FED Panoramic Head

Hi All,

I have not been able to find the FED Stereo Bar accessory yet (but will keep looking), but I did find another unusual and probably pretty rare FED accessory ... a panoramic head. It measures about 4" long. Here are some photos of it:





So, you can see that it has engraved instructions for several lenses ... amount of rotation for each, to make a panoramic photo.
hope you like it! I bought it along with the stereo bar (which I hope to find soon) and also a FED negative viewer / magnifier.



Bill





Regards, Bill

Hello Bill

A very nice tool. But I'm asking me how it works? For a panoramic head it would be necessary to change the distance from the turning point (tripod) to the camera for adjust to the nodal point according the lens in use. As I can see and understand the engravings for the different lenses (28/50/100mm) there are only adjustment of the angle of view, or do I missunderstand something?

By the way: The nodal point depends not only on the focal length and the lens construction, but also on the focal distance and in a very minor way also on the aperture used. But it's just an other story ...

For me it's very interesting to see that even so many years ago people were taking panoramic pictures with such cameras. And this without using any panoramic software! ;-)

Best wishes - Guido

Hi Guido,

Well, I have not tried it, but I think it would work to the extent that you can make a number of exposures, make a print of each exposure, tape them together on the back, and you will have a panorama.

Of course this is a somewhat primitive method compared to things we can do today, but I can remember when I was a kid of 15 and I put my little Bolsey 35mm camera on a tripod, swiveled the camera around for each shot and made a panorama! Of course it was not perfect, with places the image did not meet up exactly between images ... but it was amazing.

So today we don't need it because we have stitching software ... but in 1938, it would be nice to have this device instead of swiveling the camera around on the tripod, without this device! Sometime soon I will try it and publish the results on this thread.

Regards, Bill

Hi,

I hope my book scans will help you ... Source: Camera FED by D.Bunimovich, 1942. Unfortunately in original language only ...





Best Regards,
Aidas

fabulous !!!
alain

that's excatly the same system included in my "Compass" english?swiss camera from 1930's.

Exciting!
I had never seen such an item. Thanks, Bill!
Any other mysterious treasures?

So it really seems that the accessories, including the macro lenses, were all numbered before # 20000, even the rarest ones.

Amitiйs. Jacques.

Cool bracket, Bill! Never even knew these existed.

Based on the Bunimovich's pages that Aidas was kind enough to post, I have a growing suspicion that these were not made at FED factory but were made for FED by outside source. Bunimovich mentions "Optikopribor" name at some point near an illustration, this sounds like a factory or organization name and not an item....

Vlad

Could be Vlad, but the piece looks like FED machine work ... even the matte chrome finish looks the same. What would be a translation of "Optikopribor" ?

Regards, Bill

Yea I don't know, just a suspicion... translated it's "Optical Device" but I've never seen it in this kind of form, usually these kind of abbreviations are used in organization names and not in conversational language.. but then again this book is very old, it may have just been a buzzword at the time...

Vlad.

Doesn't it mean "optical product" ? Maybe a Division or Department of FED that made the accessories?

Regards, Bill

It does but it's written like "Opticodevice" not "Optical Device" if you know what i mean. I wouldn't think that would be used like that in literature, he would've said "optical device" and not the combination of both words unless that was the term of the time period...

Vlad

But I mean, rathr than "device" doesn't it mean "product" ... the difference being that a product is a device that's being sold. So in other words, maybe "Optikopibor" is the department or organization that sells or distributes products "opticalproducts" (aside from cameras). Maybe a division of FED that made things that could also be used on or with other cameras, as differentiated from products that were actually made only for FED, such as lenses.

I have the same FED book from 1938 tha Aidas has so I will look to see if "optikopribor" is used in conjunction with other products.

Regards, Bill

Hi Bill,

if I remember correctly, you will find nothing about Panoramic Head in your 1938 Bunimovich edition, my scans came from 2nd (war-time) edition of particular book. But I would agree with Bill, that all the accessories (only excluding film boxes with markings FED) seem to be made inside the FED Zavod. I have read somethere in old soviet literature, that at least 20 or so new accessories were made in FED during 1938-1941 ...

Best Regards,
Aidas

And you're both probably right in terms of FED making these.... this weird word used made me question it.. probably just weird period language used.

For example these is a Kiev movie camera manufacturer called "Tochpribor" or something like that.. a non-standard combination and abbreviations of two words, which a lot of trade or manufacturing organizations used in USSR. Also Mashintorgpribor (is it?) sorry I'm just remembering these off top of my head...

Vlad

Ah crap, I think I was somewhat right after all...

http://mashb.ru/book_view.jsp?idn=017814&page=285&format=html

and

http://uznal.org/book_of_memory.php?bukva=24&name=32&surname=126&repression=5

There was an Artel called "Optikopribor" exactly in the right period of time... The second link is the record of arrest and execution of a accountant from that Artel.. maybe that is why Bunimovich does not mention any of this stuff in his later books.. (caution: pure speculation from now on .) the Artel was liquidated for political reasons and FED factory claimed all the products for itself.

Vlad.

The accountant of this Artel "Optikopribor" was executed by firing squad based on conviction of article 58-6 which is political dissidence.. executed by the same NKVD CCCP... that's awful..

One thing that does not add up though is that it was located in Leningrad, quite far from Kharkov..

Vlad.