ndustrial

In the interwar period, the FED was the most interesting Soviet rangefinder miniature
camera. Until 1941, except the standard FED camera (shutter speed to 1/500, Industar
10 3,5/50 lens), the FED S and B were also produced. The S version came with
shutter speed to 1/1000s. and relative aperture f2 and the B version with shutter
speedfrom 1s to 1/20s. Models numbered 2, 3, 4 and 5 were produced then. Since
1941 the age of Zorki and Kiev, afterwards, has come. When in 1978 the decision of
stopping the production of Zorki was taken, FED was back in grace. Next, in 1985
when the production of rangefinder Kiev cameras was finished, FED became, to a
certain degree, the only classic rangefinder camera with replaceable lenses available
in Poland. FED's lenses have the same bayonet mount that it shared with the Zorki,
i.e. the old Leica's thread M 39x1. FED is named after Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky.
FED was manufactured in Krasnogorsk, then the production was moved to Kharkov
where the plant existed to this day. In 80's in Poland, the FED 5B and 5 were quite
popular and could be seen in the Foto-Optyka shops as one of few items in the shop
window. They were relatively cheap (cheaper than the Zeniths) and moreover were
sold with a wide range of equipment, such as: light meter, automatic frame counter,
film advance lever, rangefinder facilitating the beginners to take correct shots. If we
are lucky enough to find a well-maintained piece, we can have a quite interesting
alternative to for example, Zenith.