging to get an accurate translation.


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