Tag: fsu

Mir or Мир

This is a Soviet camera made in the KMZ factory in Krasnogorsk near Moscow. KMZ stands for Krasnogorski Mekhanicheskii Zavod (Krasnogorsk Mechanical Works in English) which is still operational (September 2022). KMZ is better known for their Zorki and Zenith cameras both of which were derived from Leitz’s Leica II camera. The name “Mir” can mean either peace or world. This camera shares its name with the Mir space station launched by the USSR in 1986.

This Mir is a cut-down version of the Zorki 4 and was produced only for the internal Soviet market. This camera was a ‘grey’ import to the UK. The outside of the camera looks just the same as my Zorki 4. However, I am going to describe the camera from scratch rather than just list the differences.

The camera is made from die-cast aluminium alloy with a satin chrome plated top and base plates. The camera, without lens, measures 142 by 90 by 35 mm and it weighs 595 g. Most of the body is covered with black leatherette.

As mentioned above, this camera is derived from the German Leica II camera of the 1930s. It is not a direct copy – the FED I was a simplified copy of the Leica and the Zorki 1 was a straight copy of the FED I. The Zorki 1 was developed and improved in stages to the Zorki 4 and this Mir is a cut-down version of the Zorki 4. This heritage is most noticeable in the design of the top plate which is stepped with controls at different levels.

At the far right of the top plate is the film advance knob. This camera was made in 1960 and most cameras had film advance levers by this date. Turning this to advance the film you can detect the difference between top German engineering and Soviet engineering. The mechanism works well even after 62 years but you can feel a slight but definite bearing grumble. I don’t have a Leica to compare it to but none of my Zeiss Ikon cameras of a similar age have any sort of bearing grumble.

In the centre of the film advance knob is the frame counter. This counts up from zero and needs to be reset by hand when you load a new film. This film advance knob is on a lower portion of the top plate and is close to the edge of the raised portion which makes it quite hard to get a grip on the knob.

Just up on the higher part of the top plate, towards the rear, is the shutter release button. This is chrome plated metal with a machined top. The button is threaded for a standard cable release. If you turn the shutter release button as you press it, it will lock down until you turn it the other way.

Around the release button is a knurled metal collar. This has two positions: П Д  – these are actually embossed in Cyrillic letters, the Latin equivalents are P and D. Normal operating position is Д – the actual position is denoted by a dot. Turning the collar clockwise to just past П (no dot this time) releases the sprocket shaft inside so that the film can be rewound.

Left of the shutter release button is the shutter speed selector. This is the standard Leica type – you lift and turn to select the speed and the whole thing turns as the shutter fires. Being a Leica type shutter, it is important to wind on the film before changing the shutter speed – failure to do so can fatally damage the shutter mechanism.

This is one of the areas where simplification occurred as KMZ made the camera cheaper to make. Speeds are from 1/30 to 1/500 seconds – the original Zorki 4 had a sequence of much slower speeds and one faster speed of 1/1000 second. If you are willing to set the shutter speed without numbers to guide you, there is a dot past the 1/500 setting which seems to be the 1/1000 speed but without acknowledgement. The slower speeds are not much of a loss as in 50 years of photography I have rarely even used less than 1/60 seconds.

Around the shutter speed selector is a second selector which is very unusual. The outer ring turns allowing you to select the flash synchronising delay. There are six selectable delays: 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 milliseconds. 0 is for electronic flash and the others are for various types of flash bulbs.makes a difference from just having X and M! The Zorki 4 which this camera is derived from has a similar ring but with far fewer options.

Next along from the shutter speed selector is the accessory shoe. This is a standard Barnack shoe with no electrical contacts – so a cold shoe. While these are usually referred to as flash shoes, on rangefinder cameras they are likely to be used with separate viewfinders for use with other focal length lenses. The built-in viewfinder only gives an accurate representation of the image with the 50mm lens supplied with the camera. If you fit either a wide-angle or a telephoto lens to the camera you need to use an appropriate wide-angle or telephoto viewfinder.

On the far left of the top plate the level of the top plate dips again. On this lower portion is the film rewind knob. This is knurled metal. This will turn in both directions and has an arrow stamped on to to indicate the correct direction. Like the film advance knob, this is much to close to the edge of the raised portion of the top plate for the user to get a grip. This time, the designers have thought this through and the rewind knob pulls up 10 mm so that it is above the rest of the top plate and getting a grip is easy.

Below the rewind knob there is a rotating lever. This lever has a short travel of just a few degrees. It moves a lens inside the viewfinder and adjusting this allows the photographer to use the viewfinder without wearing their glasses. This is actually important as the viewfinder eyepiece is metal and will scratch spectacle lenses. I speak from experience!

The rear of the top plate has some writing on it. As this camera was only available in the USSR, the writing is in Cyrillic. Prominent is “Made in USSR” – I cannot type this in Cyrillic, unfortunately. Below this is the KMZ logo of a prism with a ray of light passing through it. To the right, at the base of the top plate, is the camera serial number. KMZ is one of the Soviet makers that started the serial numbers with the year of manufacture. This serial number starts with ’60’ so the camera was made in 1960. Not all the other Soviet makers did this – particularly FERD – so even if the serial number appears to start with the year, it is just coincidence.

A the left end of the rear of the top plate is the viewfinder eyepiece. This is quite viscous as it is metal and will easily scratch modern spectacles. if you are a spectacle wearer, you need to use the dioptre adjuster mentioned above and keep your glasses in your pocket.

The viewfinder image is tinted mauve – this is to make the rangefinder easier to use. In the centre og the mauve image is a pale yellow spot. The two colours are to maximise the contrast between the general image and the smaller rangefinder image.

To use the rangefinder, you centre the pale yellow spot on your main subject. if the subject is out of focus, there will be two images within the spot – a mauve image and a yellow image. As you turn the lens focus ring, the yellow image will slowly move. keep turning the focus ring until the mauve and yellow images are in the superimposed.

The front of the top plate has more going on on it. On the right is the viewfinder window. This is nice and large, 19 by 12 mm. In the centre of the front of the top plate is the rangefinder window. This is much smaller at 5 by 4 mm. At the left of the front of the top plate is a PC socket for connecting a flash gun. Between the rangefinder window and the PC socket is the camera name in Cyrillic script – Mir – which looks like Mur to Western eyes but is, of course, in Cyrillic.

Below the top plate, in the middle of the front, is the lens mount. This is the standard M39 thread used by Leica. It is also known as the LTM (Leica Thread Mount). It will take any lens intended for a threaded Leica, Canon rangefinder, FED, Zorki and quite a few others.

Looking in the mount, you are looking right at the fabric focal plane shutter – no mirror in a rangefinder camera. Just inside the mount, at the top, is a lever on a swivel. This actuates the rangefinder. As the lens is focused nearer, the rear of the lens extends and pushes this lever inwards and, in turn, this moves the image in the yellow spot in the viewfinder.

To the left of the lens mount is the self-timer lever. To use this, you turn it through 90º clockwise. Above the lever is a small chrome button which activates the timer when pressed. This gives a 6 to 8 second delay before the shutter fires. On each corner of the front, just below the top plate, is a lug for attaching a strap.

To access the insides of the camera to load or remove a film, you have to remove the back and base in one piece. This is achieved by turning two semicircular folding keys, one at each end of the base. One turns clockwise and the other one turns anti-clockwise. Between these folding keys, in line with the lens, is a tripod socket. This is the older 3/8 inch Whitworth thread.

The inside of the back has a rather small pressure plate for keeping the film flat. On the left of the base (on the right when looking at the inside ) is inside of the key for opening the camera. This has a cutaway which locates on the base of FED-type refillable cassettes. When this key is turned to fix the back/base in place, this opens the cassette to allow the film to move both into and out of the cassette without scratching the film. Turning the key to release the back/base closes the cassette rendering it light tight.

Inside the camera body, in the middle, is the film gate. This is reasonably large – much larger than the pressure plate. The actual gate is 36 by 24 mm – the standard size for 35 mm film. Behind this is the focal plane shutter. This is black light-tight cloth which is in very good condition – others of my old Soviet cameras have wrinkled or translucent (and on one camera, both). The shutter speeds look to be very good at the higher speeds (I have no means of checking the speeds, I am going by a general impression) but on lower speeds (1/30 or B) the blinds move very slowly and erratically.

