NKAP Selenium Light Meter

notes: This light meter is very well built and still functions accurately. It is quite heavy (6.1 oz.). The body is bakelite, the front window is celluloid, the back dome window for the selenium cell is glass. There is a mechanical arrow switch on the front that moves a perforated plate in front of the selenium cell, for readings in strong light.

I have not seen this light meter before, or referenced anywhere. It appears to have the insignia / logo of NKAP which was; The People's Commissariat for the Aviation Industry (Narodniy Kommisariat Aviatsionoy Promishlinosti). Certainly the FED Zavod was under the command of this bureau during the war (having become independent of the NKVD), as were other factories. Both the TSVVS and the NKAP "Red Flag" cameras made by FED seem to have had a close connection with the NKAP.

The serial number, #1363, would suggest that a number of these units were produced, maybe to replace the old pre-war FED selenium meters, possibly for military use or for use with the TSVVS and the new FEDs.

There was a Soviet aeronautics factory, No. 149, in Irkutsk, listed as being under the direction of the Ministery NKOP (Ministery of Defense) in 1936. During the 1940s many factories were transferred from the authority of the KNOP to the NKAP. So possibly this light meter was made at the aero-defense factory at Irkutsk in 1946.





This a copy of German light meter Tempophot (1935), produced by Metrawatt.
Miha Podlogar/Slovenia

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