FED S Resurrected

[Frontman]

I bought this FED S off the big auction site a year or so ago. The seller stated that it was non-working, and his description was accurate. When I received the camera, I found all the controls to be slow-moving, or simply stuck, including the focusing helicoid on the lens. The old grease and oil had solidified into glue, making the camera unuseable. With a bit of work, I got thr camera to more or less function, but I was unhappy with how rough it was.

A couple of months ago I decided to send it off to Oleg for a CLA, and the camera finally came back to me today. Oleg did a fantastic job on the camera. Every bit of old dirt, grime, and dried grease was cleaned out, and the camera now works beautifully. The winding knob now turns smoothly, as smoothly as any of my Barnack Leicas, and the shutter itself is the quietest of any of them. The viewfinder is spotless, and the rangefinder is nice and bright, and has great contrast.

This is the second camera which Oleg has serviced for me, and it is the second time he has worked a miracle. The last one I sent was a Contax II, which he did a wonderful job on. I can't say enough about how happy I am with these cameras, and you simply can't beat the price.


I'll get out and shoot with the camera this week and see how it does.

 

[bgb]

Sure is pretty 😀

Does it have anything interesting engraved on it?

Bugger I can feel a GAS attack coming!

 

[johannielscom]

That is the cleanest FED 2.0/50mm I have seen so far!

It's a Summar clone, although the tube is slightly longer and it will likely have slightly different optical dimensions to compensate for that. I shot a FED 2.0/50mm and a Summar side by side when I still had my M8 and could not tell any difference.

Make sure you put a pretty large hood on it to retain contrast, and then the results will likely baffle you!

Happy shooting.