москва 5

A while ago I posted that I received a Москва 5 as a gift with along with a Fed 1 and Fed 2 cameras.

 

Well, the Fed 1 has some light leaks and the Fed 2 has pinholes in the shutter, but they look cool.

 

The Москва 5 though seems to work, though the rangefinder will not indicate focus at infinity and is a little mis-aligned everywhere else.

 

Below is a photo of the camera and I'll post a sample test photo from the camera in the next couple posts.<div></div>

Here is the test photo. I chose this as focus would be correct somewhere in this photograph. It was handheld at 1/250th sec.<div></div>

And here is a 50% crop. It's been sharpened, but it's not so sharp:(.

 

So does anyone know how to adjust the rangefinder to make it more useful? And is this typically as sharp is the camera is

capable of?<div></div>

All things considered... it's pretty sharp. The cropped photo is a little harder to establish what is enhancement and what was the base sharpness. It's quite OK! Seems to be a very usable example, I hope the Feds seal up nicely!

What aperture did you use, what shutter speed, and did you use a tripod? Also, what is the focal length of that lens? Cable release?

 

I've heard this cameras can render great results. From your pictures, the colors are beautiful, but there may be a hint of camera shake (very very slight). It doesn't look like simple lack of sharpness. If I recall, it's a Tessar type lens. There's some depth of field here,and a Tessar is not known for sharpness below f/5.6.

On second thought, was it windy? The bush trunks look sharp to me... the grass not as much.

I had one of these for awhile. The lens was pretty good. I had a hard time with the squinty little viewfinder, though.

<P>I have a Moskva-5 and your posted result looks typical. I find the sharpness is not good at the corners. It could be lens quality, it could be film flatness, it could be the front lens standard not aligning quite correctly.</P>

<P>I don't have the camera with me right now but as I recall it's a 10.5 cm focal length. There is a 6x6 mask available which improves matters as it effectively masks off those corners.</P>

I think you did pretty well in your first shots with that interesting camera. Shooting a 105mm lens with

any camera requires some care and attention to dof and stability. With 6x9 there is little penalty to be

paid for using a good, fast film and a lot to be gained in the sharpness from higher speeds and smaller

apertures. Also, even if the top speed of 250 is accurate, that is kind of borderline for hand-holding with

all that lens hanging out, and the real speed might be as low as half that.

Another problem is the position of the shutter button. Not many cameras are set up for left handed shooting.

 

I would mount the camera on a tripod. I would then take pictures of objects at a known distance like 10', 20', and 50'. Then try to find a distinct object several miles away to test for infinity.

There could be some camera shake involved here as I didn't have an adapter to fit the tripod into the large screw size on the

camera. If anyone knows what kind of adapter to get please let me know. As mentioned above the shot was made at 1/250th

sec hand held. I guess that is not so fast for handholding but it's the maximum the shutter will do. It's too bad because the

folding feature means one might take it along when not bringing very much equipment, such as a tripod.

 

The front standard clicks in pretty well but it's not a very precision instrument in this regard. That's why I shot this scene as

something would be in focus for sure! My 50% crop is from the sharpest part of the image. The focus did not really carry to

infinity even though I'm focused between 15 meters and infinity I think and shooting at a small aperture like f/11. There's kind of a

weird bokeh to this lens and I'm not sure if that has to do with focusing using the front element of the lens only instead of moving

the entire lens to and from the film plane?

 

And again, if anyone has any experience adjusting/aligning the rangefinder, tips and hints, or even instructions are welcome.

 

Thanks!

Here's a link to a site which has some info on adjusting the lens and rangefinder. The english is a bit difficult, but a hang of a lot better than my russian.

Good Luck

Greg

 

http://www.dvdtechcameras.com/info/1.htm

спасибо (thanks) Greg.

 

It sure reads like Russian to me though :) "Yes, by the way, never assort the block (7) with its lenses without need" I wonder what

"assort" means... I can see this will be a project!

 

спасибо вас за все (thanks for everything, If I remember correctly) :)

Ah, you remember more Russian than I do! :)

 

But please, in future, to leave out articles. "I can see this will be a project!" should read "I can see this will be project!"

 

But seriously folks: I got a few folders in rapid succession last year and two or three of them had "frozen" front focus mechanisms due to thickened dried-up grease.

 

In case it's not clear, the front focus set-up usually consists of two elements, one of which moves. So, one element screws into the front of the shutter, the other screws onto that. Only that second one is supposed to revolve as you focus the lens. If they're fused together, and only rotate together, your focus is going to be very frequently very weird.

 

One of my folders had these two frozen together so badly that I had to soak the assembly two nights running. The first night I soaked in 3-in-1 oil; the second night in Ronsonol lighter fluid. I used an old glass jar as the container both times. It wasn't anywhere near full and I made sure to put it where sunlight wouldn't hit it. I had no problems with it exploding or anything.

 

I mention this here because in the above-posted link he mentions using gasoline as a solvent for this -- I wouldn't, for what I hope are obvious reasons. Ronsonol is bad enough -- very flammable.

 

Once the two unlocked, I cleaned them well, then took the rear part and screwed it into the shutter finger tight (with as much force as I felt would be safe for the shutter). Screwing the second element on required trial and error because if you don't start the thing at just the right point (threads start to mate at about 3-4 different points in the circumference of the elements), you'll never get correct focus.

 

Checking at infinity helps with this -- and when it's right, it's pretty obvious. If at first you fail, then it'll be *really* obvious when you get it right!

 

Good luck, and let us know how it all goes!

I got out my "spare" lens assy and had a look at it while reading the instructions again.

 

I think the gist of what he's saying is, when you loosen the screws in the focus wheel and pull it forward and turn,

only the rangefinder lenses should move and not the main lens element. Look through the rangefinder and move the

wheel until the images line up. This of course assumes that the infinity focus of the lens is set correctly.

 

The assortment of block seven. The rangefinder standard has 2 lenses (wedge prisms) that contra rotate to move the

image. I think, the "assortment" means don't adjust the rangefinder prisms in relation to each other. Its tricky to get

them right.

 

Good luck with your repairs.

 

Cheers

 

Greg