FED 5b

[Wovoka]

Hello, Rangefinder folks, I just joined up (sorry 'bout being a latecomer), having been a looong-time ex-camera collector but with gigabytes of camera-related info remaining up my organic hard drive...
So about 8 years ago, during a for the most part boring tour or Serbia, Romania & Bulgaria, I was wandering thru an open-air flea market and came upon this Fed camera. Was already familiar with these pieces and knew they went cheap (still do!) - but had never seen a green one.
I've had this FED packed away with other leftovers from my camera collecting days (I'm now into mid-19th century images such as daguerreotypes), and am still curious as to whether this might be a Russian military version?

 

[santino]

I highly doubt that. Nontheless it has an interesting combination of colors. The leatherette seems to be real, the green color rather not.
You could contact Vlad Kern from ussrphoto.com - he knows things soviet!

 

[ddutchison2]

It's been painted (rather well) over top of silver chrome, so this was done after it was made. Had it been a factory paint job, the paint would have been applied on the bare metal and most certainly this would have been the case if it was a government contract camera, there'd be no need for redundant and relatively expensive chrome plating,. Russians techs liked dolling up their export cameras - DVD-Technik was the Shueido of Russian cameras - it might be one of theirs

 

[Wovoka]

You folks are almost certainly correct that it's not anything "military." Poor thing has been languishing at the bottom of one of my photographica boxes for years, and i think I'll purchase a cheap Industar (?) lens for it and bring it to my local camera club meeting to show around.
Had forgotten about FED's origins in Ukraine: that fack will interest them if the camera doesn't!