On the left of the film gate is the chamber for the film cassette. This can be either a Kodak style cassette or a FED type refillable cassette. On the right of the film gate is the sprocket shaft for counting the sprocket holes in the film when advancing the film. Eight holes equals one frame. To the right of the sprocket shaft is the drive for the take-up spool. This looks remarkably complex with teeth and a spring. This drive fits the supplied take-up spool. I have been told that you can fit a second, empty, cassette here to avoid having to rewind the film, but my FED cassettes will not fit here. The supplied take-up spool has a spring-steel grip to take the film leader.

The edges of the back fit into a groove on the body to provide a light seal. This camera is ultimately derived from the German Leica and no foam light seals were used and no foam light seals to go bad.

The lens that cvame with the camera is an Industar-50 lens. This is essentially a copy of the Carl Zeiss Tessar. Zeiss’s patents on the tyessar had expired a long time before the Soviets started copying the Tessar design. Tessars are my favourite lenses. They might not be as sharp corner to corner as some other lenses and distortion is not completely eradicated but the Tessar renders images very nicely with something of a 3D effect. Many people get carried away by the technical excellence or otherwise of their equipment and forget that they are producing pictures. Tessars help with the story telling so sod the technicalities.

The focus range is from one metre to infinity. To move the focus from one metre to infinity (or from infinity to one metre) you need to turn the focus ring through 180º. This is enough of a turn to allow for precise focusing (something missing on modern autofocus lenses which are a nightmare to focus manually). Apertures are from ƒ/3.5 to ƒ/16. There are two aperture scales so as you focus, one of the two scales is always at the top of the lens barrel and easily visible.

Tessars – and this Industar – have four glass elements in three groups – there are air gaps between the groups. The lens is coated – there is a red П on the lens bezel. This П stands for покрытый (or pokrytiy in the Latin alphabet) which means ‘coated’. I would assume that this is multicoated and on each glass surface as was usual by 1960. but that is definitely an assumption on my part.

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FED Zarya (ФЭД Заря)

Soviet Zarya camera based on the FED 2,

This is a Soviet camera that was made in Ukraine by FED. It is a FED 2 without the rangefinder and (as far as I can tell) only made for the home (Soviet) market. As the camera was made for the home market, all the writing on the camera is in Cyrillic, not that there is much writing. There is the maker’s name – ФЭД – the model name – Заря – the advance or rewind options – п and с – and the lens name – ИНДУСТАР-26м (Industar-26M) together with П which indicates that the lens is coated. The Zarya was made between 1958 and 1959 or between 1959 and 1961 – it depends on which bit of the Interweb you read! It would seem that 141,228 Zarya cameras were made and mine is #47,339 so about 1/3 of the way through the production run.

  • lens: Industar-26M
  • focal length: 5 cm
  • apertures: ƒ/2.8 to ƒ/22
  • focus range: 1 m to infinity
  • lens fitting: M39
  • shutter: cloth focal plane
  • speeds: 1/30 s to 1/500 s
  • flash: PC socket
  • film size: 35 mm

This camera measures 140 by 80 by 32 mm. It weighs xg. The top plate is lower than on the parent FED 2 as it does not need to accommodate the rangefinder mechanism. Height apart, the controls are identical to the FED 2. This is because the internal mechanism is identical. On the far right is the film advance knob. This has a different machining to the FED 2 version (or, at least, than my FED 2 but not necessarily than all FED 2s). It turns clockwise.

On the top is a memo for the type of film in use. There are three options for film – B&W, Daylight and Artificial light. These can each be set to one of four film speeds – 22, 45, 90, and 180. These are in GOST, the Soviet standard for film speeds. The engraving on the memo is in Cyrillic and looks to say roct – it is actually гост or GOST. GOST film speeds are much the same as ASA and ISO but slightly lower. 22 GOST is 25 ASA/ISO, 45 GOST is 50 ASA/ISO, 90 GOST is 100 ASA/ISO and 180 GOST is 200 ASA/ISO. At some point in the late 20th century (well after the date of this camera) GOST film speeds were aligned with ISO. Also incorporated into the film advance knob is the frame counter. This counts up from zero and needs to be set to zero by hand when loading a new film.

Next to the film advance knob, and almost touching it, is the shutter release button. This positioning of the button is a relic of the Leica II camera that the FED 2 (and this Zarya) are copies of. It is an awkward position – while useable, it means the photographer’s index finger must curl over the top of the film advance knob. This shutter release button is threaded for a standard cable release. Around the button is a collar with a milled top. This collar is used to disengage the film advance mechanism to allow the film to be rewound. This is supposed to work by pressing the collar down and turning it clockwise in the direction of the Cyrillic п (or ‘p’ in the Latin alphabet). This locks into place and allows the sprocket shaft to turn in both directions. With my camera, the collar will press down but will not lock into place meaning that the collar must be manually held down while rewinding.

The third control on the right of the viewfinder is the shutter speed selector. This works by lifting and turning. Available speeds are spares but useable: 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250 and 1/500 seconds plus B. It is well known that with early Leicas and their derivatives you must advance the film (and hence return the shutter blinds) before you change shutter speeds or risk damaging the mechanism. With the introduction of the FED 2, the film speeds selector was modified so this restriction no longer applies. As this Zarya is a modified FED 2, it does not apply with this camera either and it is safe to change shutter speeds either before or after advancing the film.

If you compare the shutter speed selector with other FED models or Zorki models you can see the difference. On my FED 4 and Zorki 4, the set shutter speed appears to alter after the shutter is fired. if I set my FED 4 shutter to 1/125 and fire the shutter, the shutter speed index will point to 1/15 and returns to 1/125 as I advance the film. With this Zarya (and my FED 2), if I set the shutter to 1/125 and fire the shutter, the speed index remains on 1/125.

Just left of centre is the viewfinder. This rises up above the top plate by 10 mm. the front viewfinder window is 15 by 11 mm which tells me it is an early Zarya – the later models had viewfinder windows measuring 15 by 9 mm. The viewfinder eyepiece is circular and measures 15 mm diameter. It is surrounded by a circular milled ring which is harsh on modern plastic spectacles. it is a reverse Galilean finder – what you see is slightly smaller than life size. There are no framing lines of any sort and as this is can entirely manual camera there is no exposure information in the viewfinder. On top of the viewfinder is a Barnack type accessory shoe – no electrical contacts. In front of the accessory shoe is the model name in Cyrillic script – Заря. It only has four letters but this transliterates to Zarya (or Zaria) in the Latin script.

Left of the viewfinder is the rewind knob. This is large – 22 mm in diameter – and has an arrow engraved on top to indicate the direction of turn.

The front of the top plate has a PC socket for connecting a flash gun. On the FED 2, this PC socket is on the front face of the body but on the Zarya it has been moved onto the top plate, presumably for ease of manufacture. The other thing on the front of the camera is the lens mount. This is the M39 thread mount – also known as LTM or Leica Thread Mount. This is the mount used by FED, Zorki, Canon and Cosina and other rangefinder cameras from the 1930s to the 21st century. There are a vast range of lenses that a will fit this Zarya camera. The M39 lenses have a focus cam connected to the focus ring to actuate the rangefinder in the camera. This Zarya has no rangefinder so it has no cam follower to read the focus position of the lens.

The base and back of the camera come away in one piece. I have never understood this as changing the film in the field is rendered awkward by needing to put the base/back down somewhere while fiddling with the film. To release the base/back, you need to first turn the keys at either end of the base. These turn through 180º.

The base has a tripod socket in line with the lens. This is the 3/8 inch Whitworth thread standard – the modern 1/4 inch UNC thread was still a long way in the future. Before 1945, this 3/8 Whitworth thread was almost ubiquitous and after 1945 became increasingly rare. FED were copying a 1930s German camera and had clearly not taken much notice of the then current international trends. This camera can still be used on a modern tripod by inserting a 3/8 inch to 1/4 inch conversion slug into the tripod socket. The inside of the back has a rather small sprung pressure plate.

The inside of the two catches in the base have lugs which locate over lugs on the camera body which firmly holds the base/back in place. Above the lugs on the base/back there is a cut-away portion facing the back. If you are using Kodak style cassettes (the common, commercial ones) and the removable take-up spool, this cut-away does nothing. However, FED produced their own reusable film cassettes modelled on the Leica film cassettes. If you use a FED cassette (filled with film from a bulk loader), this cut-away portion locates a pin on then FED cassette. As you lock the base/back, the light tight FED cassette opens to allow the film to move without scratching and when you unlock the base/back at the end of the film, the FED cassette closes again to be light tight.

