USSR time pictures from the past.

[Ko.Fe.]

Do you have pictures (in your own possession) which were taken during Soviet time (1917-1991) with use of the "made in USSR" cameras?
Doesn't have to be from the Soviet territory, just cameras made where and pictures from this time.

I have some for obvious reason, 🙂.

Deputy of chief editor at major soviet radio station.
Portrait with the News Paper from November 8th, 1982, with for main title I would translate as "Happy October Revolution" .

FED-2, Industar-26m, ORWO slide film.

Red Square. White building on the left from the church is hotel "Russia", which is gone now.
My wife relatives used to work in this place for many years.
They have to study English to be able to get where and work with tourists.

 

[oftheherd]

Those are neat! Do you have more?

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Those are neat! Do you have more?

Just a few more, for later, nobody in family and closeby were into photography.
We need more contributors here 🙂

 

[02Pilot]

I just started going through my father's slides from the 60s and 70s, which include many from Yugoslavia. German camera (AGFA), though. Is that close enough? If so, I can post a few once I get to scanning.

 

[jcb4718]

A couple of shots taken in 1964 during a school trip (from the UK) to the USSR. Not taken with a Russian camera in fact I don't remember the make but it was a simple scale focus camera and of course you guessed the exposure. I remember there were only two shutter speeds (something like 1/60 and 1/125) and only two apertures (maybe f4 and f8, the smaller aperture being set using a lever that rotated a circular aperture onto the lens axis). I fearlessly set the exposures never doubting they were correct...but then I was only 14 at the time!

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I just started going through my father's slides from the 60s and 70s, which include many from Yugoslavia. German camera (AGFA), though. Is that close enough? If so, I can post a few once I get to scanning.

Sure! It will be interesting. Most of FSU gear was German copies.

A couple of shots taken in 1964 during a school trip (from the UK) to the USSR.

Thank you! You made it well!

 

[Elmar Lang]

I will search for the colour slides taken in Warsaw with my Praktica and Kiev-4A, as an exchange student, in the early 80s.

Well... more than "happy October Revolution", the newspaper says "glory to the Great October!": more in that time's style...

E.L.

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

Just curious:- Why do we say copies of German cameras?

OK I can see why for the first FEDs and, perhaps, Zorkis but the Kiev was a continuation of the German range on German equipment with, at first, the German technicians. Same as Japanese moved the production to China and so on but we don't call them copies of Japanese cameras...

If we did then I'd have half the number of cameras from Japan*. And what should we call the Rollei that was designed in Japan and made heaven only knows where to an international design called APS that I think originated in the USA?

It's all very baffling if you try to be logical. And as Kafka said "Einer muss wach bleiben".

Regards, David

* Using the Contax - Kiev logic I'd have to call the mju-II a Chinese copy of an Olympus, for example...

 

[02Pilot]

Hi,

Just curious:- Why do we say copies of German cameras?

OK I can see why for the first FEDs and, perhaps, Zorkis but the Kiev was a continuation of the German range on German equipment with, at first, the German technicians. Same as Japanese moved the production to China and so on but we don't call them copies of Japanese cameras...

Probably because the circumstances of the German-Soviet transfer were rather less voluntary than most of the others. In other words, the Chinese did not expropriate the Japanese factory as war reparations, seize and hold the technicians, and ignore existing patents, all at the command of the state apparatus.

 

[goamules]

There were no patents after WWII for German cameras. The Japanese copied them as well as the Soviets, as evidenced by the Canon and Nicca copies. Oh, and the Reid, and ....

 

[mcfingon]

How about replicas then?

 

[Ko.Fe.]

If you want, we could have separate thread where I could explain more about FSU gear origin.
I'm not big expert, but read in Russian and I could ask some experts in Russia. We could have copy, replicas, repatriation and such smart gear heads talks, in the separate thread, please. I can't make one right now, have only phone with me until tomorrow evening.

 

[johannielscom]

Hi,

Just curious:- Why do we say copies of German cameras?

OK I can see why for the first FEDs and, perhaps, Zorkis but the Kiev was a continuation of the German range on German equipment with, at first, the German technicians. Same as Japanese moved the production to China and so on but we don't call them copies of Japanese cameras...

If we did then I'd have half the number of cameras from Japan*. And what should we call the Rollei that was designed in Japan and made heaven only knows where to an international design called APS that I think originated in the USA?

It's all very baffling if you try to be logical. And as Kafka said "Einer muss wach bleiben".

Regards, David

* Using the Contax - Kiev logic I'd have to call the mju-II a Chinese copy of an Olympus, for example...

Partly true, but the Lubitel 2 was a copy of the Voigtlander Brillant and the Moskvas are copies of the Zeiss Ikon Ikontas, any way you look at it. The Kiev 6C and 60 being copies of the Pentacon Six, the Salyut and Zenit 80 copies of Hasselblad (although not German, I admit). So sufficient reason to mention the 'copy'-bit, I dare say.

I'm betting there's a slew of copies more that I'm not thinking of!?

 

[Monochrom]

Nice thread, please keep´em coming!

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

I was questioning the logic of it and will ignore how Russia volunteered to let the Third Reich invade them as a trick to seize Contax. Letting them destroy a lot of Russia and so on seems a silly plan since they could have copied it anyway without the aggro. But that would have meant the allies would have had to fight on for months or even years and not stop at Berlin. That assumes Operation Overlord happened but Operation Bagration didn't: an interesting "What if" of history. And it ignores the Yalta events where Churchill and FDR conspired to give the USSR a present of Contax for no reason - it seems... (And I'm adding history to my list of things they don't teach these days, like English and maths and science.)

I don't deny the first FED was a copy of the Leica Model 2 but by the 40's they'd started to develop it and it ceased to be a copy. Also I've not noticed the other copies talked about as copies but as cameras in their own right once they'd moved forward a little. Same applies to lenses, I wouldn't call the Tessar a Cooke's Triplet copy but can see it as a development of the Cooke's.

Like I said I wonder about what passes for logic these days and wonder at the contradictions I keep coming across.

Regards, David

PS And didn't the USA agree the USSR could have Contax and then turn up at Contax a few days before the USSR and ...

 

[x-ray]

My father had a Russian copy of a Leica and Russian Elmar 5cm lens during WWII. Unfortunately I don't know which model but I do have the negatives and thought I'd scan and share a few with you. I think the street scenes were in Paris but can't be sure. These were shot somewhere around 1943 or 1944.

The soldier facing the camera at the train station at Camp McCoy was my father.

 

[x-ray]

Here are a few more images.

 

[x-ray]

And a few more.

It was interesting looking at the negatives. Some were on Gevert film and others on Plus X. The Gevert were still clear and in some cases looked like they were processed yesterday where as the Kodak were yellow and the film had shrunk in dimension.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Thank you x-ray! Interesting old pictures.

My plan for tonight is to print from some of old FSU time b/w negatives tonight.

 

[x-ray]

Thank you!

I have several rolls that I'll scan and post the best.