Pleased With Your FED 50/3.5 ???

[George Bonanno]

So... how many of you are pleased with your Fed 50/3.5 ? I just ordered one from Fedka and waiting delevery. In the interim I borrowed a coated Elmar and shot 2 rolls around the neighborhood, one color 400 and one B&W 400 C41. The results are horrid compaired to my 35/3.5 Summaron. I even fabricated a black paper hood. Check it out...

 

[peterc]

An example from my Fed 50/3.5.

Zorki 3M, Silvertone 100

Peter

 

[Jason Sprenger]

Fedka did send me my FED 50/3.5 and I'm very pleased with it. It's better than my Elmar 50/3.5 which to be fair has lived some. It's resident on my FED 2 and the two make a perfect pair.

The bright patterns in your photos suggest to me there might be pinholes in the shutter curtain. Don't you see these patterns with the 35?

If your camera is a FED or Zorki, I recently read on Fedka's site where he's offering repair services. Prices seem very fair though I haven't had the need for service since Yuri began offering it. Oleg at www.okvintagecamera.com serviced both my FED 2 and my Zorki 3M and the work was top notch. But since he's in Russia, the wait may be longer.

 

[George Bonanno]

The bright patterns in your photos suggest to me there might be pinholes in the shutter curtain. Don't you see these patterns with the 35?

I never noticed bright spots with my 35mm lens. That's what I meant. My camera is a IIIf.

 

[George Bonanno]

An example from my Fed 50/3.5.

Zorki 3M, Silvertone 100

Peter

I sure hope my FED produces images like yours.

 

[pvdhaar]

I'm also quite pleased with my FED50/3.5. It has good performance, and makes for a very compact outfit when collapsed. It can produce razor sharp pictures when stopped down, and very soft out of focus when wide open, as in the attachment..

The only minus that I can see, but I guess this goes for all collapsible lenses, is that the barrel can rotate out of the locking position if I want to turn the aperture tab..

By the way, the highlights in your pictures do indeed suggest worn out shutter curtains with pinholes and cracks in the rubber backing..

 

[kully]

Could they be a hairline crack or gap in the housing of the lens?

Anyway, I've got one of these coming to me today. To go on the IIIa I got off FrankS.

Why do I keep buying 50's....? 🙂

 

[Ash]

I'm very happy with the Fed-50. It can be very sharp. Unfortunately I'm using scale focus until I sort the RF-alignment on the Fed-2 I successfully bashed out of alignment! Edit, I think I prefer the I-50 collapsible however.

 

[Xmas]

George

The symptoms look like blind pin holes.

You may have altered the way you use the camera or burnt holes yourself or previous repairs may have failed e.g. temperature cycle in auto trunk etc. If you ghave carried the camera without fastening the case or with the shutter uncocked etc.

There are two blinds is is not easy to inspect in a bottom loader, you need to inspect both the first blind and the 2nd blind. Try a flash light brom the bottom with the lens removed, with the camera shutter cocked and uncocked, the pin holes will be small.

Sorry

Noel

 

[ZorkiKat]

Noel is right. Those are pinholes on your shutter blinds. The FED lens won't do anything like that, even uncoated ones don't do flares like that 😀

One tell-tale sign is that the spots appear, in the same shape and form, in the same places in the pictures.

The collapsible 3.5 FED 50mm, especially the late coated ones which came with the last of the FED-1 and earlier FED-2 are particularly nice. They do things which aren't really quantifiable in terms of sharpness, but more like in the general image quality itself.

Jay

 

[George Bonanno]

You guys are right ! I shot another roll today with the 35mm Summaron and got it processed at 10 Cent Photo. The results were the same. I then brought the camera to Essex Camera Repair which is nearby. They confirmed the ? first ? shutter is shot. The Korean guy showed me how it's crispy and dried out. The repair price is $175 plus whatever else they do. Does this sound reasonable ???

Another expensive Leica expense !

Anyway, thank you all for the replies,
George

 

[FrankS]

I sent a Leica IIf to Oleg in Russia for a cla. RAtes are very good. He also replaces shutter curtains. It was a stressful time, but my camera came back and works tick-a-tee-boo.

 

[Xmas]

George
Sorry to be correct this time.
There are bodges you can do to put off the evil day, there are black rubberised paints thet you can spot on the holes carefully with a fine brush and allow to dry overnight, to keep your Barnack going until a ribbon snaps, which would need a rebuild.
Wait for the bodgers to pounce on you... with the proprietary names and techniques...
Noel