Mir & Industar 50

<p>Bought this Mir on Ebay for about $9; the lens Industar 50, f/3.5 is one of the 12 junk lenses I bought for about $2 each. The lens was full of muck mis-aligned adorned with creeping fungus. Had to do a complete disassembly and CLA; re-aligned it by trial and error to get it to focus to Infinity.<br /><br />The Mir body was said to be working. Only the Range finder was functional. All others were out of kilter. Took me 3 days to clean. The timings were still off the mark. Opened up and found that some one had tried to add more speeds by cutting grooves in the speed selector’s brass wheel. They had also set the dial to refer those grooves. Cleaned and greased this and reset the dial alignment.<br /><br />The curtains springs were wound up really taught. After some flush cleaning with petrol [gas] and lubrication I reduced the tension. It worked better until I closed the bottom. Found that the shutter damper at the bottom was rubbing against the cover plate. This seems a common occurrence with old Zorkis and Mirs; because some previous owner or seller has lost the spacer [usually made of brass] that keeps the cover plate away from the damper. The clearance is only about 1mm. I cut out a new spacer from a plastic tube and set the tolerance to level. Everything started working. It took a couple of days of dry runs for the curtain springs to ease up. They may not have been used for long years.<br /><br />I made some test shots this morning and evening. <br /><br /></p><div></div>

<p>Mir is basically a Zorki 4 without the slower speeds. It has 1/30 to 1/500 sec plus B. A fair equivalent of Fed 2. It also has a timer delay; but I don’t use it ever.</p><div></div>

<p>Maizenberg appreciates this camera as a more reliable one than the Zorki 4. He observes that the Zorki 4 devalops problems with its slow speeds; those are absent in this.</p><div></div>

<p>They are using a part of the flood plain as dump yard. The waste plastic items are recycled from here in combination with bitumen and aggregate to make road surface material.</p><div></div>

<p>Storage space is lacking in most stores; for long years they stored little and sold most items on a day to day basis in a small scale. Recent boom has expanded retail items and stocks.</p><div></div>

<p>Large scale dairying is by farmer's cooperatives, mainly. They are also into food processing recently.</p><div></div>

<p>This year end has been cool with the temperature at night in the 40s Fahrenheit. That is unusual for Southern India except in the Mountains. So it is a cool Sun during the day!</p>

<p>Try again!</p><div></div>

<p>Some concerns of health affected by the microwaves of the cell phone relay towers are being explored now. The telecom authorities are beginning to monitor the radiation from these towers.</p><div></div>

<p>Chaat masala, samosas and Pani pooris are common. Check with Google for recipes! you can make them at home.</p><div></div>

<p>Most customers are people on their way home fromwork, evening workers taking a break and teenagers.</p><div></div>

<p>This camera and lens are supposed to be "ordinary," [even in the Soviet days! I think they perform well. <br>

<em>[i used the usual ORWO UN54 100ASA film and my home brew. A chemistry teacher helped me reduce the Ph value of my home brew to some where around 8plus. My brew is derived from X-Ray chemicals so the ph Value would have been around 11plus. I added Boric acid to reduce the Ph value and developed for 20 minutes. I use 3% salt water as the base for the working solution.] </em><br>

Thanks for viewing and your comments. Regards, sp.</p>

 

Great "rescue" and great shots. My favorite is the Pepsi Corner. Thanks for posting.

<p>Fantastic.</p>

<p>I've never seen the Mir in person, but it works really well in your hands.</p>

<p>Much as I appreciate the white Christmas we've had here, the wonderful tropical light in your shots warms my bones very nicely, thank you. Your shots (especially no. 1 here) always remind me of the light in Cezanne's summer <em>Bord d'une Route</em> ( <a href="http://www.abcgallery.com/C/cezanne/cezanne105.html">Cezanne</a> ) :)</p>

<p>I've got a small form, black Industar 50-2 f/3.5 in M42x1 mount on one of my oldest Prakticas (A Hummel model 082 with a post-production flash sync added). I'll move it to one of my FXs after I find a nice old Tessar of the same form. It's a very nice lens, I think.</p>

<p>Fantastic story Subbarayan,<br /> I love my Mir. Actually if you look closely on the limb of the shutter speed you may notice an unmarked dot, located past 1/500 speed. It supposed to correspond to 1/1000 but since it was not calibrated or verified by the manufacturer never claimed that "cryptic" shutter speed existence. However it is still there. Those rigid Industars-50 actually are quite sharp lenses indeed. I tested mine on Panasonic G10. Every I-50 I tested bits Lumix 14-42 kit lenses.</p>

Subbarayan,

 

I very much enjoy seeing your town in your photos, along with your narration. Where are these taken?