The take-up spool is brass and is removable – this is so you can replace it with a second FED cassette which removes the need to rewind the film. Several camera marques offered this – the Exacta Varex IIb even has an inbuilt knife to cut the film – but I have never seen the advantage.

The film gate is, as always, in the middle between the film cassette and take-up spool. The shutter curtains move horizontally and are made from light-proof fabric. On my camera, the opaque rubbery coating of the fabric has degraded and I can actually see through the first shutter curtain. This camera does not warrant the cost of having new curtains fitted so I am going to try painting the fabric with black acrylic artist’s paint (courtesy of Bestbeloved) in the hope that it is both opaque enough and flexible enough. We shall see!

The supplied lens is an Industar-26M which is a clone of the Carl Zeiss Tessar lens (as this camera is ultimately a copy of a Leica, it is probably a copy of the Leica Elmar lens, but that was a rework of the Tessar). This Industar seems to have been the go-to lens for Soviet camera makers. The lens has four glass elements in three groups and has a focal length of 5 cm. The focal length stated on the lens is in cm which was a bit old-fashioned by the late 1950s. Generally, pre-1945 lenses are in cm and post-1945 lenses are in mm.

The maximum aperture is ƒ/2.8 and the minimum aperture is ƒ/22 – this is a good range of apertures. Tessar type lenses are never very fast and ƒ/2.8 is plenty wide enough for most situations. The lens is coated, as we would expect by the late 1950s and this fact is denoted by a red П on the lens bezel.The focus range is from one metre to infinity. The focus ring is right by the mounting thread – this is necessary as turning the focus ring moves the rangefinder cam in and out (even though this camera has no rangefinder, the lens was designed for cameras that did). The aperture ring is at the front of the lens. This has a smooth motion with no click-stops. So, intermediate apertures can be easily set but with the downside that the ring is easy to move accidentally.

The housing for the lens is made from an aluminium alloy which is left bright. The markings for the aperture, depth of field scale and focus distance are engraved (later versions had the marking screen printed and were prone to wear off). The focus ring has heavy knurling making it easy to find by touch. The aperture ring has finer milling.

Test Film

I have run a test film – Agfa Vista – through this camera and I am delighted with the results. As I mentioned above, the first shutter curtain was nearly transparent and I have given it a good coat of black acrylic artist’s paint on either surface. This has worked very well – surprisingly well. There are indications of light leaks on a couple of frames, but most frames were fine. Exposure of each frame is even indicating that the shutter curtains are moving smoothly, which is not a given seeing as I have both thickened and stiffened one of the curtains. Exposure times are close to the designed times as each frame on the negatives have the level of image density I would want and expect. The lens is fine, the aperture setting being about right and focus is good. The camera back is not leaking light – as a copy of a German camera, there are no foam light seals, light tightness being achieved with flanges.

Sowing some light leak
Another light leak

Zenit 3M

Zenit 3M 35mm film SLR from the KMZ factory in Russia.

This camera is an early adaptation of the Zorki camera, turning it from a rangefinder to a Single Lens Reflex camera. So, the basic structure of the camera is that of a Leica II as improved by the FED factory and then improved a bit more by the KMZ factory and then had the reflex mirror added. KMZ made an earlier SLR – the Kristall – which was not popular and did not stay in production for long. This Zenit 3M model later developed into the Zenit E which was my first ‘serious’ camera.

The camera is entirely manual and there is no light meter. This means that the user is in complete control – this is either a good thing or a bad thing thing, depending on the user’s mindset. I only used entirely manual cameras for the first thirty years as a photographer so I am very happy with a fully manual camera. Both the camera body and the lens have serial numbers and, coming from the KMZ factory, the first two digits indicate the year of manufacture. Both the body and lens have serial numbers starting with ’65’ so this camera was made in 1965. This camera cost, in 1965, £39-19-6 (in old British money, or £39.97 in modern British money. This equates to £1,291 in 2020 money – a rather expensive camera. This included  an ƒ/2 Helios 44 lens.

The camera body measures 135 by 90 by 50 mm. It weighs 700g (including lens and film). The body is entirely metal – cast aluminium with a matt chrome plated top plate and bottom plate.  On the far right of the top plate is the film advance lever. This is on a ratchet and the film can be advanced either with one long stroke or a number of short strokes. This lever is entirely metal and the tip curves away from the body to allow the user’s thumb to get a good hold. There is a very small black rubber pad part way down the lever to soften the return of the lever to its rest position. In the centre of the advance lever is a frame counter. This counts upwards and requires then user to set it to zero when loading a new film. Only every fifth frame has a number, the rest being represented by dots.P1050281In the centre of the frame counter is the shutter release button. This is a more convenient position than with the Zorki and Fed cameras. This button is threaded for a standard cable release. The top of the button is milled. This milling is so when using long exposures (i.e. B) you can turn the release button after pressing it which locks the button in the depressed position, allowing the user to then remove their finger for the duration of the shot. The downside here is that is quite possible to turn this release button accidentally and the camera will not work properly until you turn it back again. I speak from experience!P1050289The rest of the top plate is slightly raised above the film advance lever. The first item on the raised portion is the button which releases the film advance mechanism to allow the film to be rewound. It is necessary to keep this button depressed while rewinding.P1050288Next to this is the shutter speed dial. This offers five speeds – 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250 and 1/500 – plus B. To set the shutter speed, you lift the dial and rotate to the required position and allow the dial to drop again. This is very easy to do apart from 1/250 which is very close to 1/500 and I am never quite sure which I have set. FED, Zorki and Zenit  E cameras tell you that it is very important to set the shutter speed AFTER advancing the film and I suspect that it is the same here.Below the shutter speed selector is the flash synch selector. This has options for M (bulbs) and X (electronic). In both cases, the shutter speed must be 1/30 (the only shutter speed at which the shutter is ever fully open. At the other shutter speeds, the exposure is by a moving slit. The difference between X and M is timing. With X, the flash is fired exactly as the shutter is fully open. With M, the flash fires very slightly before the shutter is fully open to allow the bulb time to burn to maximum brightness.Just left of centre on the top plate is the pentaprism hump. This has a circular eye-piece. This is 20mm external diameter and unscrews to allow the fitting of a correction lens to correct the user’s eyesight. This correction lens must have a diameter of 16mm. The front of the pentaprism hump carries the camera name – Zenit 3M – in Roman script. On the other end of the rear of the top plate is the body serial number and the KMZ logo of a prism with a ray of light passing through it.P1050290On the left of the top plate is the rewind knob. This pulls up to allow the film cassette to be inserted and removed. In the centre of the rewind knob is a film type reminder. This offers the options of sunlight balanced colour, tungsten balanced colour or the film speed in GOST (the Soviet version of ASA or DIN in use until 1987). The film speed options are 11, 22, 45, 90, 180 which equate to ASA speeds of 16, 25, 64, 100, 200.The front of the camera is rather as you might expect. It is dominated by the lens mount. This is a peculiar mount. It is a threaded mount – 39 mm by 26 threads per inch – this is a strange combination of metric and imperial units which is a hangover from the Leica camera this was developed from. It is, actually, the same thread as is used on Leica cameras. The explanation for this is that this camera is an adaptation of the Zorki rangefinder which used Leica threaded lenses so the KMZ factory was already tooled up to produce this thread. However, the presence of the reflex mirror means that the lens mount is further away from the film than is the case with the Zorki (FED, Leica) rangefinder. So, the Zenit 3M lens will physically fit a Zorki (or FED or Leica) and vice versa but it will not be able to achieve infinity focus if you fit a Zorki/FED/Leica lens to the Zenit 3M (it will, however, work very well as a macro lens!). With the Zenit B and E, KMZ used the M42 thread (the same as the Praktica and Pentax cameras) which removed this incompatibility.P1050286On the front of the top plate beside the lens mount is a PC connector for flash. On the left of the lens mount is a self timer lever. To activate this, you turn it anti-clockwise until it is pointing down. Pressing the small button above the lever will start it into action. This has two separate actions. After about 5 seconds, the mirror lifts. After a further 3 or 4 seconds, the shutter fires – the total delay is about 8 seconds. Lifting the mirror several seconds before the shutter fires means that there is no mirror slap when the shutter fires which is useful for pictures where sharpness is critical. On either side of the front of the camera is a strap lug.P1050287The base of the camera is plain apart from a standard tripod socket – 1/4 inch Whitworth thread. This socket is right at one end which is not good for stability or levelness.The hinged back is opened by a sliding catch. Inside, the shutter is a cloth focal plane shutter – the same as with the Zorki – which travels horizontally.P1050282The supplied lens is an Industar-50. This is a copy of a Carl Zeiss Tessar which means that there are four glass elements arranged in three groups. The lens body is made from machined aluminium painted black.P1050284The lens bezel has the lens name – Industar-50 – in Roman letters followed by the aperture size and focal length (f/3.5 and 50mm), the serial number starting with the production year (N6543441) and then the KMZ logo.The front of the lens turns to select the aperture (f/3.5 to f/16). The aperture scale is repeated three times so, as you focus the lens, one of the three scales will be at the top and visible. There are no click stops so it is easy to change the aperture by accident. It is also possible to set intermediate values.Around the aperture scales is a milled ring which turns to focus the lens. The focus range is from 0.65 m to infinity. The throw of the focus ring is about 310º which means that fine focus control is easy but fast focus is not. This is offset by the provision of a matt focus screen with no focus aids. However, good focus is easy to achieve.

