FED-1948-Zorki

I finally bought one today. After a good run selling my old gear on ebay last week, I decided to go shopping around the used-camera shops and junk stores. I ended up buying 5 cameras, one of which was a FED-1948-Zorki. I ended up paying $48 for it.

The camera is functional, and seems to be in decent condition. The shutter curtains don't look great, but I'll run a roll of film through it anyway while I wait for the new curtains I ordered to arrive.

The camera has a top shutter speed of 1/1000th sec, and the shutter speeds seem accurate when compared to my Leicas.

Unfortunately, the camera did not come with a lens. Can anyone point me to which particular lens goes with this camera?

Congratulations on a great find at a bargain price! These have a pretty high "wow" factor and according to the Wiki, only about 5,500 were made. The correct lens is probably an Industar 22 although I understand that a few were fitted with f/2 SK lenses. I believe that these have the year marked on front but somebody else can probably tell you more about them.

There were several cosmetic changes to the earlist 22s and the correct one would depend on your camera serial number. As I understand it from my database of numbers, the order in terms of engraving in 1948 was something like this Moskva (Mockba) with plain (no ray through it yet) KMZ prism, Industar 22 with Zorki only, Industar 22 with Moskva and plain KMZ prism, Industar 22 with plain KMZ prism only.

However,both the Moskva with plain prism and Industar 22 with plain prism have the FED like plain infinity lock plunger instead of Leica-like and focussing tab instead of foussing ring that the others already have. So maybe the order is slightly different in reality.

The ray through the KMZ prism only appeared in later lenses followed by serial numbers being engraved on the front from maybe 1951 or 1952.

If I have got it wrong or out of sequence, I am sure I will be corrected by more knowledgeable people here.

Regards,
Paul

Where I said focussing tab and ring, I of course meant aperture tab and ring. These senior moments are becoming embarrassing.

nice find...
wow

Stephan

Congrats!!! Wow. If I only had such luck!

I got lucky today, I found an early Moscow-Industar22 lens which matches my FED-Zorki. The lens is a little loose-feeling, but the glass is clean and unmarked.

I plan to replace the shutter curtains this week, while dry-firing the camera last week one of the curtain ribbons broke (very dry-rotted), so the camera is doing paperweight duty until I get the curtains put in.

I'll post some pics when I get home.

What, again? I nust be saving my luck for a big lottery win. Well done.

Paul

Here is a pic of the camera. The guy at the shop I got the camera from said that the lens was the one which came with the camera, though for some reason it was removed to be sold separately, apparently they thought the lens was worth more than the camera.

I'll perform shutter surgery tonight, hopefully by tomorrow I'll have a working camera which I can try out some film with.

and the lens seems coated ?

what a nice set...

Stephan

Stephan,

I also own a 1948 FED-Zorki with it's original Industar 22 lens.
That's also coatet. And a Mockba lens I own is coatet too. But both are only light blue coatet.

Ulrich

http://fotos.cconin.de

Hello,

My MOCKBA serial number 11359 is not coated.
On a Fed-Zorki from 1948 too.

Amitiйs. Jacques.

Jacques,

I took a closer look. You are right, the MOCKBA I have is also uncoatet. But the I-22 on the FED-Zorki is a bit blue/purple coatet.

Ulrich

http://fotos.cconin.de

Ulrich,
My Industar 22/Zorkyi n°143 is blue/purple, you are right.
Perhaps these non original lenses were bought afterwards to put on Fed-Zorki-s ?
Another explanation: these new Industar 22/Zorkyi could have been put on some non sold Fed-Zorki-s after 1949?

Who knows?
Amitiйs. Jacques.

Jacques,

I believe that my I-22 comes original with the camera. I have the original Box of the FED-Zorki (by the way, lemon-yellow paper on it). The number of the camera matches and I have a I-22 on it.

Unfortunatly there is no lens number written on the box. But this lens is a bit blue/purple coatet. By the way, my lens number is #147 :-)



Ulrich

http://fotos.cconin.de

Yes, the lens looks coated, but the coating is a little different from my other Industar and FED lenses. It is a pale-blue in color, not as purple as on other lenses. The serial number is 5209.

I am a bit lost with all those I-22!
For the two early ones I speak of:
- the first is the 11359. It's a "MOCKBA" K330 by JLP with the "tomb". It was on a Fed-Zorki serial number 24xx I have no more. Not coated.
- the second is later. It's an Industar 22-Zorkyi serial number 143, K350 by JLP. It was on my Fed-Zorki n° 3278 when I bought it, but I think it is probably not original. It could have been mounted after. Blue/purple coated.

I think Sangetsu's one is a K332, by JLP. The coating is surprising on such a lens. But I am not a specialist. As for yours, Ulrich, which lens is it exactly?

As we know, KMZ began with Fed (and Contax) lenses hardly modified: so is my n° 11359. But after, it is not so easy to tell which lens normally fits which type of Fed-Zorki, or even Zorki 1a or 1b (at the beginning).

If you know, please...

Amitiйs. Jacques.

I'm not sure what comes originally on the FED-Zorki. My camera's serial number is 3792, the lens serial number is actually 5203.

Shutter surgery was successful, but I found that the intermediate gear on the shutter button is somewhat stripped. Luckily I have an old FED parts camera which seems to have a good gear on it. I hate to disassemble the camera again after getting the shutter properly set up, I'll see if I can find a way of replacing the gear without digging too deeply into it.

Jacques,

mine is a K340. Princelle writes it's coatet and can be found on FED-Zorki from 1948 and 1949.

Ulrich

http://fotos.cconin.de

Ulrich,
No doubt for your K340. My K350 should probably be better on an early 1b. I think some owners of Fed-Zorki changed their non coated lens against a coated one...

Jeff,
Did you clean all that?

Amitiйs. Jacques.

Jacques,

that seems to be a reason. Princelle writes that the MOSKWA lenses are uncoatet, so some people maybe changed their lens to a later coatet I-22 as it can be found on the Zorki 1b.

I also have a Zorki 1a that has the K345 lens. It's coatet the same way as the lens on my FED-Zorki. You can see both lenses and cameras here:

http://fotos.cconin.de/kameras/zorki1.htm#fedzorki
and
http://fotos.cconin.de/kameras/zorki1.htm#zorki1a

Jeff, you are right, it's more a blue coating than a purple one.

Ulrich

http://fotos.cconin.de

Nope, I didn't clean it, the camera shop did a pretty good job of that, at least on the outside. The inside is another case, it's quite grimy. The rangefinder assembly is rather dirty, and there isn't much contrast, I'll clean it out later on when I replace the bad gear.

The shop I got it from is part of a large used-equipment chain with 4 stores in my area. This particular store sells the less expensive equipment, and they usually have a pretty good selection of old FSU cameras. The other 3 shops don't carry them. But they do a good job of cleaning everything before putting it on the shelf.

This is the second FED-Zorki that they've had this year, the last one was priced at about $200. I was going to pick that one up, but I found a good deal on a dual range Summicron that I wanted for my M4, so I passed on the the Zorki.

They have a couple more FED NKVD cameras which look pretty nice, I'll take a closer look at them next weekend.