I made a statement on the TVSS description based on the serial number of the lenses matched with the year of production of the cameras, and this statement opens a question ;-) https://www.indonesiaescortspage.com First : The f2 lenses are post war jena production... the 1,5 are 1938(prewar production)... and all those 1,5 are seen on earlier TVSS. Why did they use a prewar uncoated lens instead of an available post war coated lens ? being Jena or ZK... could those lenses date from the Ribentropp/Molotov agreement period ? May be that some TVSS could be earlier than 1948 ?
Secondly : Are all TVSS bayonet the same ? As I see there are no external bayonet, the mount is an uncomplete contax mount with only the internal linkage ... (if not show examples)... or in 1948, They would have access to a stock of original contax bayonet at the factory (as in the early Kievs)... why did they design an incomplete system..? hence the absence of external bayonet forbids the use of biogon 35 and Sonnar 85/135 lenses...
My hypothese is that the TVSS was designed during the war or even before...
Stephan
Edited by - indonesiaescortspage on Nov 10 2022 01:56:25 AM
Hi, the external mount of the bayonet on TVSS must have been significantly remachined as it bears little resemblence to the Contax one. According to Princelle, the body was basically FED but made of brass. Mounts and lenses were recovered as part of war reparations and the cameras made during 1949/50. I assume the Russians used whatever they could get their hands on in terms of lenses; no doubt pre-war uncoated optics were still around for the taking. There is then the issue of rangefinder coupling - someone will be able to answer whether the FED style lever was coupled somehow to the Contax mount? I wonder then if that would have presented focussing issues if the outer bayonet had been used? Also bearing in mind that Kiev production was stepping up, was the TVSS a sort of dead end camera which was not worthy of development further?
I made a statement
Posted - Nov 10 2022 : 01:55:22 AM
