Show Off Your FSU

john_van_v said:
Great to hear it is such a great camera. I got a 4K for free as a back lens cover for my 2.0 Jupiter (wouldn't that be a great sports car?)

It is a nice camera, but this is why I got if free:

The view finder was foggy the first day I had it, and clear the second. Then the third day it went black. Would that be fungus? (This may be too much information, but fungicide works wonders in a lotion, which would not work here)

Is there any experience out there taking apart a Z-4 rangefinder?
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You can look at the sticky "Zorki 4/4K - How to CLA" that I wrote. It's pretty easy to take the top cover off to get at the RF/VF.

From your symptoms it sounds more like the the two prisms of the VF/RF have come apart - they're glued together with Canada Balsam. Air between the faces would make it black out. Fungus wouldn't make it black out quickly as you describe. If I'm right you'd have to clean off the old glue and re-glue. First problem might be getting hold of Canada Balsam, so it may not be worth the effort, considering how cheap a 4K is.
 
wolves3012 said:
Interesting that it doesn't have the original black Jupiter - the older tabbed lens has a more complex design of helicoid. The Zorki 4K is a highly competent camera. Just try not to wear off the printed speed dial numbers! Nice camera, well photographed too. They often seem to be well-preserved, bar those numbers.
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According to the two first digits in the serial number, the body is from 1975 and the lens from 1955. But that's something I found out when I got back home. I didn't have any knowledge of FSU cameras before. I only knew some of their names. But I remembered having read something positive about Zorki in a Swedish photo community, so my impulse was just to buy it.

The shutters speed numbers are almost as new, but I'll try to handle them carefully. Setting the shutter speed is somewhat tricky since they are situated so close together on the dial. That's the only thing I haven't learned to like about my Zorki (yet).
 
wolves3012 said:
What a suberb collection and lovely pictures! How did you get them all so clean? I'm particularly intrigued by your FED 3A, the speed-selector is a 2-piece that I've not seen before. Rather rare Zorki 2 and knob-wind FED 4 as well...

Do you use all of them?
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Normally I disassemble every new camera I get, clean and lubricate it. For polishing the chrome parts I use NevrDull.
Yes, I've never seen such a FED 3a before and I saw only one in 3 years or so on eBay.
The Zorki 2 looks and works cery fine, but someone made a flash sync socket on the top plate...
No I don't use them all, how should I 🙂 Sometimes I use a Zorki 1 from 1955 and a Zorki 4K and a Pentax 645 for medium format. Normally I use my *istDS from Pentax for digital pics.

Ulrich
 
Ulrich Witte said:
Normally I disassemble every new camera I get, clean and lubricate it. For polishing the chrome parts I use NevrDull.
Yes, I've never seen such a FED 3a before and I saw only one in 3 years or so on eBay.
The Zorki 2 looks and works cery fine, but someone made a flash sync socket on the top plate...
No I don't use them all, how should I 🙂 Sometimes I use a Zorki 1 from 1955 and a Zorki 4K and a Pentax 645 for medium format. Normally I use my *istDS from Pentax for digital pics.

Ulrich
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That was some labour of love for your collection then! Impressively clean...
 
Ulrich Witte said:
Hello,

if I post pictures of all my FSU cameras, the thread would blast 🙂
So here's only a link to my collection (some are already missing until now, it's not complete): http://fotos.cconin.de/kameras

Ulrich
--
http://fotos.cconin.de
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Ulrich,
Great website. I enjoyed seeing all those beautiful FSU cameras. I've bookmarked the page on the dismantling of the Fed! What a beauty you made of it!
 
shadowfox said:
Ulrich, nice collection and nice website. I really like your red Fed 2 🙂
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I like the original dark colored ones most. They are really beautiful. But I don't like the ones that one can see on ebay sometimes, those with light red, blue or green painted ...

Ulrich
 
wolves3012 said:
You can look at the sticky "Zorki 4/4K - How to CLA" that I wrote. It's pretty easy to take the top cover off to get at the RF/VF.

