He Who Buys a Fed Buys Junk!

zumbido said:
Um, perfect bull****. He compared it to his hourly rate working. That has nothing to do with the value of his time shooting pictures.

(He also mentioned time shooting pictures, but that just means his argument was incoherent on top of being fallacious.)

If you value your time taking pictures, you value the time to know what your equipment is doing. If you buy a 50-year-old Nikon and don't do anything to it before you go out and shoot, you aren't "valuing your time", you're being a fool by not finding out whether or not your equipment is doing what you think it's doing before you waste time "using" it.

The failures of logic in threads like this are, no offense... not astounding. Anymore. Just tiresome.
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It's kind of like a guy who goes out and buys $4000 shotguns and then won't clean them.
 
FallisPhoto said:
3) I can make enlargements that are 4x5 feet from film shot in a 6X9 vintage rangefinder with a halfway decent Skopar, Heliar, Xenar or Tessar lens, without any significant distortion or loss of resolution, provided I use an ultra-high resolution film in it.
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Sorry to go slightly OT ... what are you using for film and a scanner that you can get a 48"x60" print from a 6x9 neg? I'd be really happy for a 20"x30" print from a 6x9 and with a vintage lens... probably it would be less than 20/30.
 
I had ,if I recall correctly, 4 Zorkis, 6 Feds and 2 Kievs; not a single one was working flawlessly (slow shutter, holes in curtain, shutter broken, rangefinder way off) when they arrived in their lovely brown boxes from the Ukraine. After a lot of tinkering, I got most of them fixed (All Feds, some Zorkis, none of the Kievs). Finally I sold them all to get a Leica IIIf and never looked back. Charming cameras, but what a waste of time and money!
 
FallisPhoto said:
3) You're the one who mentioned Leica, I didn't. Let's talk Hasselblad H3Ds though. I can make enlargements that are 4x5 feet from film shot in a 6X9 vintage rangefinder with a halfway decent Skopar, Heliar, Xenar or Tessar lens, without any significant distortion or loss of resolution, provided I use an ultra-high resolution film in it. The Hasselblad H3D can only get up to 3x4 feet.
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I have my doubts that you've tried that.

For the record, I had to struggle getting good 20x20" prints out of negatives taken on APX with an Ikonta with a Zeiss Tessar. The resolution of the film was not the problem. The resolution produced by the camera was. There's only so far that folding mechanisms get you in terms of precision.

Let's not get carried away here.

As for Leica, if you are determined to bring Leica into it, yes, a Kiev 88 or a Moskva 5, that has been overhauled and that works right, can shoot photos that are of significantly better quality, simply because the negative is bigger, and they can do it at about a tenth of the cost.
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I use both a Leica and a Kiev 88. The Kiev does have its disadvantages, for example that you only get 12 pictures on a roll, or that the whole outfit is clunky and big and heavy as hell. The point of the Kiev is pretty much only the 180/2.8 Sonnar, simply because there's no way to get that kind of portraiture with a rangefinder. But if you've ever tried that without a tripod for more than one shot, you'll think twice before comparing it to a Leica for useful real-world photographic purpose. :)

And even there, while a medium-format picture is certainly nicer in terms of tonality and grain, a modern lens on 35mm can actually produce pretty decent resolution and sharpness, even when compared to a 40-year-old lens design on medium format.
 
rxmd said:
$5 listing fee usually isn't worth it.

I got a FED-2 and a Zorki-3M from the classifieds here, both fine cameras, the FED-2 was from Fedka and I bought it from Mike over in Israel. Strange trajectory.

Other than that I'd never buy a FSU camera from eBay or so. (Steve says he bought from Oleg, but then he said he bought from an Oleg in the Ukraine, while "the" Oleg is in Russia about as far from Ukraine as Havana is from New York, so I guess it was a different Oleg.) I've seen plenty of old FSU cameras on flea markets in the FSU. Like in any yard sale, there are lots of junk. This is the same junk that gets sold over eBay after minor touch-ups. Those are cameras that I'd never buy unless I could either (a) look at it with my own eyes before, (b) be sure that they came from someone I trust knows what they're doing, or (c) be sure that I'd repair them myself.
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you are right! the fee for classified might not be worth it if you are selling FSU cams. i missed my FSU cams. i've sold almost all that i bought off ebay. i still have my first RF which is kiev 4 from a client in ukraine and probably keep it forever and a moskva folder and zenit S for the wifey! :) i love my kiev 4 so much even the first time i had several problems using it. a good friend (zorkikat) here fixed my first RF. now it feels smooth as my leica M or nikon s2 (but that just me)..

probably anyone who has strong passion with vintage cameras would understand how these things work. rough or what.. the experience is priceless. if i like using new tools for photography why would i settled on film cameras? :D i first started using digital.. but then stopped after a few years. now i'm shooting film almost 100%. the feeling is different.. opps thats another story. :p

anyway, i've bought some nice FSU but some has problems! these problem are caused by these incompetent sellers on ebay.. but that won't stop me from using these fine piece of ART. that won't stop me buying FSU cam if i have extra funds! next purchase probably the barnack types and a russian contax :D
 
I think TS is a bit biased against FSU cameras. Not that I am biased towards them, not at all, Ive already had my share of overlapped frames, stuck aperture blades and focus rings. But I´ve had light leaks on Olympus OM1, non-working meter on pentax SP and fujica 801, oil in nikon lenses and fungus on olympus XA. Buying old cameras is always a gamble. Sometimes you win, like i did with my zorky1, never giving me any trouble, jupiter-3 and 8 taking beautiful pictures. To topicstarter - buy something brand new from any camera company and enjoy your pictures. FSU is for us adventurers :)
 
gdi said:
BTW, who could call this hideous? :D

Velvia-100-Fall-Tractor1-a_copy.jpg
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Ah, the Belarus. The tractor so good they named a country after it.
 