The iris diaphragm has seven blades which makes for a fairly circular aperture. For this concerned with bokeh, this will be a good thing.

P1050285
Depth of Field scale below the distance scale.

Behind the focus scale is the depth of field scale. Youngsters who have only used autofocus  won’t have seen these. They allow you to look at the focus scale – the distances on the focus scale by the set aperture give you the near and far extents of the depth of field. The depth of field scale also allows you to set the focus to the lens’ hyperfocal distance by setting infinity against your set aperture. This gives you the maximum focus range which is ideal for landscapes but not for portraits. On this Industar-50 lens, the hyperlocal distance at f/16 is 3.5 m giving a focus range  (aka depth of field) from 1.7m to infinity.A note on this particular lens: when I received this camera, the focus helical was rough in its action and binding in a couple of places. Dismantling lenses Cana be fraught and reassembling them worse. My solution – which works very well – was to lubricate the thread with clock oil diluted with naphtha (two parts naphtha to one part oil). This dilution has two advantages. First, it makes the oil running and able to wet the threads thoroughly. Second, when the naphtha evaporates only a very small amount of oil is left. Adding too much oil runs the risk of the oil moving to places where you do not want it – onto glass surfaces and aperture blades. I added the smallest possible drop of diluted oil I could manage to the end of the thread and spread this along the helical thread by repeatedly focusing the lens from minimum to maximum and back. I did this with three separate very small drops (rather than one large drop) and the lens focus action is now smooth and easy.While using this camera with my test film, it occurred to me that using a rangefinder lens with M39 threads, while not capable of achieving infinity focus, would act as a close focus lens – it focuses down to about 200mm. Accordingly, I have fitted my Zorki’s Industar-25 lens to the camera for the last half of the test film to see how well this works.

Test Film Results:

First, using the Zorki lens as a close-up lens. This is focused much closer than the camera’s standard lens would focus. Depth of field is not very great but I had to keep the lens wide open as I was photographing in the evening by artificial light. It is not quite macro as the negative image is about 1/3 life size

000024550014

This next is a close-up the fabric in the first shot. It is with the Zorki lens attached to the camera and the Zenit 3M lens hand-held against the front of the Zorki lens – so shot through two lenses. I do not claim it I to be a great photograph but it is certainly a macro shot.

000024550013

The rest were shot with the Zenit 3M’s standard Industar-50 lens.  This shot is as close as the Zenit 3M Industar-50 lens will focus. Again, not intended to be a brilliant shot but demonstrates the quality of the lens.000024550020These next two shots show the lens wide open and then stopped right down.000024550005000024550004The next three are just general shots of Lincoln on a dreary day. The lens has enough contrast to be usable in this sort of weather and will be very good in sunny weather if we get any.000024550002000024550018000024550017This is a hand-held interior shot of my favourite coffee shop – I am quite impressed with my ability to hand hold this camera with such a slow shutter speed (I cannot actually remember the shutter speed but I think it was probably 1/30).000024550012

Kiev 35A (Киев 35A)

A Kiev 35A folding camera from Ukraine.

This Kiev 35A is an attractive, folding and compact 35mm camera from the Ukraine. This is my second Kiev, the other being the much larger Kiev 4 rangefinder camera. When closed, the camera fits nicely in the palm of my hand and is unobtrusive in my trouser pocket. These cameras have a very poor reputation and I am assured that it is next to impossible to find a working exemplar. Well, Odin must be smiling on me as my Kiev 35A works – the meter is responsive and the shutter fires; the test film will tell me about the light leaks that this camera is notorious for. Even better – I have the original box and printed instruction book. The instruction book is dated 1992 so I assume that the camera was made soon after this date. It was made in the Ukraine (in Kiev!) in the Arsenal factory. (I have scanned the instruction book and it is available for download from my Google Drive here [there are several other manuals available the same place]).

Kiev 35A www.oldcamera.blog
  • lens: Korsar
  • focal length: 35mm
  • apertures: f/2.8 to f/16
  • focus range: 1 m to infinity
  • lens fitting: fixed
  • shutter: leaf
  • speeds: auto
  • flash: hot shoe
  • film size: 35mm

When closed, the camera measures 100 by 64 by 33 mm. When open, the camera extends to 84mm. The camera weighs 190 g. The camera body is made from a textured grey plastic. Actually, the plastic is black, the textured grey being paint. The inside is black plastic with a chrome plated metal film gate. The camera feels very solid.

The camera uses aperture priority automatic exposure. The user sets the film speed and aperture and the camera selects the shutter speed which is steplessly varied between 4 seconds and 1/500 seconds. There is no manual option.

When the camera is closed, the lens is hidden, the electronics are switched off and the shutter release button is locked. In this closed state, the only controls available are the film advance lever and the rewind crank. the film advance lever (which is very stiff in my camera) moves through 90º and needs to be swung twice to advance the film one frame. This lever is on a ratchet so you can move the lever a smaller amount repeatedly. This lever is attached to a milled wheel and it is possible to ignore the lever and rotate the wheel instead. I am not sure what is going on there. 

The other accessible control is the rewind crank. This is 18mm diameter when closed and opens to 30mm. As is usual, it is necessary to press a button on the base to free the film advance mechanism but there is no need to hold the button in while rewinding. Also on the top is a red, square, plastic shutter release button. This is threaded for a standard cable release. This button is locked while the camera is closed. There is also a hot shoe accessory shoe with a black plastic cover. Also on the top is the frame counter. This has red numbers but only zero and then every fifth number – the rest are not even dots. The numbers go up to 36 (which is also there in red) and further film advancing will not move the numbers any further.

The camera is opened by pulling down the lens cover in the front – there is no catch of any sort. this cover clicks firmly in place and pulls the lens/shutter forward. The lens/shutter housing is rather small and sits between the struts that hold the cover in place. the lens/shutter housing is 30mm in diameter. There are two control rings – focus and aperture. The focus ring is on the outer edge of the lens/shutter housing and moves easily through just shy of 90º to move the focus from one metre to infinity. this is entirely scale focus – no rangefinder or other focus aid here. The aperture ring is more problematical as it sits right between the struts, close to the camera body. Moving this is rather awkward for my large fingers. The aperture range is from f/2.8 to f/16. 

The shutter is anonymous, presumably the Arsenal factory’s own design. It is a leaf shutter sitting between the lens elements. The manual (which, for once, came with the camera) states that the shutter speeds are from 4 seconds to 1/500 seconds. If the meter needle is in the lower shaded area in the viewfinder, the shutter speed will fire at a slow speed (slower that 1/30 seconds) and the camera will need support. The camera can be set on a firm level surface or on a tripod. In this case it would be sensible to use a cable release. If the viewfinder needle is in the upper shaded area, one of two things will happen: 1) the shutter will fire at 1/500 and the picture will be over exposed or 2) the shutter will not fire at all.

The lens is a Korsar lens. The manual tells me that this is a five element lens and is multicoated. It has a focal length of 35 mm which is distinctly wide for 35mm photography but using a short focal length lens allows the camera to be more compact which will have been the main selling point of this camera (shorter focal length means closer to the film/sensor). Part of the lens bezel is cut away to provide the window for the light meter.

Above the lens is the viewfinder window. The image within the viewfinder has bright lines to assist in framing the picture. There are no additional bright lines for close-up work. There is also, on the right of the viewfinder image, a readout of the selected shutter speed. This reads from 1/30 to 1/500 seconds. There are shaded areas at the top and bottom of this scale. See above for details of how this works for the slower, unmarked, shutter speeds.

Beside the viewfinder is the battery chamber. This takes four LR44 or equivalent batteries (which are still easily available).

