What happened here?

brachal

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I went out last weekend with an untested Fed-2 and a roll of Efke 50. I've never used this film, but it seemed interesting. I had my regular lab process it, and the results are ... unusual. I have almost no experience with traditional black and white film, so my question is, "Is this a bad camera (most likely), or could this be caused by processing?" Having said that, I think it's a happy accident, whatever happened.

4326297867_ed84eed532_o.jpg
 
Not sure what issue you are referring to, it is out of focus, but I assume you wanted that. I do see a grid like pattern. Fog maybe? Does the camera have a dimpled pressure plate?

It is a cool looking image, though. Like a drawing.
 
Did you calibrate your rangefinder after you got it? Is the blurriness what you're asking about? I don't know if that's it; I still have yet to get my test roll developed.

and yeah, i also see a weird grid pattern in it, very blurry and faint, but it's there
 
OK, looks like I'm just an idiot. The picture was supposed to be in focus. The whole roll was, but they're all like that. I just wasn't sure if some of the blur might be attributable to processing. Clearly something is very wrong with either the camera, lens, or both. Thanks to all for the replies.
 
Has to be camera or lens. Was it a collapsible lens?

I don't think it could be blamed on a collapsed lens - from an example I saw of a photo made with a collapsed lens, it would literally look like a blurry macro shot of cream-of-something soup.

I say it's focus error.
 
If it's a calibration issue, you can do it yourself with a small flathead screwdriver. The thread on how to do it is in the FSU forum. also, when you change lenses (if you have more than one and like to swap), make sure that the focusing ring is set to 1 meter before you screw it into the body (at least that's what the fed2 manual says)
 
Thanks again, everybody. The lens is an Industar-26, so not collapsible. I was a little surprised that things are so out of focus. The lens and camera are in pretty good shape; rangefinder patch is very easy to see and agrees with the range reading on the lens barrel. The whole roll, from infinity up to about 2 meters is consistently like this. I was mostly shooting f/8 or f/11, so I'd think DOF would give me something reasonably focused on one of them if the rangefinder was anywhere close to right. I'm going to send it back to the seller.
 
If it's not collapsible and you stopped down, I'd say one of the lens elements has gone out of alignment (or however it's called).
 
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