Industar question (history)

[santino]

Hi all!

Kinda simple question but haven't found any answers yet.

What does Industar mean ? (or what has it been derived from)?

thanks!

 

[zorroflores]

Obtained from:
http://medfmt.8k.com/mf/kevin/industar-61.htm
"The Soviet Union at the time was labouring under its 10-year plan "Industar". Hence the perhaps unpopular name "Industar 61""

 

[Bill58]

Always sounded too capitalistic for the "former USSR" to me. Maybe the CIA planted the name?

 

[Spyderman]

Recently I have been wondering about Industars, but from a different point of view...

Does anyone know what was the original lens of which the Industar 26 (& 61) is a copy ?

First I thought it's a Zeiss Tessar, but it might as well be Leitz Elmar... I know these are both 4 element designs and hard to distinguish, but if anyone has some clues I'd like to hear it...

 

[Nickfed]

I understood it is a Tessar copy, or at least a "Tessar type" as are the Jupiters all Zeiss. Hence the saga you are familair with of Leica Standard and Contax Standard. It may well be that it all started with Industars since there is a huge range of them, just as there is of Tessars, and they set the trend.

 

[santino]

so when it's derived from the name of a ten years plan I guess it has something to do with the term "industry" ?!

 

[varjag]

It was 5 year plan in USSR. But yes, it beileved that Industar has its origin from "Industrialisation", a big buzzword in pre-war USSR.

 

[santino]

there were ten year plans too.

 

[varjag]

there were ten year plans too.

Not in USSR; you must be thinking China.

What we had was commonly called пятилетка, a five-year plan for all branches of industry, service and agriculture defined by Gosplan and apporved by government. There could be particular plans of different duration, but none of them nationwide.

 

[santino]

aha, because it seems that in Poland there were both (10 & 5)

 

[Jocko]

It was 5 year plan in USSR. But yes, it beileved that Industar has its origin from "Industrialisation", a big buzzword in pre-war USSR.

Varjag is - as always - right! 🙂 I believe that the "Industar" name was specifically coined at the time of the first five year plan (1928-32/3) and was by no means just applied to lenses. The earliest Industar lens that I know of is the Industar 2 on the Fotokor (1929), generally regarded as the first significant product of the Soviet photographic industry and itself a result of the plan. So were the machine shops at the Dzerzhinsky Commune, which now moved from handicrafts to the production of electric drills, which in turn led to the FED camera,

In a way the Industar name was a typical example of Stalinist irony, equalling his own "life has become happier! Life is jollier!" of 1935. Stalin himself had previously advocated a relatively cautious economic policy, in contrast to the rapid industrialisation proposed by the Trotskyite left. The latter being dealt with, his first5-year plan adopted their policies in a predictably savage form.

Cheers, Ian

 

[varjag]

Not always Ian, just happened to live there for first 14 years of my life 🙂 The motto "Five year plan in 4 years" still stuck in back corner of my brain.

 

[ZorkiKat]

I would love to know why the Industar was not available for the Kiev. It fits into the J-8 Kiev mount. Was it just too low cost? The Kiev got the Helios-103, the screw mount cameras got the Industar.

The "Specs" on the Helios are even a bit better than those posted for the Industar.

Brian,

Let me venture into this speculation 🙂 Years back we asked James Marc Small a similar question.

Arsenal/Kiev may not have opted to make Tessar types for their cameras since they already were capable of making the fast Sonnar types. Considerations which a factory in a market-oriented setting do not necessarily hold true in a similar factory operating under socialist conditions. Besides, they may be so 'proud' of their abilities that they saw no need to produce a cheaper, simpler lens for their cameras.

From their production point of view, there was nothing in their way to make anything else than the Sonnar types. Or it could be that there was no perceivable/practical reason to make anything else. Since the Kiev were considered as premium RF, they deserved nothing else but the best of the lenses.

The LTM rf from FED or KMZ (Zorki) were considered second to the Kiev. Thus most of them were given the 'cheaper' Tessar type lenses. FED never offered anything else than 3.5 or 2.8 lenses for their cameras. KMZ at least made it possible to choose from several- the slower Tessar types or else an LTM version of the Sonnar derived Jupiters.


Perhaps for the same reason, there were no Tessar type 85 or 90mm lenses made by the Soviets either. Only the 2/85 Jupiter became available. FED did make 100mm version of the 'mountain' Elmar before the war, but once the CZ blueprints were given as reparation to the Soviet camera industry, nothing of the sort was made anymore.

Helios and Jupiter, being more complex lenses will always have better specs (in as far as quantitative results from test charts go) than the simple Tessar derived lenses. For instance, in ORWO film data, two resolution figures are always given: a lower one derived from using a "Tessar" type lens, and a higher one derived from a "high quality" lens (no lens description given).

Jay.

 

[ZorkiKat]

Recently I have been wondering about Industars, but from a different point of view...

Does anyone know what was the original lens of which the Industar 26 (& 61) is a copy ?

First I thought it's a Zeiss Tessar, but it might as well be Leitz Elmar... I know these are both 4 element designs and hard to distinguish, but if anyone has some clues I'd like to hear it...

The Industars (from the one which first I-10 appeared on the FED-1 down to the I-61) were always Tessar type lenses. Only the collapsible lens barrel, as well as lens mount were derived from the Leitz Elmar, but everything else leans towards the CZ Tessar.

Daniel has already pointed out the main difference is the placement of the diaphragm. Leitz Elmar (at least the 50mms) have the diaphragm behind the first element. Tessar have this between the 2nd and third groups. Oddly, the Leitz Elmar 9cm followed the Tessar configuration.

One more CZ Tessar feature which is found in later collapsible Industar (eg -22 and -50) is the modification of the aperture setting ring. Only the FED Industar retained the tiny Elmar-style lever. The collapsible I-50 and I-22 used an aperture ring which is similar to the setting ring found in the collapsible CZ Tessar made for Contax or Tenax (?).

Jay.

 

[ZorkiKat]

Jay,
Thankyou for the explanation, it makes a lot of sense.

It's funny how the Zeiss Tessar for the Contax, "the economy lens", often brings in more than the premium 5cm F1.5 Sonnar these days. I can only guess that not as many were made, as someone who could afford a premium camera would also get a premium lens..

I saw one of these Tessars, a post war one, in a local used camera shop. The glass was a bit cloudy, and the aluminium body was tarnishing. The lens didn't look impressive at all, and was so tiny that it could probably fit in a Kodak film can. But its price tag was quite shocking. It was selling for about the equivalent of US $300.

The same could be said of the 'normal' lenses for Japanese SLRs made in the 1960s-70s. f/2 and f/1.7 were so common that these lenses now sell very cheap. If a f/2.8 version was ever made as an 'economy' option then, these would probably command lots of $$$$ now.

Another analogy could be made with these 50mms. Years ago, all cameras came with 50mms as standard. We all dreamt of getting a zoom or some sort of wide or tele as the next lens to replace the 'boring' 50. Then by the 1980s, short zooms (eg 35-70) became the new 'normal'. Now it's the reverse. I often hear new photographers, particularly those in digital photography, of aiming to get a 50/1.8 as their first premium lens! 😀


Jay

 

[VinceC]

>>"the economy lens", often brings in more than the premium 5cm F1.5 Sonnar these days<<

The same is true for some scarce Nikkors. The 105/4 is optically inferior to the 105/2.5 and was marketed as a cheap, lightweight alternative. But so few were sold that it is fairly valuable now because of rarity.