Zorki & FED with Cosina/Voigtlander lens

M

martins

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Hello colleagues,

I am interested in using Cosina/Voigtlander lenses with Zorki or possibly FED cameras. I have learned from some website that the CV Skopar 25/4 works with Zorki 4, but what about FED-5? (I do not expect the rangefinder coupled, but I expect the mount fits and the lens can be focused according to the scale.)

Personal experience welcome, either confirming or denying the compatibility of the abovementioned lens and camera.

Thanks in advance,

Martins
 
I've used various CV lenses (15, 25, 28, 35, 50 and 75mm) on various FSU cameras (mostly FEDs), and have never encountered any issues. There might be some very minor focusing inaccuracy when shooting long lenses at very wide apertures, but I can't say I've seen any in my images.
 
Of course it can be used.

Except for very early FED-1, all other - FED, Zorki, Droog, Leningrad - have compatible lens mount. Maybe the focus mark won't allign with top of lens mount (it might not end at 12 O'clock position) but it should work fine.
 
I don't have the 25 Skopar but I do have the 21 and use it happily on my FED5 and Zorki 3M. And the Skopar 25 is not RF coupled to any camera.
Rob
 
Sorry to bump an old thread, but I thought this would perhaps be more appropriate than creating a new one. I am interested in getting a wide angle lense for my zorki 4. I am considering a voigtlander cosina color skopar 28 f/3.5 and I was just wondering if this would fit the zorki 4 and whether in practical terms it is usable. On a side note I would like to have clarification on what it means for a lense to be rangefinder coupled.

Thanks

Chris
 
It would work and would be rangefinder coupled. I would recommend getting an exteral 28mm accessory viewfinder, the built-in viewfinder would not give anywhere near an accurate approximation of what the lens sees.

Rangefinder coupling means that as you focus the lens, the lens transfers the distance setting to the camera by a mechanical linkage, so that you can use the camera's builtin rangefinder for focusing.

In a non-rangefinder coupled lens, when you focus the lens nothing will change in the viewfinder, so that you have no obvious way of checking whether something is in focus. You need either to guess how far away your target is, or measure it with a tape rule and transfer this distance to the lens. In wideangles that doesn't matter, because the depth of field is so great that you don't need to focus that accurately.
 
Thanks for the help and clarifying what rangefinder coupling is; now I just need to wait on ebay for a decent example to come up for sale!
 
The only incompatible lens I've hit was Summaron. It looses coupling when close focusing - it's fined the rear if the time. The problem is that the lens has a cut out slot which has to align with the rangefinder arm - and the lens doesn't screw in quite far enough in the mount to do that on any of the Feds or Zorkis I've handled.

Also note that just because the flange to film distance is suppose to be good doesn't mean it was originally or still is. All it takes is one person removing shims under the lens mount to throw the distance off. Very fixable as long as the shims just need to be increased.
 
Brian Legge said:
The only incompatible lens I've hit was Summaron. It looses coupling when close focusing - it's fined the rear if the time. The problem is that the lens has a cut out slot which has to align with the rangefinder arm - and the lens doesn't screw in quite far enough in the mount to do that on any of the Feds or Zorkis I've handled.
Click to expand...

Same issue with my Nikkor 3.5cm/2.5 on the Zorki-4. I have no idea if the Skopar 28/3.5 is similar in this respect. Maybe someone will chime in to confirm. No near-range RF on a 28 is like having no RF at all - that's when you need it.
 
Would'nt it also be easy to adapt the FSU''s RF to the VC specification. As much as I can remember this would just be a minor operation with a screwdriver
 
Spider67 said:
Would'nt it also be easy to adapt the FSU''s RF to the VC specification. As much as I can remember this would just be a minor operation with a screwdriver
Click to expand...

Would this be that necessary on a 28mm from a brief perusal on dante stella (http://www.dantestella.com/technical/compat.html), I may be misinterpreting but there is a suggestion that it wouldn't make too much of a difference in focussing.
 
Accessory finder on the Zorki 1

Accessory finder on the Zorki 1

rxmd said:
It would work and would be rangefinder coupled. I would recommend getting an exteral 28mm accessory viewfinder, the built-in viewfinder would not give anywhere near an accurate approximation of what the lens sees.

Rangefinder coupling means that as you focus the lens, the lens transfers the distance setting to the camera by a mechanical linkage, so that you can use the camera's builtin rangefinder for focusing.

In a non-rangefinder coupled lens, when you focus the lens nothing will change in the viewfinder, so that you have no obvious way of checking whether something is in focus. You need either to guess how far away your target is, or measure it with a tape rule and transfer this distance to the lens. In wideangles that doesn't matter, because the depth of field is so great that you don't need to focus that accurately.
Click to expand...

RXMD - am new to the forum and noticed your comment on the accessory finders. I would like to use my Voigtlander 15mm Super-Heliar on my Zorki 1 but the mount is slightly wider than the accessory shoe on the Zorki. I don't want to have to file or trim the viewfinder mount; do you have the same issue, and if so, how do you address it? Thanks!
 
Hi,

Years ago when hot shoes first appeared there were thousands of little gadgets sold for people with old fashioned flash guns. The gadget fitted into the hot shoe an had the old fashioned 3mm coaxial plug on the side and another "cold" hot shoe on the top for the flash gun.

Ignoring the flash aspects what it did was give you a new accessory clip about a half inch higher. So small meters could be fitted on it and the shutter speed dial was accessible and the top shoe could be modified to fit odd sizes without messing up the cameras shoe.

As we are thinking about a 15mm very wide angle lens I don't see any problem with getting one and fitting the 15mm view-finder on to it.

I hope this helps.

Regards, David
 
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