From your symptoms it sounds more like the the two prisms of the VF/RF have come apart - they're glued together with Canada Balsam.

First problem might be getting hold of Canada Balsam, so it may not be worth the effort, considering how cheap a 4K is.
Click to expand...

I did a little research, and this is the best price for lens cement I could come up with for lens cement:
$12 (in the US) CLICK HERE

Apparently, the Canada balsam tree is going extinct!!

Here is another subsitite, but it is for glueing microscope slides together, or something: CLICK HERE

Here is an article on glueing lenses:
http://www.skgrimes.com/popsci/index.htm

Canada balsam comes apart at 300 degrees, or you can use a solvent.

Here is an article with info on ungluing lenses:
http://www.atmsite.org/contrib/Sapp/LensGlue/


So, is a 4K worth 12 bucks plus shipping? 😕

I am guessing it may be worth that to someone for the other parts in it -- or maybe down the road the demand for 4Ks might climb as people realize that Leica is just hype.
 
My fed now for sale in the RFF classifieds:

394259174_47c2090137.jpg


Price lowered to $250, much of the cost being the custom Luigi case.

Thanks,

John
 
john_van_v said:
I did a little research, and this is the best price for lens cement I could come up with for lens cement:
$12 (in the US) CLICK HERE

Apparently, the Canada balsam tree is going extinct!!

Here is another subsitite, but it is for glueing microscope slides together, or something: CLICK HERE

Here is an article on glueing lenses:
http://www.skgrimes.com/popsci/index.htm

Canada balsam comes apart at 300 degrees, or you can use a solvent.

Here is an article with info on ungluing lenses:
http://www.atmsite.org/contrib/Sapp/LensGlue/


So, is a 4K worth 12 bucks plus shipping? 😕

I am guessing it may be worth that to someone for the other parts in it -- or maybe down the road the demand for 4Ks might climb as people realize that Leica is just hype.
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Firstly, I'd get the top off and see whether my guess is right! IF I am, then I'd say that a 20-second setting adhesive is rather asking for trouble. You'll have little chance of setting the prisms absolutely square and getting any air bubbles out in 20 seconds! You need something slower, that you can manoeuvre a bit and then leave to set.

As for whether a 4K is worth it, only you can decide that. It's a shame if an otherwise-good camera isn't fixed but you could get another and keep it for parts, that's exactly what I did!
 
wolves3012 said:
As for whether a 4K is worth it, only you can decide that. It's a shame if an otherwise-good camera isn't fixed but you could get another and keep it for parts, that's exactly what I did!
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Still, this is useful information. I had a funny thought last night after doing the research about lens cement, but first a disclaimer: Canada is a generally cool country; you can see it in the faces it's citizens -- Canadians are much more relaxed. A good comparison between Ameria and Canada is the two economically identical cities of Detroit and Windsor; thats were "American" cars are made. Detroit has Eminem, but Windsor has a nearly zero crime rate.

Ok, having said that, Canada has some weird environmental and humane issues. To get at the tar sands that is making Canada temporarily rich, it has had to bulldoze the forests of Alberta -- that's a no-no.

Then there are the amazingly cute baby seals who are clubbed for their pristine white fur. The baby seals are singley the most popular animal rights cause in the world, and the the baby seal fur industry happens to be a financial black hole. But Canadians seem committed to clubbing baby seals no matter how many karma points or subsidy dollars it costs them.

I believe that the balasm rarity issue relates the bulldozing of the forests because I found text that Canada is protecting the trees, when in fact the harvesting of the tree sap is much like maple sugar harvesting; it is a sustainable harvest. Since there is a lie being presented, I am guessing that there is a lying structure such as a corporation or goverment involved, or as in the case of Canadian socialism, a lying corporate/goverment. I believe instead that the shortage is being caused by forest destruction.

Another interesting discovery was the http://SKGrimes.com site; still the average 25$ that they charge for repairs is way rich for the financially challenged FSU crowd.
 
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Wohooo... I'm back in business with this one, I finally got a free spool from a nice gentleman at nelsonfoto.com

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