A. Rodchenko and his cameras

Mustafa Umut Sarac

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What was the gear of rodchenko ? I want to own one of his cameras. What do you advise cheapest ?

Best ,
Mustafa Umut Sarac
 

David A. Goldfarb

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Rodchenko purchased a Leica in 1928. I'm not sure what he used for his very earliest work.
 

jstraw

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If you want to take photographs like Rodchenko, you'd do just as well to wear the same type of socks.
 

Tom Hoskinson

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Mustafa Umut Sarac said:
What was the gear of rodchenko ? I want to own one of his cameras. What do you advise cheapest ?

Best ,
Mustafa Umut Sarac
Click to expand...

See: http://www.profotos.com/education/r...s/alexanderrodchenko/alexanderrodchenko.shtml

1923 Rodchenko Acquires a 13-by-18-cm. view camera to make copies, enlargements, and reductions for his photocollage work.

April 1924: In his apartment on Miasnitskaia Street, using a 9-by-12-cm. plate camera, Rodchenko makes a series of six portraits of Mayakovsky, his first lasting work in photography. Soon begins to photograph family and friends.

I believe that Ole owns examples of both of these camera types.

eBay would be good place for you to look for reasonably priced examples.
 
OP
OP

Mustafa Umut Sarac

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Hey , he had been used a elmax leica. I used a 3C 1946 with Elmar , if i m not wrong there is no difference between Elmax and Elmar ?
What was the Rodchenkos view camera lens ?
Did CCCP produce Elmar ? Are they still producing leica copies at Russia ?

Best ,

Mustafa Umut Sarac
 

erikg

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jstraw said:
If you want to take photographs like Rodchenko, you'd do just as well to wear the same type of socks.
Click to expand...

good one. much easier to find a leica A than some 1920's russian socks however. i'm thinking of taking up smoking Siskind's brand of cigars.
 

Tom Hoskinson

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Elmar copies were produced by several different factories in the FSU. I do not believe that they are still in production. Check with Fedka: http://www.fedka.com/Useful_info/Com.../commune_A.htm

You could also ask Fedka about FSU View camera lenses, I have a nice 210mm f4.5 Industar -51 in barrel mount. The serial number is 872447, so I suspect that it was made circa 1987.

It is not for sale.
 

Roger Hicks

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Mustafa Umut Sarac said:
What was the gear of rodchenko ? I want to own one of his cameras. What do you advise cheapest ?

Best ,
Mustafa Umut Sarac
Click to expand...

Sort of an aside, but not very. A few years ago I saw a Rodchenko exhibition in Arles -- and it was AWFUL! I've always been a great admirer of his work, and buy books with Rodchenkos I haven't seen, but if this was the only Rodchenko I'd ever seen, I'd wonder what the fuss was about. They were much less interesting pictures than I'd seen published, but what astonished me was the abysmal quality of the printing. I very strongly suspect that his work looked better in repro than original, i.e. that his strength was composition and imagination, not processing or printing. Much the same seems to be true of Drticol: I saw original prints at Vevey.

Incidentally, no, an Elmax and an Elmar are different: 5-glass and 4-glass. And FSU Elmar/Tessar-type lenses are seldom of the quality of Elmars.

Cheers,

Roger
 

Ole

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Ehrm yes.

I do own both a 13x18cm plate camera, early 1900's, German - the "original" from which the FKD's were modelled.

And a handful of 9x12cm plate cameras.

And a USSR Leica-like - a FED-2. With a USSR Elmar copy. It takes good pictures, unless the photographer is crap (like on 99% of my shots). Here's a good one: (there was a url link here which no longer exists)
 

Roger Hicks

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Ole said:
... Here's a good one...
Click to expand...

You're right -- congratulations! Quite Rodchenko-ish. But better printed...

Most FSU gear had good specifications and if the quality control was up to scratch it was very good. The trouble is that the quality control was all but non-existent and a lot of the kit has been had apart by amateurs since, most of who put it back together even more incompetently than the original Glorious Workers.

A friend of mine who was official photographer to the Supreme Soviet until the end of the Soviet Union ordered a box of six Horizonts and kept the best of them -- and even that one had an intermittently jerky swing on the lens. I borrowed it and put a couple of rolls through it in about 1990.

Cheers,

R.
 

George Papantoniou

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I actually own THE Leica (M3) that Rodchenko bought on May 1st, 1959. He sold it to my grandfather when he was on vacation to the Greek islands and was out of money (he coudln't afford the ticket back to St-Petersburg).

If you want, I can sell it to you for a good price. You can recognize the model from the shape of the scratches (Rodchenko always scratched his cameras in a very peculiar way, that cannot be described verbally).

I only ask one and a half zillion US Dollars for it, or a house in Santa Monica with an Olympic size swimming pool and a 350bhp - Dodge truck.
 

jstraw

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I have the hatchet George Washington used to chop down his father's cherry tree.
 

David A. Goldfarb

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I think I have some plate holders made from the tree that George Washington chopped down.
 

Ole

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They weren't "float glass", that is a later development.

They were initially just as wavey as window glass but were polished flat before use.
 

temujin

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other than the leica and the view cameras, rodchenko also used a medium format ica, a 35mm sept movie camera/still camera combo, and a kodak vest pocket.
 

polaski

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Caution needed

Even with the right Rodchenko camera, be careful about walking under ladders.
 
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