Industar 26

pesphoto

pesphoto

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I cant resist any longer. Looking for Fed 2A to buy on Ebay. I notice many of them are being sold with the industar 26 lenses. I havent seen too much talk here about the I26. Is there a reason? Should I avoid this lens?
 
No, you should not avoid the industar 26 lens. IMHO the Russian industar 50/3.5 lenses deliver very nice images, they are more than sharp enough, they have a very nice bokeh and give some nice warmth to color images. and they are very compact. The only drawbacks are the way you have to change the aperture and the weird filtersize.

Joris
 
It's a perfectly good lens if it is in good condition. It's a 4-element 3-group Tessar formula.
This was taken with a Fed-2D and a Industar-26m.

-Paul
 
Just to clear up that the Industar-26m is f/2.8. IME it's a good lens; probably the best thing about it is that it may be matched to the FED-2 it comes with, if in fact it's the original particular pairing. I got a Jupiter-8 pretty soon after the FED-2/I-26m, and I almost wished I'd waited for a FED-2/J-8 combo. But relubing the I-26 was good practice for relubing the J-8. Same for the Industar-61ld.
 
The Industar 26m is a good lens. You may hear others pooh-pooh it from time to time, but don't listen to them ;) . My FED-2c came with an I-26m and it makes a lovely combo. To my eye I can't see much of a difference between the results from the I-26m and my I-61 L/D.

Pics below were made "Sunny-16" with the FED-2 & I-26m on drugstore 200 film, printed and scanned at CVS.


P.S. - Paul, I checked out your site; your B&W photos are good! We live about 40 minutes from Providence...it's a great city, very photogenic. I want to do some street shooting there.
 
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I love my I-26m. In fact, it's main lens I use on my Bessa-T (my FED 2 has a tapering shutter). I find it does better with B&W film than color, though.
 
Chris, thanks. I do recommend some street shooting here. Great architecture downtown and plenty of people milling around. If you want to shoot people check out Kennedy Plaza Bus terminal.
I just bought myself a Fed2 with I26 from Alex-photo. Now how long do I have to wait? This is the hardest part, no?
 
pesphoto said:
Now how long do I have to wait? This is the hardest part, no?
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Let's put it this way. Every time I order something from "over there" .... I swear to myself, "this is the last time." The wait kills me.

P.S. ~ I've got an I26M as well. I don't use it much, but it works fine... no complaints.
 
CVBLZ4 said:
Let's put it this way. Every time I order something from "over there" .... I swear to myself, "this is the last time." The wait kills me..
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Agreed. It's like a fix. So temporary. And with all of the revisions of certain cameras or certain lenses and with the reasonably affordable hitch, it's like a drug! But the wait... oh man, wish there was cheap Global Priority mail available in <i>all</i> parts of the world.
 
Alright, gotta keep myself busy I guess and one day, voila, it'll be here. I'll run a roll thru it and if need be send it off to Oleg for a CLA.-and wait. I know it'll be worth it! Will a J8 fit on a Fed 2? Thats the 35mm lens right?
 
I also bought my FED-2 from alexphoto (last winter) and it took only nine days to ship from the Ukraine to Boston. My guess is that he still ships pretty quickly. Alex is a good ebay seller, IMO.
 
The J 12 is the 35mm lens and they work great on a FED 2.. the biggest problem most of the FSU cameras have it the lens registeration distance which is kind of hit or miss. 28.8mm +/- .02mm thats about 7 ten thousands of an inch each side of 28.8mm and it dosent have to be off very far to make a good lens look bad. However the shorter the focal length of the lens the less of a problem it is. The only one I have seen that was exactaly 28.8mm was a FED 5 that was NIB when I bought it. and I bought it for just the Industar 61LD lens. Dave
 
Any LTM lens will work on the FED. Problem is, they viewfinder only approximates 50mm (no framelines, I'm afraid), so you'd be advised to get an accessory finder for the J-12.
 
cbass said:
The Industar 26m is a good lens. You may hear others pooh-pooh it from time to time, but don't listen to them ;)
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Ok,
I am one of these "others" ;-)

The industar-26m is the predecessor of the Industar-61. My I-61 is much better than my I-26m. My Jupiter-8 and Helios-103 are much better than my I-26, too. The I-26m has lower contrast and resolution than the other standard lenses.

Regards,
Andreas R.
 
My FED 2 came with a I-26, shot one roll of film through it, but was pleased with the results considering it had a slight mark on the lens. Replaced it with a I-61 L/D (like new) because it got good reviews, but I haven't shot any film with it yet.
 
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