Strange Russian wideangle

[rxmd]

I just ran across a FED-5 with a strange Russian wideangle lens (7617744696) on eBay, the seller claims it's a 2,8/28 called "Star-6". Photos are hosted elsewhere, here and here. (I hope the seller won't mind.)

The auction even has a picture supposedly taken with the lens, http://ecomhost.biz/fed/fed5_n83_m7.jpg, showing a couple of intriguing apartment blocks in some unnamed identical post-Soviet suburb, as well as considerable vignetting and distortion.

Has anyone ever heard of this lens? The markings suspiciously look like it's originally an "indu_STAR-6_1" with a couple of letters scraped or photoshopped away... but then again, the aperture ring looks quite different on the "original" I-61. Is this just another creative fake with amateurish execution?

Philipp

 

[captainslack]

Some sort of enlarger lens?

 

[Andrew Sowerby]

That picture looks like it was taken with a Lomo LC-A. And I completely agree with your suspicions that the markings have been altered.

 

[pshinkaw]

It looks like the Industar-69 from the Chaika Half-frame camera. There is one on e-Bay here: 7620835183

-Paul

 

[Jocko]

This has been offered before. It's a crudely altered industar 69 from a chaika half frame compact. The lens is detachable for use in an enlarger. It is quite useless (except for "lomoesque" effects) on any normal LTM camera.

Ian

 

[kbg32]

Greyhoundman is correct, as is Jocko. I have seen this lens for sale by itself.

http://cameras.alfredklomp.com/chajka2/

 

[lubitel]

well, it does have a cool lomo look 🙂

 

[rxmd]

It's a crudely altered industar 69 from a chaika half frame compact. The lens is detatcjhable for use in an enlarger. It is quite useless (except for "lomoesque" effects on any normal LTM camera.

Yes, that makes sense.

I wonder why the seller didn't just take a wide-angle picture with any other camera instead of this not particularly inviting specimen. Surely it must have occurred to him that this picture isn't really all that great?

Maybe there is an underground story about some human tragedy involving the Russian lens forgery mafia somewhere behind this... And maybe we'll see some "rare", "experimental" USTAR-6, PITER-1, GA-1 or R-2 lenses in the future!

Philipp

 

[derevaun]

Surprising that the I-69 could get that close to infinity on an LTM camera. The photo doesn't have much wide angle distortion, or wide angle at all for that matter. Gotta give 'em points for effort though 🙂

 

[Heath]

IAs soon as I saw it I knew it was an Industar of some sort. It kin of reminds me of man Industar 50-2 50mm 3.5. It has that look about it. The I 50-2 is about the most compact 50mm M-42 mount lens I have ever seen. I bought one last week for $20 AUD in virtually mint condition from a local camera shop here in Sydney for my M-42 SLR's just for the quirkiness of it. It came with the bubble case that when the lens is in it, the case almost looks empty. At infinity focus, the lens is only 25mm deep from the back of the mounting thread to the front of the aperture ring.Focused at it's closest (0.65m) it is only a mere28mm thick. When I mount it on my Praktica MTL5 it looks like a fixed lens.

Heath