Introduction - New member: AidasCams

Hello eveyone,

Thanks to Vlad for inviting to join this up-and-coming site! I'm Aidas Pikiotas from Vilnius, Lithuania and I have been collecting soviet cameras for about 15 years. Although having some rare to find soviet cameras, I concentrate my attention to mass-market cameras collecting, as well as everything related to cameras: literature, accessories, lenses, etc. And my favourite camera brand is SMENA!

You are welcome to visit my camera website (www.sovietcams.com). Inside you'll find a lot of soviet mass-market cameras as well as many other useful (hopefully ...) things.

Best Regards,

Aidas

Aidas,

I am ecstatic to have you here! Welcome!

Wow! Smena? Really? Will those be the old bakelites or the newer plastic ones?

Regards,

Vlad

In fact I'm in love with all of them ...

Hello Aidas,

Welcome, and it is very fine to see you here my old friend! Your great knowledge and friendly self will be another happy addition to this forum and the WIKI Catalog.

Your website is wonderful and I visit it often.

Regards, Bill

I don't think I remember a day since I started collection Russian cameras when I didn't have sovietcams.com open in one of the browser tabs in my Firefox. :) It is my online Princelle. :)

Vlad.

Dear Bill,

I'm very happy to meet you here. I've checked your website recently and found some more useful information indeed. Thanks for keeping your promises ...

Best Regards,

Aidas

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="MS Trebuchet, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Vlad</i>
<br />I don't think I remember a day since I started collection Russian cameras when I didn't have sovietcams.com open in one of the browser tabs in my Firefox. :) It is my online Princelle. :)

Vlad.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"> Hello again Vlad,
Too much praises about my ordinary website ... [:)] Do you want me to close it as soon? No problem, but you need a lot of free space to post all my "rubbish" to your Wiki Catalog [:)]

Hey, no way I want you to close your site, LOL, it is your personal collection! That is why there is a My Collection link under each person's name in forums. But I will definitely appreciate you post some of your rarest examples to this Wiki.

Thanks,
Vlad

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="MS Trebuchet, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Vlad</i>
<br />Hey, no way I want you to close your site, LOL, it is your personal collection! That is why there is a My Collection link under each person's name in forums. But I will definitely appreciate you post some of your rarest examples to this Wiki.

Thanks,
Vlad
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Already done. Please find Selena Traffic camera attached ...

Awesome! Thanks!! I'll start posting some stuff I got as well, I don't have many super-rare ones but I got a few nice cameras that can be added to Wiki.

Vlad

Aidas! My congratulations ! I am Luiz Paracampo from Zenit group of Tom Tiger and am proud to recieve you in our group.
Your knowledge and experience are very useful to the group.
About Smena - Lets talk post war Smenas. The first generation Up to and including model 4 are real pieces of art! Which camera inspired it?- No more no less than Leica Compur - the viewfinder is the same- and has a central shutter. The design is superior in the Smena once the shutter does not revolves. The lens ahead the shutter enables possibilities in becoming an interchangeable lens camera! Second generation: Model 5 to 9 - a Leningrad design with Contax and Werra influences. The cristal block was first used in Werra I prototypes and first run. This same system was used in Contax II III IIa IIIa and all Kiev RF cameras.
In the world there are no other = low priced camera plastic bodied with all the technical SMENA features and resources.
The Smena gave other generations: the 8m; 35; Symvol; Rapid; LOMO 135;135VS; Elektro; and Signal None of the same charm - and an interesting close related the Vesna of BelOMO. not forgetting Vilia Siluet and FED MIKRON ; 35; 35A; 50
Salute!
LP

Dear Luiz,

I'm very glad to see you in the forum! I still remember our discussions in Zenit Camera Group as well. And I'm very happy you also feel a CHARM of these cheap plastic cameras. The truth is, couple of years ago I had the main task to collect all the mass-market Smenas. I was stupid and though it's quite easy, because there are a lot of Smenas in post soviet areas. Yee, it was easy to get the first 9-10 cameras from the group. I stopped on cheapest of them Smena-5. It took at least few years to find one for my collection. After I got one, I was lucky to get another one, which was swaped immediately to Smena-19 with finnish Smena collector. I even remember the date I assembled all 17 mass-market models - it was 21th February, 2005!

