antonio_shalders

Hi!

Just forget the twain driver from Minolta. Use VUESCAN, the difference is quite amazing.

I had 2 Yashica Lynx 5000E. Great lens, extremely sharp, but the diaphragm blades always break. Otherwise is a nice camera. I don't like the Rollei's lighmeter system, it's always with some kind of unreliable behaviour. I sold my 35LED and 35TE, but my 35S.

Hi,

I have several russian rf cameras, including Fed-2 and Zorki-3M. The camera bodies are nice and the FED-2 is by far the best FED ever. It's extremely reliable and confortable to use. The long base rangefinder works well and the camera is well balanced. The Zorki-3M is also the best camera of the Zorki family, more solid and better build than the most recent ones. The Zorki-3 slow speed mechanism is problematic, as it can be easily broken if not used correctly, but it was redesigned in the 3M model. Remember that the FED-2 doesn't have slow speeds...

 

The lenses are very good in general IF THEY WEREN'T OPENED, LUBED AND SERVICED BY AMATEURS. It's easy to ruin a lens that way, and believe me, 90% of the lenses sold at e-bay were serviced by amateurs. I have several russian lenses in perfect working order and giving me excellent pictures. The main problem is not quality control, but curious repairmen !

 

Go ahead, buy one, they are cheap and can give you a lot of fun for the money.

I agree 100% with Kelly. Some months ago I had in hands two Industar-50, one stiff and the other very clean an d well lubed. The images from the stiff one were far better.

Fed´s model I and Zorki´s models I and II are "close" Leica copies and, believe, they are not bad as some people said. Leica´s finishing, rangefinder and materials are better, but Ruskies provides a very good return for the money. Lenses are good if they weren´t opened or serviced by curious. That´s the most efficient way to ruin a lens. My prefered cameras are the FED-2, incredibly smooth, nice viewfinder, but doesn´t have the slow speeds. FED-3 is a nice camera too, but it´s bulky (and have slow speeds). Zorki-3M is the most interesting for me.

Regarding your original question, yes they pack a lot of fun for the money, but be aware that some german and japanese optics have a different lens to film plane registering distance, but if you aren´t using a very wide aperture like 2.0 or even 1.5m this will not cause you much trouble. In my experience, it´s best to use russian lenses in russian bodies due this problem. When looking for a lens, always try to verify if it was serviced or lubed by amateurs or just look if they still have the factory adjust seals (red resin dots over the nuts and bolts). Have fun !

Continued... If a lens is disassembled, you MUST have all the technical specs and professional equipment like a autocollimator rot proper lens alignment and adust. Maybe 50% of the Russian lenses weren't well collimated at factory, but believe me, almost all russian lenses you see at ebay were opened, cleaned (god knows how) and reassembled without any care. If you do the same with a Summicron, it will turn crap too ! Another very common problem is the RF cam in the Zorkis and Feds. It can be easily bent and loose its calibration. The best to do in my opinion is to use the RF to set a reasonably accurate distance and rely in the depth of field of the objective. If you really want to do close focus pictures, go to a reflex camera. RFs aren't the best choice in this case.

Hello,

I think that comparing J-8 with summicrons and such lenses is unfair. Summicrons are top lenses from Leica and suposed to be one of the very best of the world. J8's are cheap mass production lenses.

Several J8s passed trhu my hands and today I keep one, #012991 and it's extremely sharp. The problem is that 99% of the russian lenses you find 2nd hand were uncorrectly CLA... It's very easy to ruin a lens if you don't have the factory service manual and correct instruments. Lens elements distance tolerance is extremely critical, even more in the Sonnar design. I have also some I-61L/D, J-12 and MR-2 that works great, never opened, still with factory seals.

If you want a fully manual camera, the Rollei-35S that rocks a superb 40/2.8 Sonnar. If your choice is an autofocus camera, I do recommend the fantastic Minolta TC-1 (aperture priority,spot meter). Both are razor sharp and I have no complains. The TC-1 is the smallest 35mm camera and its lens is a G-Rokkor 28mm/3.5 Aspherical.