Vintage cameras thread V1.0 - film for life, digutal for pussies

[Torchwood01]

Hello, facepunch, i'm here to offer you a new topic to talk about - vintage 20th century era photo cameras. Many of us have such relicts of the past in their closets, remaining after parents, grandparents, or bought many years ago by the most old members of FP. Some of that stuff are still in use and for the ones, who love old photoeqipment as i do, i created this thread.

To have something we can start with, i want to introduce you my own camera - soviet rangefinder "[B]Zorky 1[/B]" ("[B]Зоркий[/B]").

[IMG]https://pp.vk.me/c630516/v630516063/32437/lwrg4C_d16U.jpg[/IMG]
[I]My camera and my coffe, the very heart of my life[/I]

It was in production in 1948-1956 (my camera, for example, produced in 1953 and i've bought it in local antiques shop) and it's a very qualitative post-war soviet clone of legendary Leica II. Let me tell you about history of this model.

[IMG]https://web2.ph.utexas.edu/~yue/rff/LeicaII.jpg[/IMG]
[I]Original german Leica II[/I]

Before war, in early 30th, soviet photoeqipment manufactures first time started to think about clonning Leica rangefinders, demand of whitch started to grow expanently as the result of soviet journalism upgrowth. Soviet professional reporters and high grade photographing enthusiasts were in need of quality and mass equipement, so in 1934 the Charkiv city engineering plant "FED" developed first Leica II copy, named the same as the manufacturer.

FEDs were officialy in production until 1954, but in fact, as the start of World War II, the plant has got into nazi occupied territory and was emergency evacuated with all documentation and facilities. Of course, when war was over, the factory returned to it's rightful place and even recommence FEDs manufacturing, but not for long, because soon was released a new, original design "FED 2". However, at the first plaсe, in 1948, part of FED developments were transferred to the Krasnogorsk Mechanical Works (KMZ) facility. And that is the place, where Zorky history begins.

[IMG]http://ohranka.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/-%D0%92%D0%9E%D0%92--e1368349107754.jpg[/IMG]
[I]Soviet war reporters with FED[/I]

Mostly, KMZ is known by it's world famous SLR cameras "Zenit", but in my rangefinder fan opinion "Zorky" series is the one of their most outstanding creations.
First "Zorky" like mine were nominally distributed with a precious soviet lense "Industar-22", that is still demanded in modern era by many photographers as a good quality macro lense. It has a simple and very reliable optical scheme and construction (steel housing and really heavy thick glass, it's almost undeatructible as an old Nokia cellphone), that along with legendary Leica and it's clones durability makes you able to shot extremely quality photos in almost every conditions.

[IMG]http://radojuva.com.ua/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/p-industar-22-50mm-obzor-6.jpg[/IMG]
[I]Industar-22 on modern Canon camera[/I]

Talking about durability, i have to warn you about it's difference over the years of producing. The important thing is that before 1952 housing has been manufacturing by presswork and wasn't so tough (in fact, housing deformation even was their main problem). But after that year, KMZ started to make it out of cast metal and now you can beat someone to death with 1952-1956 Zorky and your camera will not even need any repair but cleaning blood.

Finally, the most interesting thing about both Zorky and FED, is the artisanal manufactured fake Leicas. History of that fraudulence started because of huge price difference between soviet and german cameras (for example, i bought my Zorky for 4500 rubles, and real Leica II costed in the same shop 120000, [B]it's about 25 times difference[/B]), but wherein mostly outwardly indistinguishable. So, some not very nice people thought "why not to by many cheap Zorky's and FED's, repaint it, put on a housing "Leice" stamp and resell for 25 times more expensive". For now that fakes (if they are soviet era, not modern, of course) has their own collectional cost and sometimes very big through it's rarity (50000-60000 rubles in the same shop).

[IMG]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/44/Leica_D.R.P._Ernst_Leitz_Wetzlar.jpg/1024px-Leica_D.R.P._Ernst_Leitz_Wetzlar.jpg[/IMG]
[I]Pseudo "Leica". Fraud can be easy recognised by looking on the shot button form[/I]

I hope you all were interested in reading my article, so now i may ask you to show everyone your own old photoeqipment like that or even more rare. Also, i know somewhere in my house must be my grandpa's old Zenit SLR camera, and although i probably won't use it, cause i like rangefinders too much, i can find it and write similar article for you all, if someone's interested.

[codenamecueball]

hi there

i don't know if you're aware, but the majority of photographic chat is centrered around the [url="https://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1511490"]general photo chat thread[/url] and the [URL="https://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1500679"]creative photography thread here[/URL]. we've been discussing cameras from vintage to cutting edge over these places and it's a great community to join.

the issue with threads like these is the narrow scope generally doesn't pick up much traction in general discussion, but i hope it goes well.

the oldest camera i used to use was a pentax me super, but now i shoot 35mm on my film body, an eos 3 which is hardly vintage, being in production until 2003 and having 45-point AF

[Torchwood01]

[QUOTE=codenamecueball;50418147]hi there

i don't know if you're aware, but the majority of photographic chat is centrered around the [url="https://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1511490"]general photo chat thread[/url] and the [URL="https://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1500679"]creative photography thread here[/URL]. we've been discussing cameras from vintage to cutting edge over these places and it's a great community to join.

the issue with threads like these is the narrow scope generally doesn't pick up much traction in general discussion, but i hope it goes well.

the oldest camera i used to use was a pentax me super, but now i shoot 35mm on my film body, an eos 3 which is hardly vintage, being in production until 2003 and having 45-point AF[/QUOTE]

I didn't known exactly but suspected somewhere there must be a big photographic thread, and maybe it's a really good idea to join this discussion, but here, just as you said, i'm trying to make a thread about more narrow topic. I'm just interested about if there someone with old cameras like mine, and wanna share some articles like that, which can be interesting for this public. It was pretty enjoyable to write.