Fed Stereo?

To take stereo photos. Two photos taken at the same moment but seperated about 6.5cm apart can create a 3D image when placed in a stereo viewer. Would love to own one, either this FED or another brand. They usually don't go for cheap, though.
 
I've seen some stereo paris done with Sputnik (two 6x6 Lubitel's coupled). Fairly impressive, even on that ancient Orwochrom.
 
Stereo Cameras

Stereo Cameras

I am an avid stereographer. I have the Fed camera pictured above. I takes pretty decent stereo pictures but it doesn't have a rangefinder. The build quality is not up to the standards of an older Zorki or Kiev; it's more like a late model Fed.
Also, the shutter is not adjustable.

Ironically, the best stereo cameras were made in the USA; they have wide, accurate rangefinders, excellent build quality, cast aluminum chassis with real leather exterior. The cameras are the Revere-Wollensak Stereo & the Stereo Realist. Both cameras were offered with 3 element cooke lenses or 4 element tessars.

Stereo cameras use regular 35mm slide film and stereo viewers & stereo mounts are easily available.
 
At risk of being wildly off topic in only my second post...

Stereo cameras seem to have undergone a little bit of a boom in the 1950s. There is a gentleman on ebay every now and then trying to sell a bracket to fix two Werra cameras together, presumably for taking stereo pairs (and I'm afraid that the Werra is as close to Russian as this post will go). Edixa in Germany built a stereo camera in the 1950s - I have seen one in the flesh, and I believe it had Tessar lenses and Compur shutters so a reasonably good quality item - as did Coronet in England. The Coronet was not so serious - it was a simple bakelite camera using 127 rollfilm. The main attraction today is that some of them were made in fun multi-coloured or swirly-patterned Bakelite.

I have also seen a home-made stereo camera made from two SLRs on a bracket, but I didn't get close enough to chat and find out more.

The heyday of steroscopic photography was the Victorian era of course, when stereo pairs were churned out and sold by the million. Quelle surprise, the French were selling hand-tinted stereo pairs of nudes by about 1850.

Would you like me to go away and let you get back to Russian kit? 😀

Adrian
 
Muggins said:
Would you like me to go away and let you get back to Russian kit? 😀

Actually, I find it all interesting. I still have a CV 15mm lens and a Zero Image 135 on my wishlist but a stereo camera is right up there in the top 5 or so.
 
There was an East German stereo camera made by Belca called the Belplasca which had twin 40mm tessars. It was a scale focusing, not rangefinder camera. It is a fine stereo camera, somewhat expensive due to it's rarity. I have one.

I also have a bracket on which I can mount 2 identical cameras and fire them simultaneously with a twin cable release. The only reasons to do this instead of a regular stereo camera is to vary the stereo base (distance between lenses) and if you have interchangeable lenses, you can try stereo with wide angle or telephoto lenses. This setup is very heavy and I rarely use it.

My preference is a stereo camera I can take everywhere with me; I always have one loaded in my car.

Incidentally, the Fed stereo camera and the above mentioned Belplasca both use a rectangular format. Unfortunately the Fed chooses the shutter speed for you as you pick the aperture. The Belplasca is totally manual, and has the better lenses. I prefer choosing my own shutter & apertures.

There's another Russian stereo camera called the Sputnik (I have that too) which uses 120 film. It has decent triplet lenses but is almost always afflicted with light leaks & internal flare.

In my opinion, if you really want to get into stereo photography, the best stereo cameras are a well-tuned Revere, Stereo Realist or Kodak Stereo; they are cheap to buy and because they were the most popular, many were made making spare parts easy to find; if you can get one, a well-tuned Belplasca is also worthwhile.

I have owned or used nearly every stereo camera made in the 1950's.
 
Don't forget the Three D Corporation ... or TDC. It was some sort of joint venture with Bell & Howell. I have the Stereo Vivid which has a rangefinder. A friend has the model without a rangefinder the Stereo Colorist ... for some reason the Colorist comes with Rodenstock lenses. I would have thought that they would put the better lenses on the upscale model ... The Vivid 😀

Here are a couple of shots of mine. Somewhere I have the flash to go with it.

dan
 
The Colorist I had no rangefinder; the Colorist II had a rangefinder. the Stereo Vivid only had shutter speeds up to 1/100 and was difficult to synch with electronic flash. Non of the Bell & Howells were made in large numbers so they are good collectibles, but harder to repair due to lack of spare parts. Non of them had provision for intentional mutliple exposures which are great for trick photography.

I will say that all the Bell & Howells had good lenses and the Vivid in particular had a smooth shutter release-probably the best ever for hand held slow shutter speeds.
 
Surplus Shack has the lens assembly from the Revere 35 stereo cameras in stock for $20. If you are handy with a glue gun you could make a "unique" camera from your junk drawer.

Roy
 
The top end US stereo cameras were astonishingly well made - the Revere/Wollensak, the Stereo Realist, and the Colorist in particular. It is no surprise that many remain in use today.

There is quite a Stereo 35mm camera community active on the web as well as several people providing CLA/repair services at a reasonable price. I just had Jess Powell service a Revere 33 for me and the results were excellent.
 
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