Boniface XIII said:
Just as an afterthought, those Japanese Bessa things are even worse than the Soviet Union cameras; at least the latter have quirky, Lumpen character. The former are just transmogrified Campbell Soup tins and they are by far the ugliest, clunkiest things around.
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Notwithstanding their lack of aesthetic appeal to either the bobo or Victorian crowds, though, they do have excellent viewfinders and a good meter; so for those of us who actually are interested in taking pictures (that is, of course only in the spare time not spent tinkering with FSU gear), they are quite workable cameras.
 
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i surely like my bessa r - with its soviet jupiter 8 and industar 50 lenses. goodness, such vitriol. did this fellow have a mean ukrainian nanny?

i think i will go outside right now and shoot a photo with my tacky little camera, just because i can ...
 
jan normandale said:
Sorry to go slightly OT ... what are you using for film and a scanner that you can get a 48"x60" print from a 6x9 neg? I'd be really happy for a 20"x30" print from a 6x9 and with a vintage lens... probably it would be less than 20/30.
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Efke 25 or Blue Fire and an enlarger, not a scanner. You lose resolution if you scan.
 
Boniface XIII said:
You missed it too; see above.
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Uh... the Soviet Union still exists, but where they were made is no longer inside it. FEDs, and Kievs, for example, were made in Ukrania. Ukrania is not part of the Soviet Union.

Boniface XIII said:
Ah, the ugly 'large negative' fallacy rearing its ugly head again...
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Take a photo with a 35mm Leica and then take the same photo with a 6x9 camera. Blow both photos up to ... oh, 3x4 feet. Compare them. Then say that.
 
rxmd said:
I have my doubts that you've tried that.
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I have a friend who works as a photographer in a museum. He routinely makes BIG prints, for which he uses a Hasselblad H3D. I have prints that are sharper than his taken on 6x9 folders. Folders are as good as the amount of anal retentive work you put into them. As for 40-year old lens designs, some are still in high demand and are still being made (Skopars, for example). The ancient Kodak Commercial Ektar is another example -- it was one of the finest portrait lenses ever made. The 1970s were not that long ago and, in prime lenses, there haven't really been any advances that were of any significance since then. The biggest advances since then have been in zooms, in coatings (which improve contrast, but not sharpness), in in-camera metering and in automated features. I've got photos taken from 200 yards, with folding cameras, of a beach in Florida; you can read the signs on the beach (one-inch lettering at the bottom).

Oh, and yeah, a Kiev 88 is indeed big and heavy, compared to a Leica, but that has exactly zip to do with photo quality. Heck, I just finished sawing up, carrying and stacking the wood from four fairly big and badly snow-damaged white pines today, and it didn't kill me, so the weight of any camera that was designed to be used handheld really isn't that much trouble.
 
colyn said:
The Soviet Union no longer exists......it died when Communism ceased to be the rule in Russia and the block countries declared their independence...
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Okay, It's called the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic now.
 
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Buying cameras is like buying Cars you kick the tires and hope for the best, and with me I roll the dice every time I get something From Buyer Beware Ebay: I just got a Fed-2 B-4 model everything is fine Its the dumb Operator thats the Problem here[lol] thats me!
 
Steve M. : I have a couple of folders that I can send you to try out and then you can buy the one you like : Lauren
 
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:D some folks on this thread make song writing real easy for Billie Joe Armstrong,
we, got Yugos from former jugoslavia. fsu???
Ukrania?? James bond????
Soviet union still going strong??
and , what the h... is this ` Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic':bang:

sheeesh, i can now see the thinking behind Sarah Palin, Bush the lesser etc:cool:
 
I'll throw in my $0.02 on FSU cameras. I have three Kiev 4's and one Zenit. All but one are in good working order. The bad Kiev was actually alright for picture taking, it just had a free wheeling film counter. But I decided to open it up for practice and never put it back together. The other two Kievs, I opened up cleaned and they are working great. The Zenit is a tank. The lenses are fabulous which is what attracted me to Russian cameras in the first place.

To echo the sentiments of other posters, there is an element of luck and some tinkering required with FSU rangefinders.
Maybe you don't have the FSU karma so just buy a Leica, Nikon or Canon (you already own a Bessa). On the other hand, if you were to buy an FSU off the classifieds on this forum, odds are you will get a good working camera. Otherwise it's just Russian Roulette.
 
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