The base of the camera contains several items. There is a lever to release the back. Swinging this lever reveals a red dot and allows the back and base to be removed in one piece.

Next to this is the film speed selector. This is a knurled button which moves between 15 DIN/25 ISO to 30 DIN/800 ISO. There are no Soviet GOST speeds here although the manual does refer to GOST speeds. For some reason, the DIN speeds are printed in green on the dark grey body – very hard to read. The ISO speeds are printed in white.

Next to the film speed selector is the tripod socket. This is 1/4 inch UNC thread (which is very close to the Whitworth thread used on older camera and tripods – the two are mutually compatible). On the far right of the base is the rewind button to disengage the film advance mechanism to allow the film tome backwards. The base on my camera is clearly marked “Made in Ukraine” although the box the camera came in says it was made in the USSR.

There are no strap lugs on the camera but for a camera this small and light a strap really is not required. The camera came with a rather nice leatherette pouch (which is stamped inside with “3-2-93” which I take too be the date of manufacture of the pouch. This ties in with the date on the back of the manual.

The hot shoe is synchronised for electronic flash – by the 1990s flash bulbs were passé. Attaching a hot shoe flash gun sets the shutter speed to 1/30 or 1/60 seconds (the manual gives no clue as to which or when each is selected). This is achieved by a concealed switch in the left side of the accessory shoe. The provided plastic cover for the hot shoe has a small cut-out on the left to prevent the cover from activating the switch.

Test film:

I have run a test film through this camera now and had it developed (by Snappy Snaps in Lincoln, as usual). Three main things to note: 1) there is an occasional light leak. This occurs at the bottom of the picture, indicating that the leak is where the top of the back meets the camera body. Most of the frames in my test film do not have a noticeable light leak. 2) the negatives are a bit thin – not too thin to be usable but thinner than is ideal. This tells me that the automatic exposure system is underexposing slightly. As there is no manual option with this camera, I can either live with it or adjust the Film’s ISO setting to compensate. 3) there are tram-line scratches on all frames. Might be the film gate, might be dirt in the cassette felt light trap. Who knows?

Fed 4 (ФЭД 4)

This Soviet Feed 4 is a camera with an impressive pedigree. The original design was by Oskar Barnack and the Leica 1 introduced in 1926 by E.Leitz (Leica =  LEItz CAmera). An orphanage in Karkiv, Ukraine set up a workshop to produce copies of the Leica II as a training exercise for teenage boys. This copy was sold as the Fed (named after the head of the NKVD). In time, this changed from a training exercise to full-bloodied commercial production.

During WWII, the factory was destroyed and after the war ended, production was temporarily moved to the Krasnogorskiy Mechanicheskiy Zavod factory outside Moscow. When the Fed factory was rebuilt, production was moved back but the Krasnogorskiy Mechanicheskiy Zavod factory also continued production with cameras now called Zorki.

I already have in my collection, Fed 2, Fed 5 and Zorki 4. The Fed 2 and Zorki 4 only differ in details, the main one being the extended rangefinder base of the Fed 2.
Fed 2, Fed 4 and Zorki 4
The Fed 4 is a further refinement which embodies an uncoupled light meter.
So, a description:

The overall shape of the camera is a rectangular ‘brick’ with rounded ends. The ‘brickiness’ is broken up by the film advance being in a lowered section of the top plate.

The film advance is a lever. This is slightly curved and is quite comfortable to use. The travel of the lever is just over 180 degrees and easy to do in one motion. The lever is on a ratchet and it is possible to advance the film with several shorter motions.
ab9e3-fed2b4_0603_edited-1
rear and top plate
The central boss of the film advance has the frame counter. This needs to be set to zero manually and counts up. If you are lazy like me, you can ignore this completely and continue to use the camera until you cannot advance the film anymore. The counter counts up to 39. Right in the centre of the frame counter is a reminder for film type. There are three settings: sun, light bulb and circle. With colour film, each brand would come in two versions, one colour balanced for sunlight and one colour balanced for artificial light. The circle position is intended to represent black and white film. This is merely a reminder has has no effect on the operation of the camera.
Nestling in the corner of the film advance is the shutter release. This is chrome plated steel and is threaded for a standard cable release. Around the shutter release button is a milled collar. This has two positions marked B and C (in Cyrillic – V and S in the Latin alphabet). This is depressed and turned to allow rewinding of the film. This is very fiddly to get at and turn.
Next to the shutter release, on the raised portion of the top plate, is the shutter speed selector. This is used by lifting and turning to the required speed – indicated by a red arrow. In common with the other Leica derived cameras (Zorki, Zenith and other Fed models) it is important to do this only after advancing the film. Speeds available are the standard range from 1 second to 1/500 seconds.
Next along is the accessory shoe. No electrical contacts here so a cold shoe.
On the left hand end of the top plate are the light meter controls. This is a selenium meter and so does no require a battery. Looking at Interweb articles, you could gain the impression that selenium meters eventually deteriorate and lose their sensitivity and so should be avoided. I have selenium meters that are over 55 years years old and still agree with my modern digital camera.
This is a match-needle type meter – you turn the outer ring on the controls until the red needle is over the white needle. At this point, you can read the correct exposure from the black scales. Before this, of course, you need to tell the meter the speed of your film. This is in ASA but the range offered is rather strange: 20, 40, 80, 160, 320. The reason for this (my guess here!) is that it is translated from the German DIN scale, being centred on DIN 20 (=ASA 80). Assuming this makes setting the camera easier: ASA 100 = DIN 21 = one division past ASA 80. ASA 200 = DIN 24 = four divisions past ASA 80 or ASA 160 plus one division.
Front of camera with no lens
The front of the camera is in two parts. At the top is a deep, chrome top plate. This contains a square viewfinder window, a small, round rangefinder window hiding by the ФЭД-4 logo and a square light meter window. By the corner of the light meter window is a PC (Prontor Compur – named after the two German shutter makers, both owned by the Carl Zeiss Foundation) connector for flash. This will be X synch for electronic flash at this date.
At the left hand end of the top plate is a milled wheel protruding from the side of the top plate. This is for rewinding the film. It also acts as a visual check that the film is advancing correctly.
On the back of the top plate is a small round viewfinder eyepiece which has a milled surround – guaranteed to scratch modern plastic spectacle lenses. This milled surround can be rotated to adjust the eyepiece for spectacle wearers so there is no need to wear glasses when using this camera which obviates scratching the lenses. There is also an embossed ФЭД logo and the legend “MADE IN USSR” indicating that this camera was made for export.
Beneath the deep top plate, the camera is covered with a black plastic ‘leatherette’.
On the front, below the ФЭД-4 logo, is the lens mount. As this camera derives from the Leica II, the lens mount is LTM or M39 (Leica Thread Mount which is 39 mm diameter and 1 mm pitch). Just inside the lens mount, at the top, can be seen the focusing cam. As the lens is focused towards infinity, the lens pushes this cam inwards which in turn moves the rangefinder image. Around the lens mount are four chrome screws which I assume hold the internal shutter crate in place. To the right of the lens mount (left, when looking at the camera rather than using it) is the self delay lever. This rotates through 180 degrees to wind up the mechanism – it is activated by pressing a small chrome button just below the top plate.
Lens mount with focus cam at top.
The base of the camera has a tripod boss just below the lens (1/4 inch UNC), next to which is the serial number. On many Soviet cameras, the first two digits of the serial number are the production year but not here. The number is 097010 – I do not yet know which year this is.

 

On either end of the base plate are a folding cam. These are lifted and turned half a turn to release the base and back in one piece to allow access to the inside of the camera. Inside the camera, the film cassette fits on the left. On the right is a removable take-up spool. These frequently get lost, unfortunately, and when buying a Soviet camera it is worth confirming that the take-up spool is included. The idea behind the removable spool is that it can be replaced with an empty Leica cassette (not the modern Kodak cassette) removing the need to rewind the film. The take-up spool rotates ‘backwards’ and winds the film emulsion side outwards.
Loose spool having been removed

 

The lens supplied with the my camera is the Industar-61 which is a Carl Zeiss Tessar design.  The lens has a focal length of 53 mm and an aperture range from f/2.8 to f/16 with click stops (it would seem that many Industar-61 lenses go to f/22 but not this one). There were a number of optical factories making lenses in the Soviet Union with differing reputations. This lens was made in the Fed factory in 1989 – whether that is a good thing or not, I don’t know but the lens certainly performs well enough.
Industar-61 lens

Industar-61 lens facia

My test film.

