FED 3.5/50 out of register

[farlymac]

Ever see this before?

FED Lens Problem by P F McFarland, on Flickr

I first put it on my Zarya, then the FED 2D, then a Zorki-6, and each time it mounted the same. It's also out of whack with the rangefinders. The mount does not look like it has been tampered with in any way, as all the stampings look original, not like someone would have turned down the surface.

Any ideas? Is it salvageable?

PF

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Ideas? Yes, I have. Industar-10 is old lens. Like from those build with no standard early FEDs. Maybe each lens was matching each camera individually. So, you could do the same.
Rotate LTM mount on the camera. I've had Z4 once where lens would mount as shown. I took LTM mount off and turned it to make lens screw in and position properly.

 

[Highway 61]

Rotate LTM mount on the camera. I've had Z4 once where lens would mount as shown. I took LTM mount off and turned it to make lens screw in and position properly.

Yes, this is what has to be done. There are shims under the lens mount, don't forget to have them stay in place while you lift the lens mount and turn it by 90° CCW before screwing it back on the camera front plate.

 

[ForestCap]

I would put shim (stick some aluminum foil or paper ring) on the lens base (the place where touches the lens mount on the camera) to make the lens screw in less for a bit more than 90 degree.

I have a J-3 behaved worse (180 degree off), the DOF marks were on the wrong side and couldn't be seen unless holding the camera up side down. I put shim on the base as described above. it didn't focus well neither before nor after the modification so I had to re-shim the lens group as well. But now everything is fine.

If your FED 50/3.5 focuses well now it may focus well too after the base shimming after all it's not off by a lot and it's f/3.5 lens.

The "Rotate LTM mount" method sounds good but it doesn't work on some models, for instance, Zorki-1 (which I would exclusively use collapsible lens on).

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

If it's a 30's lens then I'd sell it as such and look for the right lens for the FED 2. There's a few collectors out there who would be interested...

The fact that it ends upside down suggests that to me and I've spendt a few minutes playing mix and match to check it using 30's and 50's bodies and lenses from FED.

Regards, David

 

[farlymac]

I came up with the same conclusion that it is from the time when the lens had to be matched to the body. I like the shim idea best, but since I have a multitude of FED 2's, I could always modify one of them. That is, if I could ever get one of them to work.

PF

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

I've been playing with several lenses from the 30's and bodies from the 50's and 60's and I now think that the pre-war ones all aligned the same way and the post-war ones differently. In other words two different standards suggested but I'm not entirely convinced as there's the FED and Zorki variations to take into account and I've not enough lens and camera bodies to play with.

The oddity is a 30's and 50's pair of bodies that don't differ when the lenses are swapped but one of the lenses (on the 50's body) has a 4 digit number suggesting it's very old and the - perhaps - 30's one has a 5 digit number suggesting it's newer but the 30's camera's 5 digit number is under a couple of thousand different suggesting it's contemporary. That assumes they made almost the same number of 50mm lenses as cameras in the 30's and only a few that were not 50mm.

Also, they are second-hand and people, the world over, do like playing mix and match to sell things. Or, even worse, they think they can repair them at home.

Regards, David

 

[wolves3012]

This is a fairly well-known issue with the FED 2 and the I-10 lens, exactly as you're finding. The mount on the FED 2 is slimmer than other models and the collapsible lenses often don't fit because the lock-pin fouls on the body. The I-10 lenses supplied with FED 2s had a thinner back part of the pin to allow mounting, so this lens isn't one of them! You can remove the lock pin or just get the correct type. FWIW, if the lens is a pre-war uncoated type is may well not focus properly on anything other than the camera it was supplied with.

 

[farlymac]

This is a fairly well-known issue with the FED 2 and the I-10 lens, exactly as you're finding. The mount on the FED 2 is slimmer than other models and the collapsible lenses often don't fit because the lock-pin fouls on the body. The I-10 lenses supplied with FED 2s had a thinner back part of the pin to allow mounting, so this lens isn't one of them! You can remove the lock pin or just get the correct type. FWIW, if the lens is a pre-war uncoated type is may well not focus properly on anything other than the camera it was supplied with.

It's not dragging on the body as you suggest, but is out of register by 90 degrees. That's why I bought the lens, because my I-22 does hang up on the body. I knew about the pre-war bodies being matched to their lenses, but wasn't aware of the register issue. Just kind of caught me by surprise.

PF

 

[David Hughes]

I've often wondered if that was the case as FED didn't start work until long after Leitz had standardised the mounts. I doubt if we'll ever know for certain but one of my FED f/2's works well wide open on the M9 at one metre.

And thinking about it, I'll now have to try all the low numbered and pre-war ones wide open at 1 metre...

Regards, David

 

[farlymac]

Just one little problem with the rotating of the thread mount. I'll have to cut a shoulder in it to match the one already there for clearance of the top cover where it overlaps right under the logo. It may be a while before I get back to it.

PF