Fed 3 Shutter Issues

I just received a Fed 3 B as a nice gift. It worked perfectly for about a day, but then the 1/30 speed stopped functioning. Every other speed works as expected, but the 1/30 speed works the same as bulb mode. I found zero documentation for this camera online, so I figured I should turn to the forums.

So far, I've removed the top from the camera to see if there are any glaring issues. I noticed that for all the other fast speeds (60. 125, 250, 500), the shutter speed knife knocks out the brake latch and successfully releases the second curtain. However, on 1/30, the knife stops just short of the brake latch (shown in picture 1) and is therefore unable to release the second curtain.



I also noticed that the distance the shutter speed dial spins when released is shorter for 1/30 than for the other fast speeds. The dial rotates about 25 degrees less than it does for the other speeds. I then discovered that I can force the second curtain to close if I manually rotate the dial the extra 25 degrees. Picture 2 shows the speed knife after I manually rotate the dial.



It takes a good amount of force to spin the dial the extra 25 degrees. From this information, I assume that there is either something blocking the dial from making its full rotation on 1/30, or the spring that makes the dial rotate has lost its tension or broke.

I would greatly appreciate any advice from someone who knows more about these cameras than I do. If anyone has design/repair documentation for these cameras, it would be appreciated as well. I found zero documentation about these cameras online, so any disassembly information would be very helpful. Thank you for your assistance!

If I owned a Fed on which all the shutter speeds worked but one, I'd put it back together right now and go buy a lottery ticket. You're doing something right.

momus said:

I'd put it back together right now

Click to expand...

Lets see how many more speeds I lose when I try to put it back together...

I have a few FEDs that are mostly relatively reliable as far as I can tell. The shutter is not incredibly complex and is based on the early Leica shutters, I think. This is different from the Kiev/Contax shutters (which I think are complex and not particularly reliable).

Information about the shutter can be found in Vishnevsky's Soviet Camera Repair book, which you can download from https://learncamerarepair.com/productlist.php?category=2&secondary=24 (free PDF, translated so some of the words are odd, but generally readable). Look at page 74 onward. Unfortunately the troubleshooting table on page 76 is a little garbled. You may also want to look at the Zorki-4 CLA tutorial PDF on that page, because I think the shutters are similar.

This is speculating because I haven't serviced one of these shutters myself, but I don't think the spring is broken or none of the speeds would work. I think there is an arm to release the second curtain that may not be doing its job. See the Zorki CLA tutorial for more information.

Thank you so much for the resources reddesert!

Good news, it works!

While punching myself in the head trying to understand Russian, I noticed that the first curtain was getting hung up near the end of its cycle. This immediately brought my suspicion to the shutter tension.



Thanks to the resources that were listed above by reddesert, I also noticed that the first curtain is what makes the speed selection knife twist. It turns out that since my first curtain didn't have enough tension, the speed selector knife was unable to knock out the brake latch. This was remedied easily by tensioning the curtain according to the instructions in the zorki 4 cla guide.

Maybe I'll go buy a second lottery ticket since I now have a Fed that works on all speeds.

Maybe someone will find this helpful in the future. Thank you so much for the assistance! Time for me to go take some pictures.

Hello, thanks for the resources.
I'm a very new (double) FED owner, thought I'd add my freshly discovered 2 cents.

My 3B seemed to have inconsistent shutter speeds, I usually couldn't really tell the difference between 60 and 500... But the starkest issue was that the Bulb setting would frequently just fire at (probably) 1/500 instead of holding open. Also, the indicator wouldn't line up properly to the dots most of the time.

Turned out my shutter speed knob is slightly wonky. If you lift it up (a little), turn it, and release it (tentatively) where you want it (like you're supposed to), it still kinda doesn't fall on the detents. Especially from 4 to 8 to 15 where they're real close.

What works is setting it normally and then, while it's pressed down, twisting it gently into place. It only rotates counter-clockwise (so start a little past the dot) and only until it reaches the first detent, but then it snaps in (very gingerly) and it's secure and appears to fire, if not correctly, at least different on each setting as far as I can tell.

But only once. When it returns to the set speed after firing and rewinding, it again isn't seated properly, and I need to nudge it into position.

Does this sound familiar? Is this just a loose screw kind of deal? I'm not looking forward to opening it otherwise, I'm happy to just be extra careful while setting it up as long as it kind of works. Still, I'll look into adjusting the speeds, at least for reference.

(My FED 2 seems sounder, except that the curtain lags on Bulb. Compared to it, the 3 is snappier, but the 2 is an early model (with 25-50-100 on the dial) so the speeds don't line up. Maybe they're both off.)

So I guess the lesson is the thing might just be fiddly and not outright broken. But that also depends on your definitions.

I've never heard of that issue. I'm no expert, but from what I can gather, it sounds like your shutter mechanism was poorly machined at the factory. Taking the camera apart might help you analyze the problem. It wasn't hard to take my FED apart; I used the diagram from this website: http://rick_oleson.tripod.com/index-58.html. I think these cameras were designed with home repair in mind...

Okay, I opened the top up to find that the blade and slots engage properly, but the whole shutter speed shaft moves when I nudge it CCW to have it snap in place. (Following is bad terminology, I apologize, but I've never opened a camera before.)

Looking at the bottom, I found what the issue is, though I'm not sure what causes it and what to tweak to fix it. The following pictures are on the bottom of the camera (front facing right), directly below the speed knob and curtain gears, under a small plate held by two screws.


The tabbed disc, held to the shaft of one of the curtains by a screw, in the center of the image, rotates CW (as shown) as you cock the shutter, and is supposed to pass under the curved tip of the metal spring and hook onto it. Unfortunately it doesn't make it there.


Here the shutter is cocked, and you can see the tab stuck right under the tip of the spring. Now, if I turn the speed knob a little, CCW looking from the top, the tab completes its motion and snaps in place.


Like so. I can make it snap properly while winding but I have to push seemingly unreasonably hard on the lever. As in keep pushing after it stops moving.

I see two obvious ways of solving this, one is readjusting the position of the tab (as long as it's not keyed), but the screw is tight and the whole thing flexes a little (did not try to loosen it, only checked if it was tight).

The second is readjusting the position of the spring, which seems more sensible since its screw is glued down, which means it was and can be calibrated. I'm not confident I can do a good job though.

There might also be some other problem upstream that produces this behavior. The curtain gears look clean, the camera seems used very little.

What do you recommend? Thanks a lot.

My guess is the camera was adjusted at manufacture right at the edge (an now a little past the edge) of proper operation.

If it were my camera I would adjust the spring/hook position. It looks like it is presently at the end of its adjustment range - often a red flag that something is amiss. It is the easiest fix to try and is easily reversible. Make a score mark on the spring and body so you can line things up as they were in case the fix doesn't work and something else is amiss.

Thanks for the confirmation, I adjusted it and it appears to work now.

It actually wasn't at the end of its range, the slot extended under the second smaller curved piece.

Making sure I kept that second piece put (which was easy because its end was seated around the screw head), I moved the spring until the tab cleared it easily. The result was that although the assembly snapped in, I had lost Bulb function, it would not keep the shutter open.

Fortunately I did eventually find a middle ground where everything felt right. Hopefully it works, will soon try it with film. Now it's time to clean all those prisms and put it back together.

Thanks for your assistance! I made sure to be explicit for anyone reading this in the future. I feel like these little mechanical devices will be getting more and more attention. Regards.