The negatives are exposed well showing the light meter is OK. There are no light leaks and the shutter curtains are moving smoothly enough to give an even exposure.  The only camera fault is the level of flare in one (just one) frame – see below. I had a fault in that the viewfinder is always in focus and a couple of times I forgot to focus the camera. If I was using this camera all the time, that would become second nature. I am pleased to report that I did not fire off half a dozen shots with the lens cap on – which I did with my Fed-2. I did a rangefinder test by focusing on a steel fence. I focused on the first ‘silver’ finial which should have been in sharp focus but it is barely in focus at all.  See below.

The pictures:

The frame with lens flare
One I forgot to focus
Rangefinder test – the first finial should be in focus.
Steep Hill, Lincoln

 

Remains of a public tap, Lincoln

 

Steep Hill, Lincoln

 

The Strait, Lincoln
Broadgate, Lincoln and the cathedral.
My usual photo of the abandoned bicycle.

 

Fed 2 (B4) (ФЭД)

I wanted a Fed camera since I first saw one many years ago. The external design is very much "form follows function" (and I suspect the internals is as well). When I finally bought a Fed, it was a Model 5B which was box-like and anodyne - it also leaked light and I got rid of it after my test film.  This Fed 2 is much better.











Fed-2 (C) John Margetts






A brief history: the Fed was originally conceived as a training project for boys in a Ukrainian children's home. The idea was to teach the boys basic engineering by making quality cameras - the model selected being the German Leica II. They are often decried as being poor copies of the Leica but I don't think they are either poor or copies. The Fed 1 was essentially a copy of the Leica II redesigned to allow it to be made on less sophisticated machine tools by trainee engineers. The Fed 2 (the camera this blog article is about) is a complete redesign so it is more accurate and meaningful to say that it is inspired by the Leica II rather than a copy of it.


After the Germans destroyed the Fed factory in Kharkov, Ukraine during World War II, production was transferred to the KMZ factory near to Moscow - this resulted in the Zorki-Fed and, ultimately, the Zorki line of cameras. I bought one of these  - a Zorki 4 - and I am very pleased with it. The joint lineage of these two cameras is clear but they are very different.
So - both the Zorki and Fed line of cameras are based on the German Leica II. The Fed 2 was made between 1955 and 1970. The Ukrainian seller tells me mine is a Model 2, Type B4 so it was made between 1956 and 1958. The quality of the Soviet engineering is shown by the fact that the camera is working well after 60-odd years.
 In 1963, Wallace Heaton (a retailer in London) was offering the Fed 2 for £23-19-6 which is 6d short of £24-0-0. In modern decimal money, this is £23.975 and at todays values would be around £750 or so.
This camera is a 35mm rangefinder camera. the top plate measures 140 mm by 32 mm. There is a raised "L" shaped hump in the middle of the plate. This houses the rangefinder mechanism. In the front of this are two windows - the viewfinder window and the rangefinder window. They are 67 mm apart which means that the rangefinder will be very accurate - this aspect of the Fed 2 was taken from the Zeiss Ikon Contax camera. The rangefinder windows on the Leica II are much closer together.











Fed-2 top plate






On the left end of the top plate is the rewind knob. This pulls out to make rewinding the film easier. At the base of the rewind knob is a lever to adjust the diopter level of the viewfinder. This excellent device means I can use the camera without wearing my glasses.


On the left end of the top plate is the film advance knob. This turns clockwise which I find to be non-intuitive but it works well enough. Beneath the film advance knob is the frame counter. This counts up from zero to a maximum of 36. Beside the film advance is the shutter release. This is towards the back of the top plate which I find to be a less than natural position but, again, it works well enough. The shutter release is threaded for a standard cable release. Around the shutter release is a milled collar. This is the rewind clutch - you press it down and turn it clockwise where it will lock in position while you rewind the film. Once the film is rewound, you must turn the collar anti-clockwise before loading a new film.

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Blog (C) John Margetts, 2015
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Next along is the speed selector dial. This is set by lifting the dial and rotating to the required speed. There is a central post with an engraved dot to mark the selected speed. This is a big improvement over the usual Soviet system as the shutter on this camera can be set either before or after the film is advanced. The usual advice for Soviet cameras is to only change the shutter speed after winding on the film. Actually, as far as I am concerned, I always advance the film immediately after taking a picture - I do this so that the camera is always ready - so I am always going to set the shutter speed after advancing the film.


Also on the top-plate, in line with the lens, is an accessory shoe. There are no flash contacts here - 1956/8 is much too early - so a 'cold' shoe in flash terms.


The rear of the top plate has the camera serial number. This does not match the usual Soviet system of starting the serial number with the year of manufacture so dating the camera by this number is not straight forward. The front of the top plate is engraved with the model name in Cyrillic - ФЭД-2 or FED-2 in Latin script - and ФЭД is repeated on the top near the rewind knob.











Fed-2






The front of the camera is simple. There is the M39 (also called LTM) lens mount offset to the left of centre. At the top of the mount, the rangefinder cam slightly protrudes. In fact, this is in the way of screwing in the lens and it is essential to set the focus on the lens to its nearest point (1 metre in this case) to make fitting the lens practicable.


To the right of the lens mount is the flash PC socket. In later versions of the Fed -2 this PC socket gets moved onto the top plate - this is one of the ways of determining the type of Fed-2 you have. This camera has no shutter delay lever - again, added to later versions of the Fed-2. What I do appreciate is the presence of a strap lug at either end of the camera.


The base of the camera has a fixing cam at either end. Turning both half a turn allows the back/base to be removed to allow fitting and removing of the film. The base also has a tripod bush (the old standard of 3/8 inches Whitworth so none of my tripods will fit unless I 'borrow' a 1/4 inch slug from one of my Zeiss Ikon cameras to fit into the 3/8 inch thread).











Fed -2






The lens that came with this camera is an Industar-26M which is a 50 mm, f/2.8 Tessar type lens. I suspect this is the original lens for the camera - it is certainly of the correct type and date. The lens focusses from 1 m to infinity and has apertures available from f/2.8 to f/22. There is also a depth of field scale which is invaluable if, like me, you use hyperfocal focusing (at f/22, everything from 1.5 m too infinity will be in focus if you set the focus at 3 m). The lens is coated - as is to be expected in the late 1950s - signified by a red п - on the lens bezel.


In use, this is a capable and pleasant camera. The shutter is as quiet and vibration free as a cloth focal plane shutter is going to be and much more gentle than either my Zenit E or Zorki 4. The viewfinder eye-piece is rather small and is surrounded by a milled steel ring which is bad news for modern plastic spectacles. On the plus side, there is a dioptre adjustment for the viewfinder so I can use this camera without wearing my glasses. Also, the viewfinder is not as bright as it could be. It is tinted green/blue to give maximum contrast with the yellow rangefinder spot which is really clear and makes the rangefinder easy to use.


On the negative side, I have had a serious problem with loading the film. On the face of it, loading is really easy - you insert the end of the film beneath a brass strap on the (brass) take-up spool and then wind-on. Unfortunately, my first film slipped out of place after I had replaced the back. When I thought I was advancing the film, the film was winding around the sprocket shaft rather than around the take-up spool Once there was five or six frames around this shaft the camera completely jammed. This was quite easy to sort out but involved opening the back of the camera with the film in place and cost me half a roll of film.


Despite the seller assuring me that the rangefinder had been correctly adjusted prior to sale, it is clearly not. When the lens is focussed at infinity, the rangefinder split image will not coincide.  As adjusting this is fairly simple, I might have a go myself, but I am not really bothered as I usually use hyperfocal focusing rather than precise focusing. On the other hand, it would be nice to have the camera as it should be.


Examples from the test film to follow.


3 April 2015


Test film was a disaster!  One picture from a 24 exposure cassette.  I am hoping that this is me leaving the lens cap on (I certainly did that for some shots) and I am trying a second film with the lens cap left at home.











Fed 2 test film






Apart from the appalling light differences from left to right (entirely down to me) this shot is quite good. Focus is good, contrast is good, exposure is good.  With an older focal plane shutter there is a likelihood of the two shutter curtains not moving smoothly together leaving differently exposed strips.  Hopefully with the second film I will be able to report more thoroughly on this camera.


 Second film


This is no better. I am certain the lens cap was not left on as it was left at home.  Three images from 24 frames - not very good and shows that the shutter is not opening most of the time. This is strange, as with no film loaded, and the back removed, the shutter definitely opens every time. My best guess is that the back is either fouling something or is distorting the body.  In addition to the shutter not opening, there are very clear pin-holes in the shutter curtain. This shows up in the black frames below are three bright spots. These are also visible on the three images I got. The camera is useless.




