Fed 3B

I'm really happy today :)

 

My father used to own a certain camera I played with 20 years ago, long before I was even

interested into photography. That thing eventually got sold in a garage sale, I suppose.

 

Much later after I developped a passion for photography I told myself I have to get one just

like that one, mostly because it's fun to retrieve and old object. Unfortunately, my father

had no clue about what brand it was (he never quite used it) and I only remembered sparse

details about it, such as the distinctive dual superimposed pyram-like dials on the top and

the rounded left and right ends.

 

I planned to devote a lot of time in the future to a systematic search for it until yesterday

when browsing through ebay I found a picture and there it was: a Fed 3B :) and everything

came back to me, I remember now every single detail. A lot of fun.

 

Anyhow, I got one which should arrive next week or so. I'd like to know if anyone here has

an experience with this machine. I remember it was heavy and very sturdy, solidly built.

Any warnings I should know about it?

 

Most importantly: how do you call the lens mount? Any chance I can find other lenses

around?

 

 

http://www.kensmithart.com/fed-3b-1.htm

The lens mount is a standard Leica lens screw mount and there are many available including Russian lenses. There are some Leica lenses which will not work with it, but most will. I leave it to someone with more expertise to respond with details. I have a 35mm, several 50mm's, an 85mm, and a 135mm, all of which are quite good for my purposes. (I enlarge to about 8x10, cropped. I don't test my lenses by taking pictures of lens charts.) I own a number of Russian and Ukranian cameras, including several Fed 2's which I like very much. My experience has been good, but many will tell you that the quality of the cameras is extremely variable. There are a great number of articles on the web concerning the history of these cameras. I hope you enjoy yours as I have mine.

"...My experience has been good, but many will tell you that the quality of the cameras is extremely variable..."

 

Like any other piece of equipment.

Well, I never liked the rewind button being a collar around the shutter release and have had problems rewinding film with similarly designed Russian cameras like the Feds and the Zenits. Based on my experience the Zorki 6 is the best of the Russian designed rangefinders because of the hinged opening back and a rewind button that is independent of the shutter release.

 

The Zorki 6 also has a nice diopter built into the camera near the rewind knob. I find focusing it is much easier than the Fed cameras and it seems to be a bit lighter, although it may be my imagination.

 

The lens that came with a Fed camera I have and don't use anymore is now on the Zorki and is really a gem. My experience with Russian equipment is that of taking the M39 and M42 mount lenses off and using them on other cameras, because in general, the optics have been better than average, while the cameras aren't so great.

 

Every Leica screwmount lens made in the former USSR has probably been sold on ebay at least twice :).

I have a Fed 3... the later model with lever wind, I guess that's the one you're referring to:

<br>

<img src="http://rick_oleson.tripod.com/cam9.jpg">

<br><br>

Mine had a kind of rough shutter release, which I fixed (can't recall the cause at the moment), and it seems to bleed a little light around the edges of the shutter curtains occasionally. I like the lever wind, and the viewfinder optics are better than those in the Zorki 4, which has probably been my best Russian model in overall performance. The sharp-edged metal eyepiece is very hard on eyeglass lenses though.

<br><br>

Any Leica thread lens will fit, though some of the Leica telephotos have a partial RF cam on them that can hang up on the RF follower in the camera as you try to scrwe the lens on. The Russian lenses are quite good, if you manage to get one that hasn't been tinkered with and its RF adjustment screwed up. My favorites are the 85/2.0 Jupiter-9 and, oddly, the 50/3.5 Industar which gives a slightly soft but not unsharp rendering that I really like. Wide angles in Leica mount tend to be hard to find and expensive from Germany or Japan, but the 35/2.8 Jupiter-12 is an excellent lens and easy to find for a good price.

<br><br>

The Russian lenses are mostly clones (as opposed to copies) of Carl Zeiss Jena lenses, with their manufacture set up in the Soviet Union with Zeiss assistance as war reparations after WWII; with the usual caveats for Soviet quality control, they can be surprisingly good.

<br><br>

<a href="http://rick_oleson.tripod.com">rick :)=</a>

Just out of interest; what's the difference between a 'clone' and a 'copy'. Also, many people, here and elsewhere, say that Russian lenses are good. Does this mean they are good value for their small cost? Or would they stand comparison with some of the Japanese lenses. For example I use 20 year old Zuiko primes. Would I be disappointed with the better Russian lenses? I know this is somebody else's thread, I'm just interested.

The difference, in my meaning, is that the Russian Zeiss copies were actually set up with the cooperation of Zeiss, as opposed to being copied from them by someone else. More analogous to the Planars being made in Singapore or by Rollei or whatever, as opposed to, say, a Nikkor or Serenar lens that might have been generally based on a Zeiss or Leitz formula.

 

The Russian lenses are good for the money, and out of proportion to the cost, unless you get one with a quality problem (in my experience, the quality problems have not been optical but may involve rangefinder cams out of register.... and even in these cases, I suspect a poor repair/service job rather than the factory. Things like bayonet mounts and aperture rings may not be as smooth as in German lenses).

 

I would not, however, expect one to stand comparison to a 20 year old Zuiko or Nikkor. These are Zeiss formulas, but they are 70-year-old Zeiss formulas. They generally stand comparison to the Zeiss originals, which were the best lenses in the world before WWII, pretty well, plus they have the advantage of good quality antireflective coating which the prewar originals didn't generally have. Lens design continued to improve after the war in West Germany and Japan, and a sharp Sonnar from 1960 is a superior lens to a sharp Sonnar from 1940 or an equivalent Jupiter-8.

 

:)=

Frankly, the good thing about these CCCP cameras are that they are fixable. I have never had one CCCP camera that I could not adjust or fix - lasting for ever. They are not only fixable but once you fix them they perform excellent.