 

Thanks,

Martin

<p>Thank you <strong>Mike</strong>; the evening Sun really helped set it up. Yes <strong>JDM</strong>, I have heard a lot about the old Tessar 50mm f/3.5. Would love to see a comparison with the Industar 50 of the same specification. Thanks <strong>KP</strong>; yes I noticed the 1/1000 sec dot on the dial. I opened up, looked inside and found a notch in the Brass timing wheel for the same. But it was not fully finished. The setting would not open the curtain slit but would move both edges together. I could try and work on it to create a delay for the second curtain. But I don’t need the 1/1000 sec. So I shall leave it as is. Thanks <strong>Martin</strong>; I live in Bangalore, in Southwestern suburb called Ideal Homes. The pictures are from around the neighborhood. sp.</p>

<p>Hmmmm samosas,<br>

My mother and sister cooked up a lot of these to sell for charity this last year. I think we did eat into the profits a bit.</p>

<p>Great job on the recovery SP. Excellent results.<br>

Do the groves cut into the speed selector still affect the shutter speeds in any way after your repair?</p>

<p>I still need to take apart my Zorki C, the shutter has developed a hang-up at release. I press down on the release button and it does nothing until I remove my finger...grrr.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Thanks <strong>Rick</strong>; after I cleaned up and reset the dial it falls correctly into the regular slots. One has to make en effort to force it into the wrongly cut slots. So it is satisfactory, now. I had a similar problem with the shutter button. Opened it and cleaned. It is smoother now. Some of these very old ones also have worn out parts and often are misaligned due to that. Good luck with your Zorki C; it is a cute lovable camera. I really like the size and configuration despite the separation of the RF and VF. sp.</p>

<p>Excellent, as usual, SP. The Mir in practically unknown in this part of the world, and it's great to see another of your resurrections. I must keep an eye open for a decent Industar 50.Interesting to see the evolution of your society, and I'm pleased to see that your culinary tradition is still going strong. I'm very fond of samosas, and use a variety of masala mixtures in my own cooking. Thanks for an appertising post!</p>

<p>Well, well..., <strong>Rick</strong>!some day I hope to land in New Zealand and drop by your place! And we should arrange a cook out and beer fest! Thank you, regards, sp.</p>

<p>I believe the Mir, unlike my FED 2 and 4, will take the 35mm Jupiter 12 screw lens so that is an advantage of it.</p>

<p>A good varity of pics and interesting story SP, thanks for posting.</p>

<p>Uneven exposure left to right in garbage sorting yard photo (sky).</p>

<p>Lovely photos as always SP. My favorite is also #8, Pepsi Corner. Very dramatic pose by the boy, you're left wondering what was about to happen. I have a little collection now of Russian cameras, a Fed 2 (took some work!) and twin 5Bs (just cleaned). But I don't have enough lenses, and the cost of shipping those makes it uneconomical to buy them from Russia one at a time. I use an Industar-69 (from the Chaika half-frame) as a wide angle, I like the 'fish-eye' effect from the too-small coverage, and stopped down I can get it to focus well.</p>

<p>Now I have to go find some Samosas. I probably ate hundreds at Uni, every day I was late and didn't have time to make my lunch, I would stop at one of the tables set up on campus and buy 3 for $2, out of a cardboard box. I never got tired of eating those. But I can't find them pre-made in grocery stores here... well they do have some boxes imported from India, but they're too spicy for me and I can't eat them!</p>

<p>Wonderful series, and an impressive recovery of a camera and lens. The I-50 is doing its job. A very sharp Elmar-Tessar design, ideal bottom feeder stuff.<br>

I wonder, some of these have a bit of flare or may it be a light leak, or uneven development? ("Evening snack"). Maybe it's just the light or my monitor is dirty. :-)</p>