Tag: russian

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Balboa VS Drago

My money is on Drago for this one

The Soviet camera industry didn’t copy too many american designs. Most of the time they designed cameras based on German and Japanese concepts; They were not fools: German and Japanese stuff are as good as it gets when you talk about cameras.

The Moment is a strange beast in the Soviet camera world. It is to the Polaroid 95 what the Kiev 6C was to the Pentacon Six: a model very much inspired in the original, so much that it couldn’t be sold in the West because of flagrant patent infringement. It wasn’t an exact copy and there are a few different details, but the Soviet Pola has Land genes in it. The insides are pretty much the same, as the instant photography system was copied exactly, but there are many different things.

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In Soviet Russia lens shoot through YOU

Industar! Industar! INDUSTAR! Sounds like the name of a horror flick from the nineties. I love it.
Industar! Industar! INDUSTAR! Sounds like the name of a horror flick from the nineties. I love it.

Today you gonna read me delve even deeper into madness and talk Russian lenses. Shall we? Ok, now. Once the bug has bitten you and you have the old glass flu, russky lenses are so conspicuously there that you can’t ignore them. Many despise old Soviet glass out of plain prejudice: because it’s a product of the commie economy. Which sure had its issues, but we are talking glass & helicoids now.

For all of those who talk crap on Soviet lenses without knowing shit: you should know that when most Soviet lenses first hit the (very controlled commie countries’ only) market in the 1950s, they were on par with its Western counterparts (I won’t say ‘competition’ because they didn’t share markets), both mechanically and optically. Take into account that many optical legends like the Biotar, the Macro-Switar, the Zoomar, the Angeniéux Rètrofocus, the first Summicron… were mass marketed for the first time in the 50’s.

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O commander, my commander!

sinarp+industar51+mcp001-001

Look at this. Just LOOK AT THIS. No? Nothing special? Look twice. It might look like a Leica II with a Leitz Summar but it is not. This, boys and girls, is a FED S with a 5cm f2 “FED Summar” collapsible lens attached.

Why is it special, you say? Well, first of all, less than 2000 (yes, two-thousand) samples of this camera were ever made, and not all of them were supplied with the “FED Summar” lens. Add to this that this was produced in 1940, before WWII spread to the Soviet Union, so we can assume that at least some of them were lost during the war; plus, it’s 75 years since it was made… in short: it is a very exclusive item.

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I see a vanilla Kiev and I want it painted black…

sinarp+symmar+mcp---24-3-15011

…no chrome anymore, I want it to turn black   ♪

I see the Leicas shoot dressed in their black chrome   ♫

I have to turn my head until chrome from my Kiev goes   ♪

etc.

Yes, the Rolling Stones’ songs were all about cameras, but they had to adapt them to be more mainstream. Busters.

Now, today we’ll give a little rest to Zenits and their ancestors and we’re going to talk about Kievs. More or less.

Continue reading I see a vanilla Kiev and I want it painted black…