Cheers,

Aidas

Aidas (also calling all members !)
<font size="4"><b>Suggestion-Build an interchangeable lens Smena To be sold in a two lens kit -Leica CL clone </b> </font id="size4">
<font size="3"><font size="3"><b>Industar 2.8/40 and Triplet 4/90</b></font id="size3"></font id="size3">
Take a look to <u>- Weird Lomo 135BC - Help! - (Vlad)</u>
I feel, -and believe you also- on the high potencialities of the Authentic Russian camera design. This LOMO camera in an example.
Sugestion - <b>Build new prototypes with higher potencials with already </b> <b>existing parts-</b> Showing them feasability and influence the Russian industry to construct them. These equipment belong to a generation that cannot be lost for commercial reasons-
LP

Aidas,

how much did you pay for you Smena 5? I'm extensively looking for one right now, and was wondering what kind of pricerange does it go for right now?

Thanks!

Luiz, I love your fearless way of thinking! I just wish I was bit more mechanically savvy so I could plunge into this new frontier with you. :)


Vlad.

Vlad,

In April 2005 I bought a Smena-5, complete with box, passport, manual, and in great condition with original lenscap and shade, on Ebay for $51.00. I was surprised to get it for so little money, but there were others bidding!

I think that now they may go for a higher price and they seem very hard to find. My opinion is, that even if you saw one in good condition for $150.00 it would be worth getting. But I hope you get one for much less and soon ;-)

Regards, Bill

Thanks Bill! That gives me a good reference point, because I haven't encountered it yet...

Vlad.

Vlad,

They are hard to find. I will let you know if I see any, but I have not seen one on Ebay or anywhere else online since that time. Good luck!

Later today I will post a Smena (not Smena-1, but the original model - 1939 with small bellows) to my site and the WIKI and start a thread about Smenas in the Forum since it is a very interesting specialized field of collecting.

Regards, Bill

Vlad,

They are hard to find. I will let you know if I see any, but I have not seen one on Ebay or anywhere else online since that time. Good luck!

Later today I will post a Smena (not Smena-1, but the original model - 1939 with small bellows) to my site and the WIKI and start a thread about the Smena cameras in the Forum since it is a very interesting specialized field of collecting.

Regards, Bill

Hello friends,

Good question indeed. I saw only very few Smena-5 on eBay. One was sold two years ago for USD 126.5 and another one was bought by Bill, I guess [:)] I have paid USD 15 for S-5 complete set, only plastic lens cap is missing. So it was good deal indeed. In fact, recently I possess at least four of them ... I was lucky to find two separate versions, also I have spare camera with shutter problems and "No name" version with Smena-5 label lost [:)]

Hello Aidas,
I guess this is where I introduce myself. I'm Steve, better known as the $126.50 PROUD owner of the Smena 5 you saw on eBay. The camera was rather hard to come by and when I saw it I vowed not to loose it. I do not own many Smena models, just a few. What led me to pursue the Smena 5 was that I also collect Werra cameras and the Smena 5, with the reversing lens shade and screw-in cap, seemed like a nice Werra copy.

Regards,
Steve

Hello Steve,

Nice to meet you here and welcome to the forum! I enjoy those beautiful WERRA cameras a lot. Just few years ago I had the complete set of green Werra, but it was swapped to soviet stuff unfortunately ... I'm happy you bought that Smena-5, the very desirable camera for many camera collectors.

Regards,

Aidas

Oh man.. this is hilarious! LOL! I just realized that most of the eBay prices for Soviet cameras are set by the people registered on this site! :)

Vlad

Very interesting to note is that WERRA is the most Soviet of German cameras. It was originally developed in the Kiev Arsenal plant by the engeneers who developed the Contax production in Kiev (the would be-VOLGA) The intention was to put the Saalfeld Jena factory (Jena-Contax-and-future-Kiev developer) again working and producing a popular top results camera. (from Zeiss Jena archives)

Getting back on Smena-5 topic, thanks to Steve I am now a proud owner of Smena-5! He actually found one for me somehow on eBay, when all my fancy RSS feeds didn't pick it up! Woohoo! :) And $39 too!

Steve, I owe you a beer :).


Vlad.