My FED 2 is here!

Gordon Coale

Gordon Coale

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Oct 12, 2004
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My Fed 2e arrived today. Everything seems to work. The shutter speeds look right. It came with an Industar 61 but I'm going to use the Jupiter 8 that came with my Zorki 6. The Zorki 6 will be on a shelf for awhile until I can get the shutter working right. I really like the ergonomics of the FED 2. I may have been hasty in dismissing the knob advance. The mushroom knob advance works very well and the shutter release is better located than on the Zorki. I kept wanting to use the rewind button as a shutter button on the Zorki. Now for some film...
 
That's a very nice Fed-2. It contradicts my theory that the best one's have all been sold to the West and now only the dregs and parts cameras are left. Someone took good care of this one.

-Paul
 
Beautiful, Gordon! It must be Fed-2 day, or Fed-express, because my Fed-2 just arrived today too! :D

My 2e looks nearly identical to yours, in terms of looking clean, unmarked, and ready to go. The only difference I see is that the one I received only says Fed-2 in Cyrillic.

Cheers,
Gene
 
That’s a sweet FED2 Gordon, it should be a nice user with the J8.. I'm looking forward to seeing some of your pic from it :)
 
John Robertson said:
Fed 2 and collapsible Industar 50 is one of my favourite companions.
Click to expand...

John,
Is it the collapsible Ind-50 or the FED marked collapsible lens (Ind-10) you are using on your FED2? With all the Ind-50 lenses I have the focus tab plunger/lock drags on the body as it nears infinity. If mounted with the lens set to infinity the plunger won’t go in far enough to unlock and allow focusing.
 
The first roll is back from the FED 2. No light leaks. No pinholes. I did a shutter speed test on a wall -- all shutter speeds while changing the aperture to keep the same exposure value. I can't tell the difference in the negatives. What a joy this camera is to use. Here are more pictures in my gallery.
 
Excellent news, Gordon! Looks as if we both lucked into really beautiful Fed-2e's! My test results were also fine.

Gene
 
Gene, I need to get a lens spanner and then I will follow Laika's RF and top deck cleaning procedure and get the RF adjusted when my J12 and J8 arrives. And then some new black paint and leather This is a one sweet camera!
 
Nice results Gordon ! I recognize the Fed-2 is very special to me, my first RF ever, I love both its design and use. If only my example was a bit less loud !
 
A few weeks ago I was tinkering with a Zorki-4, preparing it as a gift for a fellow photographer, Since the shutter was capping at moderate speeds, I decided to re-tension the shutter curtains. When I completed the re-tensioning, the capping stopped. As a side-effect, the shutter noise went WAY DOWN. The re-tensioned shutter was actually quieter than my Leica IIIf, but not quite as quiet as my Retina IIIS. That is very quiet indeed!

I'm in the process of collecting enough "stuff" to make a Tomosy-Commodore 64 shutter tester. When I can actually test the shutter, I should be able to tell if I'm losing a significant amount of speed by reducing the shutter tension. However, the pictures look fine so far.

If sound level is very important, you might try experimenting with the tension settings.

-Paul
 
Industar 50

Industar 50

Laika said:
John,
Is it the collapsible Ind-50 or the FED marked collapsible lens (Ind-10) you are using on your FED2? With all the Ind-50 lenses I have the focus tab plunger/lock drags on the body as it nears infinity. If mounted with the lens set to infinity the plunger won’t go in far enough to unlock and allow focusing.
Click to expand...

Sorry for the delay in replyingLaika, its the Industar50, made in Zagorsk with the little triangle trademark. I had a slight problem as you outlined when I got it many years ago. An engineer friend ground a little of the back of the plunger, so that it clears the body and unlocks OK. Its very sharp, and is ok for flare as long as I use the "fison" lenshood. It wont work on the Bessa R2 with an adaptor as the tab lands directly over the bayonet unlock button and snags its raised surround.
Hope that is some help
John.:)
 
Paul, you can even experiment by placing the microphone just on the back door of the camera and fire the shutter registering the sound it makes.

I found that even with a lot of debris in the wave (no filter box at all), both 'peaks' are easily identified. By measuring time difference between them I knew that the speeds on the Canon 7 were pretty much ok up to 500 but not at 1000.

Thanks also for the tip on the curtain tension issue, are the tension screws easily accesible ?

Oscar

pshinkaw said:
A few weeks ago I was tinkering with a Zorki-4, preparing it as a gift for a fellow photographer, Since the shutter was capping at moderate speeds, I decided to re-tension the shutter curtains. When I completed the re-tensioning, the capping stopped. As a side-effect, the shutter noise went WAY DOWN. The re-tensioned shutter was actually quieter than my Leica IIIf, but not quite as quiet as my Retina IIIS. That is very quiet indeed!

I'm in the process of collecting enough "stuff" to make a Tomosy-Commodore 64 shutter tester. When I can actually test the shutter, I should be able to tell if I'm losing a significant amount of speed by reducing the shutter tension. However, the pictures look fine so far.

If sound level is very important, you might try experimenting with the tension settings.

-Paul
Click to expand...
 
Shutter tester

Shutter tester

Paul, Oscar,

I don't know about Tomosy's "Commodore tester"... Commodores are pretty hard to come by these days :)
But, I have built (i.e. soldered) two sound card shutter testers already - one for myself, and the other for a friend.
The cost involved is about $15 (including the housing!), and it takes me about two hours to get it done - including time spent in clearing up the mess on my table so I can put a soldering iron there and get to work on it ;)

The tester is pretty accurate, and with practice, you can easily measure speeds up to 1/1000.
Perfect for my RF stuff, but I also measure in-lens shutters (e.g. on Rolleiflex and other TLR cameras, on LF lenses, etc.).

It really is easy to make, even for a klutz like me...

If you're interested, you can find some info on my photo pages: www.hrtranslations.com/photo/photo.html
- check out the link to "DIY shutter speed tester".

I'm in pretty generous mood today, and I could even offer to make some for you guys, but the shipping would be expensive (about $15, I guess), and the post office guys would probably call the police immediately, thinking it's a bomb :confused:

Denis
 
Actually, I would be interested in one of your shutter testers. I read your article some time ago. It's just that working with electrical stuff is pretty much a mystery too me. (That's one reason I like all mechanical cameras!)
 
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