Homemade Box Camera

What do you guys think the bracket above the lens is for?

Very interesting camera Vlad! How did you find it?
I do not have answer on your question, but I think camera above and your FED 3:
http://www.ussrphoto.com/Wiki/default.asp?WikiCatID=47&ParentID=1&ContentID=346&Item=FED+3+6x9+Medium+Format
and this camera:
http://www.ussrphoto.com/Wiki/default.asp?WikiCatID=47&ParentID=1&ContentID=346&Item=FED+3+6x9+Medium+Format
made for same purposes. They also seem to be made in same period or time. You told me before that street photographers presumably used them. Very well this could be. At list I have no other explanation for they existence, but I still have some doubts about such cameras. Why spend time and efforts to build them when factory made large format cameras was available and factory made cameras definitely will get better results. Price? I do not think so. Street photographer would return investment in few weeks. 6x9 Frame Format? Possibly. But why? Could be some other reasons?

Maybe the bracket on the front is for some type of wire "sports finder" or view finder to attach on to.

I think Okynek may be right about street photographers using a different camera. Probably since they could make money with photography, they could afford to buy a commercial camera (maybe). I would think that this camera and the other that has the FED-3 might have been built at home by someone who did not have extra money to go and buy a camera, but could come across parts, especially the lens (in the case of this box camera), and was devoted to photography and so built it. The same with the FED-3 large format ... probably had the FED ... maybe not working ... and so used it to build a large format camera along with one or more other old cameras.
They are beautiful in their way, sort of like folk art, and show how much time the person who made them was willing to spend!

Regards, Bill

You are probably right Bill, the DIY projects were quite common in Soviet household. It was hard to buy stuff, so a lot of people resorted to building/fixing stuff themselves. Old stuff was almost never thrown out, if it broke, usually it was fixed. When I got to USA, the concept of buying a new iron, washing machine or TV when the old one broke was very alien to me .. My family had the same TV in my home country for more than 20 years. Here I change them every 3 years when a newer better model comes out. Very different cultures. But it's becoming more and more like in western countries now there with the fall of USSR...

Okynek, sorry I missed your question - I found it on molotok actually :) Also your theory does make a lot of sense, but there were a lot of people who had as they say "умелые руки" (handymen), so it was possible someone did make these cameras to get a jumpstart on the street photography business, then upgraded to a real camera.... anything can happen

You probably right, Vlad. What strange to me is that all this cameras seems to be made for format 6x9. May be 6x6 was not enough?
BTW Is any one having problems with shipping lately? Or may be someone know what is going on? I am waiting for package from St.Petersburg for almost 2 month. And for another package from Ukraine for more then 1 month. Recently I got package from Germany what was in transit for 7 weeks. It was never happens before.

Aidas and I are having problems as well getting an item from Germany to Lithuania....

Vlad

Like said, USA-Europe and vice versa is much slower now and takes many weeks.
Germany-Finland typical max two weeks like always.
Ukraina-Finland is extremely fast, usually one week.
Beijing-Finland only a couple of days!

Smena rules

Germany-Lithiania, it's been almost a month, and Aidas checked - it's still in transit... something's going on...

Once a parcel from Germany took over one full month as it travelled through France. Someone thought Finland is same as France as both begin with "F"...
So it may be in Luxembourg?

Smena rules