"Best" FSU camera (rangefinder or SLR)

[oftheherd]

So much love for the Fed 2 in this thread!

Expect eBay prices to skyrocket! 😀

You can bet on it! A cinch bet.

 

[oftheherd]

Only have or ever had two. A Kiev 4am and a Moskva 5. Both do what they are supposed to do. I just can't get to love them however. In 35mm I still prefer an SLR, and in MF, my Super Press 23.

 

[David Hughes]

Anything that's been checked and worked on, if need be by Oleg, and has a Jupiter 8 on it... But really there's no answer to it. I like whatever I'm using at the time.

Regards, David

 

[p.giannakis]

As stated, it's highly subjective but I don't think there's a "best". What do you want? Simplest (for reliability)? Possibly FED/Zorki 1. FED 2 is loved by most for reliability but the day you need a half-second exposure it's no good. Best RF? That'll be a Kiev but they're complex and a pain to fix if they break. Bright VF needed for low light? Zorkis generally beat FEDs in that respect, especially the 3-6. Need a light meter built in? FED 4 or 5C or the Kiev 4/4M.

In SLRs, the Zenit/C are tiny and neat and gorgeous - but the non-return mirror and less-common 39mm mount are downsides. The Zenit E is possibly "best" since it has the very-common 42mm, instant-return mirror and a light meter.

I need to make some hard choices shortly, since I'll be pruning my collection down in the near future. Every time I try and think which few I'll keep, I can't decide!

Are the Kievs going to survive the pruning?

 

[Moto-Uno]

Lovely as the dinky little 35's are ,you're gonna have to reconsider best
after you glimpse a 6x9 negative or tranny from a Mockva-5!

Regards Peter

 

[robin a]

Fed 2 ..........for all the above reasons

Robin

 

[wolves3012]

Are the Kievs going to survive the pruning?

Definite keepers are the Kievs and one Zenit C and the E. The Kiev 4 was my fathers so it'll never go, the 4A is just too nice. The Leica IIIC stays too, as does the Yashica (another family heirloom). After that it's all up in the air. I may keep the Zorki 3M too, or the FED 2, we'll see! Decisions, decisions...

 

[Dez]

I think I'll have to go with the Kiev 2, the older the better, and mostly the ones without flash sync. They were beautifully made, the equal of the prewar Contaxes, and the early ones had better chrome than their German ancestors. The lenses also tend to focus properly, which often cannot be said for their screwmount counterparts. Sadly as the years went by, the build quality went steadily downward until the last ones were usually pretty miserable.

If you want to go with a screwmount camera, I'll agree with the majority here- the FED 2 is a really nice camera, with a great rangefinder, a wide range of eyesight compensation, and it just looks cool!

How about the Zorki 3? I like it a lot better than the 3M, as I think the slow speed mechanism in the 3M and later cameras is a bit flimsy and hard to fix, whereas the Leica-copy mechanism in the original Zorki 3 is pretty solid, and you can pop it out, clean and oil it, and put it back in 20 minutes, easily.

But I agree that the best advice of all is to go with the one that happens to be working. With these three, your odds of that are pretty good.

Cheers,
Dez

 

[Livesteamer]

Another vote for Fed 2. In the early 80's, my brother came back from a trip to Moscow and handed me a Fed 2 with an Industar 22 lens. I gotten alot more FSU cameras since then but that old Fed 2 is still my favorite. Joe

 

[rxmd]

Definite keepers are the Kievs and one Zenit C and the E. The Kiev 4 was my fathers so it'll never go, the 4A is just too nice. The Leica IIIC stays too, as does the Yashica (another family heirloom). After that it's all up in the air. I may keep the Zorki 3M too, or the FED 2, we'll see! Decisions, decisions...

Dibs on the FED-NKVD 😀 But it sure looks like a hard decision.

 

[wolves3012]

Dibs on the FED-NKVD 😀 But it sure looks like a hard decision.

I'll bear it in mind! Yes, a tough one. The NKVD needs some minor re-shimming, the lens is slightly off focus but the camera has been re-curtained, fully CLAd and has a new half-mirror. Not an easy one to part with...

 

[p.giannakis]

I haven't used many Russian cameras but my Zenit 12 XP has been a trusty companion and actually I have taken some of my favourite pictures with it.

Another one I have is the FED-3b which commemorates 50 years of the revolution. I haven't used this camera as much as i would like to, only a couple of films.

 

[besk]

I have a Zorki 4 and an Iskra and had a Fed 2. Liked the Fed 2 best to handle but the shutter needed repair and I sold it.

Edit: Also have a Zenit E with Helios 44-2 I was given this summer. But still the Fed 2 was the nicest.

 

[Kent]

I just got a Zorki-4 (with a Jupiter-3) and, gentlemen, it's a much better camera than my FED-3b.
The viewfinder of the Zorki-4 is seriously good. And it feels ever so solid.

 

[Dez]

Leningrad: Looks funny, works great!

Leningrad: Looks funny, works great!

How about the Leningrad camera? It's a bit clunky, considerably larger than other FSU screwmount cameras, but has several unique features. The most obvious is the spring-wound motor drive, which will advance the film as fast as you can push the shutter button. The finder in this camera is larger and brighter than that in the Zorki 4, and is a split-image type rather than a coincident image design. The finder has frames for 50, 85, and 135 lenses, with the full frame just about right for 35mm. The frames move for automatic parallax correction. I don't know if any other FSU cameras have this excellent finder.

There were some versions that included a sequence feature with adjustable rate, but I have never encountered one of these, and they must be worth a pile.

There is a good description of this camera on Aidas Pikiotas' excellent site, which covers more FSU cameras than I knew existed.

http://www.sovietcams.com/index.php?-398124798

These cameras are rather scarce, and I guess the motor drive is a bit hard on the shutter mechanism, so you sometimes find them needing service, but it is quite an interesting camera, and very usable.

Cheers,
Dez

 

[caila77]

tottally agree

tottally agree

Totally agree!!!😀

Lovely as the dinky little 35's are ,you're gonna have to reconsider best
after you glimpse a 6x9 negative or tranny from a Mockva-5!

Regards Peter

 

[Pegaz]

I have Zorki 3M, which is a beautiful and very rare camera.
However, my two Fed 2 (B4 and D6) I love the most and only I found it difficult to decide whether its better:

 

[David Hughes]

I have Zorki 3M, which is a beautiful and very rare camera.
However, my two Fed 2 (B4 and D6) I love the most and ...

I'm sorry no one welcomed you aboard, but hope this late entry will make up for it.

Regards, David

 

[Pegaz]

Thanks, David. 🙂

 

[Tessar.]

A black Zenit B I bought from a french ebay seller is my favourite.

I would have said the Fed 2, but when mine arrived from the Ukraine it was a mechanical disaster (easily the best looking though!)

Or how about the Moskva Super Ikonta copy with that big 6x9 neg?