 











Fed 2 - with three very clear pin-holes















Fed 2 - pin-holes not so clear but still there






 











Fed 2 - clear pin-holes















Fed 2 - pin-holes with the film not wound on for some time















Fed 2 - pin holes with the film wound on fairly quickly - so smaller spots.

Zorki 4

The Zorki 4 camera was made by KMZ ( Krasnogorsk Mechanical Factory) – the same factory that made the Zenit cameras –  in the former USSR near Moscow. The name ‘Zorki’ means ‘sharp sighted’ in English. Over 1,700,000 Zorki 4 cameras were made in total. The original Zorki was a direct copy of a Leica II camera but the camera underwent many alterations and improvements and the Zorki 4 was an entirely Russian design. Zorki cameras were originally supplied with an Industar-22 lens (a copy of a Carl Zeiss Tessar) but the Zorki 4 was supplied with a Jupiter-8 lens which is a copy of a Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar lens. Zorki cameras were made between 1956 and 1973. The Soviet Union made other Leica copies – the Fed range. The Fed 2 is very similar to this Zorki.

Zorki 4, front view (copyright John Margetts)

lens: Jupiter-8

focal length:  50mm

apertures: f/2 to f/22

focus range: 1 metre to infinity

lens fitting: LTM (or M39)

shutter: cloth focal plane

speeds: 1/60 to 1/1000 (there are also slower speeds but the numbers have worn off the dial and I cannot read them)

flash: PC socket synch for M and X

film size: 35 mm

The camera measures 145 by 35 by 85 mm (not including the lens) and the lens adds another 40 mm when focussed on 1 metre.  It weighs a significant 720 grams when loaded with a 24 exposure film.

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blog copyright 2014, John Margetts

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The controls are as you would expect and hold no surprises. On the far right is the film advance. This is a knob – rather antiquated for 1973 (when this camera was made) – which I rather like. I certainly do not miss having a film advance lever, the winding action of the knob allowing a valuable pause for thought. Set into the top of the film advance knob is the frame counter. Next to the film advance knob is a central raised section. On the right of this section is the shutter release button. This is towards the back of the camera which I find a little awkward but it is quite usable. It is threaded for a standard cable release. Around the shutter release button is a knurled collar which you turn clockwise to release the mechanism for rewinding the film.

Next to this is the shutter speed selector. The standard advice for Soviet cameras applies here – always advance the film before changing the shutter speed or risk damaging the selector mechanism. This is important enough for the original retailer of this camera to have supplied a metal sticker on the inside of the ever-ready case to remind the user.

Around the speed selector is a large ring used to set the type of flash synchronisation – either M or X. Next to this is the accessory shoe – this has no contacts so is a ‘cold’ shoe in flash terms.  On the far left, at the same lower level as the film advance, is the rewind knob. This is telescopic to make rewinding the film easier. A very nice touch not often found on cameras is a lever below the rewind knob which allows the user to focus the viewfinder – this means I can use the camera without my glasses on and still have a clear view.
Zorki 4 showing top plate.
The back of the camera is rather plain. On the left of the top plate is the viewfinder eye-piece. This doubles as the rangefinder eyepiece. On the right of the top plate is the KMZ logo of a prism with a ray of light passing through it and the legend ‘MADE IN USSR’ (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, for our younger readers). Below this is the body serial number  – with Soviet cameras the first two digits of the serial number frequently give the year of manufacture, in this case 1973.
Zorki 4, rear view
The base plate of the camera has a tripod boss below the lens which is a standard 1/4 inch Whitworth thread. On either end of the base plate are the catches for the base/back which are removed as one to load the film.
Zorki 4, base of camera
The front of the top plate has the viewfinder which is quite large (18 by 12 mm), a centrally placed rangefinder window which is rather small and the PC socket for the flash. Above these is the stencilled legend – Zorki-4. The front of the camera body has the lens (where else?) and the self-timer.
The lens is a Jupiter-8 lens. This is a copy of a Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar lens. Early production was cased is plain aluminium but by this date the aluminium was painted matt black. The use of aluminium gives a very light lens but at the expense of toughness. This specimen has been bashed at some point and the filter thread has a flattened part meaning I will not be able to use filters on this camera – no great loss as I rarely use filters.
The lens serial number has the same format as the body number and shows that the lens was also made in 1973.
The specification of the lens is quite impressive. It has six elements in three groups, for the optical aficionados, and has a maximum aperture of f/2. This is quite a wide aperture for any lens and as wide as you will find on a camera of this age. As a landscape photographer I will rarely use any lens this wide open. The iris diaphragm has nine blades giving a close to circular aperture which should produce nice bokeh.

Using the Zorki-4

This is a rangefinder camera so the first thing to note is using the rangefinder. This is not too easy. For those who have never used a rangefinder – the technique involves turning the focus ring on the lens until two images in the viewfinder are on top of each other. To work well, the two images must be easy to see and that is where this rangefinder falls down. The rangefinder window on the front of the camera is small – 5 by 3 mm – which gives a very dim second image. It does work and I have been using it successfully but it is not easy.  One thing that is common with rangefinders is to ‘silver’ the internal mirror with gold rather than silver or mercury as this gives an orange image which is easier to see. Alas, Zorki have not done this and you end up peering into the viewfinder looking for the secondary image. I shall probably use this camera as a scale focus camera and rely on the hyperfocal distance as I do with most of my non-reflex cameras.
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blog copyright 2014, John Margetts
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Apart from the rangefinder aspect, the viewfinder is bright and clear. As I mentioned above, it is possible to focus the viewfinder to allow for personal defects in vision and I find this to be very useful. The viewfinder is both above and to one side of the lens. This will introduce parallax errors for anything other than landscapes. Parallax is where the lens and viewfinder are both looking at the same object but from different places. For a head-and-shoulders portrait, it will be necessary to keep the person towards both the right and bottom of the viewfinder – experience will tell the photographer exactly haw far to the right or bottom to go. With many camera there are secondary bright lines in the viewfinder to frame close up shots. With up-market cameras the viewfinder adjusts its view as you focus, but this is not an up-market camera.
Focussing the lens is smooth and easy as is setting the aperture. The aperture ring has two scales – the front of the lens turns as you focus and if there was just the one scale you would not be able to read it at both near focus and infinity. The aperture ring has no click stops. This means that you can set intermediate apertures if you want to but also means that you can inadvertently alter the aperture so checking is a good idea before firing the shutter.
Setting the shutter speed is not as clear as it could be. The dot on the scale does not line up exactly with the numbers. The height of the selector knob changes with speed – 1/60 and slower raise up the selector knob – 1/125 is the slowest sped with the selector knob in the lower position – you can then count positions to accurately set 1/250, 1/500 and 1/1000.
Having framed your picture and focussed the lens, pressing the shutter release needs a firm but not excessive pressure to fire the shutter. I do not like too easy shutters as I am liable to fire accidentally as I am still composing – not a problem I shall have with this camera. When the shutter is fired, the camera makes a definite squeak. Exakta cameras are notorious for this and then it indicates that the shutter needs lubrication. I suspect that it is the same with this Zorki but the cost of paying someone to lubricate it will be much more than the camera is worth.
Winding the film on is easy even though the film advance is a knob and not a lever. The one bit I do find slightly awkward is the fact that the knob turns clockwise – the film is wound onto the take-up spool emulsion outwards. Neither really matters but I find moving the advance clockwise to be non-intuitive.

Test pictures

I am quite pleased with these pictures overall. The lab that developed the film for me (Snappy Snaps, Lincoln) told me that some frames were overexposed but mostly they are within the latitude of the film (but see the yellow flowers below). Over-exposure suggests a slow shutter ( or me moving the aperture setting inadvertently). This is a 1973 camera that has most probably never been serviced and not used in some time – there was a film in the camera that had been there long enough to be forgotten about when I bought the camera.
I took a variety of fairly close-up shots to test the calibration of the rangefinder – all seems to be well. I also used the lens wide open and at f4 for the flower shots to see how well the lens performs.
Russian lenses are generally very good, particularly when stopped down. Where Russian lenses do not perform well it is usually down to careless assembly in the factory or an owner messing about with the lens, rather than the glass itself.
In summary, this lens gives good colour rendition and good contrast. The lens is plenty sharp enough. The camera is slightly over-exposing but not to an extent I cannot compensate for. In fact, with use, the shutter might start running correctly.
I am giving individual comments on each photo below.

