Russian Books about Cameras and Photography

[David Hughes]

Hi,

There's an interesting site with a lot of details about old (FED, Kiev, Leningrad, Zorki etc) USSR published photography books including things like repairs and so on. Scroll through it as the pictures alone justify the time spent.

You'll find it here:-
http://www.sovietcamera.su/files/e077306e47f697d361a7c2c5c41256e8-16.html

Obviously, it's in Russian but there's Google translate to help you.

Lots of the pictures are interesting and there's links to more under each book. The Russian for link is Далее...

I wish I read Russian better (learnt at school over 60 years ago and seldom used; just once in France face to face). As a taster, one of the links is to an article about repairing FEDs and Zorkis:
http://www.sovietcamera.su/files/f4e828bf24264a9fca2defb5cf7c92b4-39.html

And there's more about Kievs, self timers, the Leningrad, rangefinder mechanics and so on and so forth.

Regards, David

PS And I now know that my name in Russian is Давид/Давида

 

[Out to Lunch]

Let's wait for KoFe to get online.

 

[David Hughes]

You could look at the pictures... ;-)

 

[Sumarongi]

This thread does deserve a "sticky"!

Thank you, dear David 🙂

 

[Brambling]

PS And I now know that my name in Russian is Давид/Давида

Three versions of sound in Russian.) + own version, purely Russian.
There are sites with books and without.

http://www.sovietcams.com/index.php?1957420938
http://www.photohistory.ru/1207248170259168.html
https://rangefinder.ru/books
http://www.ussrcameras.ru/?action=main
http://www3.telus.net/public/rpnchbck/lens%20and%20optics.html
...
But it’s still better to read the paper version.)

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Давида means David's.
If a is added to last name,like Hughesa, it is female family name. It means wife, daughter of Davida (belongs to 's). In Russian get married has male and femail pronouns. Become married and become married by.
In Russian Orthodox Church males have to stay separate from females, but I don't think it is strict anymore.

 

[Hannes]

Thank you for the link, they have instruction manuals for Kiev 15, Kiev 10 and Kiev 5, which I urgently need.
Now I only need somebody who can translate it for me.

Hannes

 

[David Hughes]

Давида means David's.
If a is added to last name,like Hughesa, it is female family name. It means wife, daughter of Davida (belongs to 's). In Russian get married has male and femail pronouns. Become married and become married by.
In Russian Orthodox Church males have to stay separate from females, but I don't think it is strict anymore.

Thanks, interesting that Hughes is possessive. As in Hugh's wife but in old English Hughes wife. Like I said, I learnt Russian over 60 years ago and have forgotten most of it. Once friends in Prague said I'd be seen as an ignorant peasant if I said that...

Thanks again, David

 

[David Hughes]

And thanks for the flattering remarks everyone; I was searching in Russian for anything on the Industar-10 which is called the FED here and there and vice versa. These pages struck me as the most interesting.

Now we'll have to draw up a rota and take a page each of the most interesting book* and translate it on Google. The trouble is the internet is anti-sensible organisations...

Regards, David

*The 1930's FED ones, perhaps.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I never seen Industar-10, but FED named lenses.
It looks like Industar-10 was more like production name and FED was because it was matching camera name.
After they started to make FED as Zorki at KMZ, they named I-22 as Zorki. I have this named lens matching Zorki for now.

 

[David Hughes]

I never seen Industar-10, but FED named lenses.
It looks like Industar-10 was more like production name and FED was because it was matching camera name.
After they started to make FED as Zorki at KMZ, they named I-22 as Zorki. I have this named lens matching Zorki for now.

That's my guess too; an internet myth and yet the "Industar-10" occurs so often that I wondered if there was a fire behind all the smoke...

Regards, David

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Here is Russian historian page about Industar-10.
Apparently it is not myth, but I never seen lenses like these.

http://www.photohistory.ru/1207248188656237.html

Three versions. For Start SLR, for FED and earlier FED-2 and for some photo equipment with 18x24 frames, fixed focus on infinity.

 

[David Hughes]

Thank you so much Konstantin. You'd be amazed if you knew how long I've been looking and finding nothing.

Regards, David

 

[David Hughes]

Ooops

Ooops

I meant to say but didn't; the website has dozens of scanned manuals. OK they are all in Russian but they show the cameras in detail and that's useful when dating things. The page of FED manuals is here:-
http://www.sovietcamera.su/manuals/photocameras/fed/fed.html

Click on the picture of (say) the 1934 FED and you'll find it's a link to a scan of the 1934 manual. And on the left is a list of the makes covered.

Regards, David

 

[Crazy Fedya]

I meant to say but didn't; the website has dozens of scanned manuals. OK they are all in Russian but they show the cameras in detail and that's useful when dating things. The page of FED manuals is here:-
http://www.sovietcamera.su/manuals/photocameras/fed/fed.html

Click on the picture of (say) the 1934 FED and you'll find it's a link to a scan of the 1934 manual. And on the left is a list of the makes covered.

Regards, David

Thank you, David, for starting this thread. All these manuals are very useful. A few interesting bits I have noticed scanning through some if these manuals:

- 1934 FED manual is printed by Childrens Work Commune named after F E Dzerzhinsky, meaning that camera was still produced by workers under 18 years of age, because older members of the commune, IIRC, were transfered outside of commune. I am not sure if they maintained employment.

- FED and Zorki repair manual was printed for repair either at home or in field conditions. Apparently, cameras were not considered too complicated, and each photographer with a screwdriver and common sense was suppossed to eliminate most common malfunctions, including regluing shutter tapes. 🙂

There is a lot of unteresting info available at these pages. I have forgotten most of curiosities, like ones I have listed above.

 

[skopar steve]

Thanks Dave. Very helpful for my growing FSU camera collection.

 

[davidnewtonguitars]

Great pictures there (comrades), especially the covers of the Photo magazines thru the years.

 

[efinglada]

A few years back I came across scanned PDF files with technical data on Russian lenses (in Russian), for years 1970 and 1971
They include sections of lenses with geometry and dimensions of optical elements, etc.

They are quite big files, so if anyone is interested I can share them through wetransfer (a couple of years ago I sent them to a member)

Regards

I found the link!!
http://www.lallement.com/pictures/files.htm

 

[David Hughes]

"I found the link!!"

Fascinating, many thanks.

I've had a quick look and the 10.2 pdf or 1971 Catalogue Part 1 is very interesting and covers most of my lenses. Just skimming through it and looking at the numbers and diagrams is worth the effort. The text seems to be a pro-forma as looking quickly the pages all start the same way.

If anyone else is interested, then look at page 84 that deals with the Industar-50 (collapsible and rigid) but as it's a pdf look for page 82 and you'll get 84. A glance at page 82's second paragraph shows, in brackets Zorki, FED and Leningrad which most of us can recognise in Cyrillic.

(EDIT) And on page 52 you'll find a diagram showing the clearance to the film surface behind the Jupiter-12 and so on.

Regards, David

 

[David Hughes]

Hi Sam, Steve and David,

It's very useful isn't it. I've found that clicking everywhere that looks promising takes you deeper and deeper into it and so I find more and more. And the pictures are helpful as one day I'll see a 1934 FED manual and recognise it but no one else will and I'll get it for just 99 pennies.

I just wish I could turn these pdf's into text and then I could use Google's translation software. As it is I type out what looks interesting and then find the poor quality has mislead me into mis-spelling words. Luckily I can now recognise "objective" "anastigmatic" and all the brand names.

Regards, David