FED (camera)

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The FED is a Soviet rangefinder camera, mass produced from 1934 until around 1984, and also the name of the factory that made it.

FED is indirectly named after Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Cheka. It was his name that was given to the labour commune at Kharkiv (Ukraine) whose manager, Anton Makarenko, encouraged a workshop education for indigent children and who decided to copy the Leica in 1932.

Large-scale production began in 1934, and in the same year the factory was put under NKVD control and Makarenko was fired. Production continued until 1941, when German forces destroyed the factory, and resumed in 1946.

Until 1955, the factory made a huge number of cameras that resemble the Leica rather closely (and are often altered, given "Leica" markings, and sold as Leicas). However, the design is cruder: for example, the rangefinder cam is not fitted with a wheel.

From 1955, FED began to innovate, combining the rangefinder with the viewfinder in the FED 2 and all its successors. The FED 4 (1964–77) added an exposure meter, and in the later production stage the film advance was changed to a more regular lever instead of the thumbwheel that was used until then. The FED 5 marked the end of the FED rangefinder family, and was meant as a replacement for both the FED-3 and FED-4 that were in production at the time of its introduction. The various models of the FED-5 differ in exposure meter location, depending on the type it was intended to replace. All FED-5 cameras were delivered with an Industar I-61LD lens. Production of FED rangefinder cameras ended somewhere in the mid 1990's (Fed-5 Serial Number 545446 was made on February 28 1994) Fed's site Claims that it was in fact 1997: "Start of serial production of vertical drive for control system of tanks. Production of all types of cameras has stopped. 8,647,000 cameras were manufactured since the beginning."

There is some argument over whether the FED and Zorki have fully Leica-compatible lens mounts. Quality control was poor, but most Soviet lenses can be screwed into Leica bodies and most Leica screwmount lenses into most Soviet bodies. However, correct focusing is not guaranteed, as the different rangefinder cam size can prove problematic and slight differences exist in the distance between the mounting point of the lens and the film.

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