This is the only photograph to show the white band on the left. It was also the last frame on the roll of film. I am assuming that its position on the film is the cause of the white band. The picture has good focus and good contrast.
Here, I focussed on one of the pink petunias. This shows that the rangefinder is pretty well calibrated as it should be. The result of some over-exposure is visible in the pink.
These buskers are a fairly regular sight in Lincoln city centre. I focussed on the accordion as being the only part of them with the strong lines that the dim rangefinder needed.
This shot did not use the rangefinder but rather my usual habit of using the hyperfocal distance. I am quite pleased with the sharpness of this.
Lincoln Market Hall. Again, using the hyperfocal distance rather than the rangefinder.
For this flower shot, I focussed on one of the yellow flowers (a potentilla). The detail in the flowers is almost completely blown – a result of over-exposure. The leaves, being that bit darker, have retained their detail.
 These lavender flowers did better. Again, I am happy with the focus that the rangefinder gave me. This shot was with the lens wide open (f/2).
The Siemens’ factory on the banks of the Witham in Lincoln. Another hyperfocal picture. I like both the colour rendition and the contrast.
 The same factory complete with reflection. No flare which I had thought might be a problem with this lens.
 A close-up of a disused part of the Siemens’ factory and a part of the Witham sluice. A hint of flare in the upper left of the brick-work.

Factory and sluice from further back.

 For this close-up of the steel rail, I focussed on the top of the first upright. The lens was wide open (f/2) and the metal-work is in good focus. The rangefinder is as well calibrated as it could be.
The Witham in the city centre where it flows under the medieval bridge. It is now usual to have a number of barges moored along here although a few years ago it would have been unusual.
A trio of Rockabilly buskers who play in the city centre on a regular basis. I focussed on the double bass with the lens stopped down. Again, good colours and good contrast.

Fed 5 (ФЭД 5)

This is a very sturdy camera. It is black, square, solid with no frills or cosmetics. Fed cameras started off as copies of German Leica cameras and while the design of a Fed might be identical to a 1930s Leica, manufacturing standards are certainly not.

As I am being fairly negative here, I would like to point out that I do not have experience of Fed cameras in general, merely of my own Fed 5B. (since writing this article, I have bought two more Feds – Fed 2 and Fed 4 – which articles see).

Actually, the camera works very well. Setting the exposure using my trusty Leningrad light meter, all the images in my test film were exposed as I would wish – good blacks, clear whites and a usable range of greys in between. This means that both the shutter and the aperture settings are at least reasonable. I have no means of testing shutter speeds, but they are clearly close to nominal. The aperture has six blades giving a hexagonal aperture – for those concerned with bokeh, this should bode well.

The lens is much better than adequate. Scanning the film taken with this camera and enlarging to full screen on my fifteen inch monitor gave an image that was still sharp with no visible vignetting or barrel/pin cushion distortion. The only problem optically is light leakage from a poorly fitting back.

The controls are “firm” – that is to say, definite effort is required to make this camera do any thing. I find focussing difficult as the focussing ring is close to the camera body and is stiffish to turn. This stiffness seems to be entirely in the lens assembly as the rangefinder mechanism in the camera is quite free and requires very little effort to move. Advice on the Internet is to dismantle the lens, remove the Soviet grease and replace with modern light grease. It seems that the Soviet grease hardens with time and stops the lens turning freely. Actually, this is not confined to Soviet cameras – all old cameras suffer from this to a degree and Agfa camera are notorious for it. The plus side here is that the whole lens mount moves to focus, not just the front element which means that image quality is not sacrificed in order to make a cheaper lens. As this is a rangefinder camera, focussing is easy and accurate – a simple matter of aligning the two images in the centre of the viewfinder. If this is inaccurate, it can be adjusted by focussing on a clear vertical at infinity (i.e. anything over 40 feet or so away) and turning the adjusting screw until the images coincide.

To load a film, the back and base are removed in one piece – much like a Contax. This makes it easy for large fingers to access they film chamber and fit the new film. on my specimen, the cams that hold the back in place are badly made and the back does not quite fit snuggly. This allows light to leak into the camera and fog the film. This is easily obviated by applying black plastic tape to the joins after loading with film – not a really satisfactory technique but it does allow the camera to be used.

Care must be taken when buying second hand FSU (Former Soviet Union) cameras. If the writing is in Cyrillic and the camera is pristine, it most likely has never been used as it was seriously flawed from new. Buying a camera with clear and definite signs of use means that the camera, at the least, has worked well at some point. Dating Fed cameras is easy – the first two digits of the serial number are the year of manufacture. My FED5 body has the serial number 849211 and so was made in 1984. On the other hand, the lens I have has the serial number 9249524 and so was made in 1992. This means that the body/lens combination is not original – not that it really matters.

 

Zenit E

Zenit E – a 35mm film SLR from the KMZ factory in Russia.

The Zenit E is a Russian camera made in the USSR by KMZ in the town of Krasnogorsk (also made in Belarus). Soviet era cameras have a poor reputation – mostly undeserved in the West – but my Zenit E purchased in 1973 was an excellent camera. It performed well for many years with much neglect (including being dropped off a moving bus!). I now have a newer Zenit E from 1981
Zenit E
lens:  Helios-44
focal length:  58 mm
apertures: f2 to f16
focus range: 0.5 m (2.6 ft) to infinity
lens fitting: fixed
shutter: cloth focal plane
speeds: 1 s to 1/500 s
flash: PC socket
film size: 35mm
The camera is solid and weighty – weighing 700g. The body is made from die cast aluminium with brass base plate and top housing. The controls are well placed and accessible – they compare well with a Fed 5 where I have to fumble for the poorly placed shutter release. I have large, not very nimble, hands and I find this camera very easy to use.
The shutter offers speeds from 1/30 to 1/500 plus B which is plenty for normal use. The focal plane shutter  synchronises with the flash socket at 1/30 both for electronic flash (X) and for Bulb flash (MF).
The built in meter is a selenium meter which does not require a battery and is not TTL. It is no improvement over a hand-held meter other than you only need to carry one item. The meter is of the traditional match needle type and has settings for 13 – 28 DIN and 16 – 500 ASA (new scale, the same as ISO).
Zenit E
Zenits came with a Helios-44 lens with a focal length of 58mm which is normal for 35 mm film (‘normal’ means it gives the same perspective as the human eye does). The Helios-44 lens is a copy of the Carl Zeiss Jena Biotor lens. This lens has an aperture range of f2 to f16 which is more than adequate for most situations. The aperture setting ring has click-stops and there is a second ring to close the aperture after focussing. – the lens does not stop down automatically when the shutter release is pressed, you have to do this manually after focussing and before touching the shutter release. This lens has an excellent reputation and is considered to be better than the Carl Zeiss Jena lens it copies – the Helios lens is multi-coated which the Biotar lens was not.
Focussing is from 0.5m to infinity. The fitting is the Pentacon M42 thread as was standard on Praktica and Pentax (and many other cameras) up to the advent of bayonet fittings in the 1970s. The focussing screen is plain ground glass with no micro-prism or split image focussing aids found on more expensive cameras. There is a printed depth of view scale on the lens barrel and a hyper-focal position marked which will give a focus range of 5m to infinity at f8.

There is an accessory shoe fitted on top of the pentaprism but it is not a “hot” shoe, flash connection being by way of a PC connector on the face of the camera.

Zenit E

Loading film is simple and easy. The back is hinged along one short side and the other short side is locked by a sliding catch. The rewind knob has to be pulled up to allow for the insertion of the film cassette and when pushed back in, locks the cassette in place. The film travels over the film plane, over two sprocket wheels and fits into a slot on the take up spool. Once the back is closed it is necessary to wind on two frames to place unfogged film behind the lens. At this point, you can set the film counter to zero.

Focussing is not as easy as with most manual SLRs of the period as the focussing screen is plain ground glass – no micro-prism, no split image – but it is certainly adequate.

The Helios-44 lens is very sharp and if stopped down to f8 the depth of field is more than capable of removing any defects in poor manual focusing.

When one is used to an automatic camera, it is easy to forget to manually stop down the lens before pressing the shutter release. To make focussing easier, the aperture ring has click stops at each f number but does not actually alter the aperture which remains wide open until the secondary aperture ring is turned after focussing. Once used to this camera, it becomes second nature and adds to the slowness of using this camera. I find that this slowing down to be useful as you are forced to be more considered in your actions and this leads to better pictures.

Zenit EZenit E

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