FED 5C framelines adjustment

henryvk · Feb 14, 2021

Hi there,

I have a FED 5C rangefinder that I'm quite fond of, however, I did discover after a few rolls that the viewfinder framelines do not quite match what's in the actual frame – I know, I know, Soviet camera with quality control issues; quite the surprise. I used ground glass on the film plane to compare the what's in the actual frame and realised the framelines are offset to the left. Now, you can correct the position of the framelines (which are etched into the viewfinder window on the back of the camera) towards the right by tilting the whole of the viewfinder glas but unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, this throws the rangefinder out of alignment and makes it impossible to properly calibrate it since the images will no longer match up.

Is there a way to make these framelines work or should I just forget about them? Is this a quality control thing in that the framelines are offset on the viewfinder glass to begin with? I could just chalk this up to experience and in the future overcorrect for the offset of the framelines when framing.. but then they might as well not be there :-D

Anyway, just wondering if anyone else has encountered this specific issue.. i.e. bothered to check if the alignment is ever correct.

Best regards,
Henry

henryvk · Feb 22, 2021

Sooo... I figured it out and in the unlikely (??) event someone has the same problem, here we go:

The issue was twofold and, as usual with these cameras, down to the slipshod production standards.

the rangefinder unit was not correctly aligned with the rest of the body.
the reflective framelines on the viewfinder "eyepiece" lens were not correctly aligned on the lens itself

How to fix both of these issues

Once I realised the rangefinder unit was sitting ever so slightly crooked I unscrewed the 3 screws holding it in place and jiggled it into what would seem like the correct position, i.e. exactly parallel to the camera body. Doing this it became obvious that the threaded hole for the front left screw was slightly offset, pushing the rangefinder unit out of whack when the screw was tightened. I simply left the screw out – the rangefinder is probably fine with just two screws. If I ever get ambitious I'll carefully drill and thread another whole for correct seating.
The back lens of the viewfinder is held in place with glue and pops out if carefully lifted with a screwdriver. I wanted the lens to sit farther to the right in its recess and in order to do that, I had to carefully file away at the right-hand round edge of the lens as well as right side the rectangular front bit (the lens consists of a round, convex back lens glued to a rectangular front bit) so that the lens could move toward the right in its recess. I just used a wetted triangular metal file to achive this.

After fiddling with lens and rangefinder unit seating it is probably necessary to reajust the viewfinder optical block so that the rangefinder picture from the prism correctly aligns with the dark constrast patch inside the viewfinder block. I did this by looking at an object at infity and carefully jiggling the block until horizontal alignment is correct. It's probably a good idea to use a spot of glue to keep the block from moving afterwards. Once this is completed the rangefinder can be calibrated in the usual manner.

Anyway, I know this is a potato of a camera but I'll be damned if it's not satisfying to fix them. In hindsight I realised it should have been obvious that the whole rangefinder was facing "away" from the lens path. I have a Yashica Electro and the distance between viewfinder and lens is roughly equivalent to the FED 5. In the Yashica's viewfinder the lens barrel is just visible in the viewfinder picture and after tilting the FED's viewfinder, the lens barrel has also appeared in the viewfinder FOV.

ic-racer · Feb 22, 2021

Are you adjusting it for 1 meter subject distance?

henryvk · Feb 22, 2021

ic-racer said:
Are you adjusting it for 1 meter subject distance?

I think focus just happened to be set to >1 m when I took that picture.

But with these cameras it is usually a good idea to make sure close focus is still okay after messing around a bunch.

henryvk · Mar 5, 2021

Alright, friends and neighbours, in order to further the public good I purchased another FED 5C, examination of which led me to the conclusion that my initial camera did indeed suffer from a case of lacksadaisical quality control. On this new one the viewfinder and framelines appear to be correctly aligned.

On a sidenote: I got this new camera as "not working" with a stuck shutter release. Brief inspection showed the shutter to be about 3/4 cocked. I fiddled around with the film advance and rewind collar for a moment before deciding to just give the edge of the second curtain a hearty push which sufficed to unstick it. Now it fires with just the slightest bit of hesitation on the film advance. A bit of cleaning around the gears of the shutter curtain rollers will probably take care of that.

Maude Summerside · Apr 16, 2021

henryvk said:
Sooo... I figured it out and in the unlikely (??) event someone has the same problem, here we go:

The issue was twofold and, as usual with these cameras, down to the slipshod production standards.

the rangefinder unit was not correctly aligned with the rest of the body.

the reflective framelines on the viewfinder "eyepiece" lens were not correctly aligned on the lens itself

How to fix both of these issues

Once I realised the rangefinder unit was sitting ever so slightly crooked I unscrewed the 3 screws holding it in place and jiggled it into what would seem like the correct position, i.e. exactly parallel to the camera body. Doing this it became obvious that the threaded hole for the front left screw was slightly offset, pushing the rangefinder unit out of whack when the screw was tightened. I simply left the screw out – the rangefinder is probably fine with just two screws. If I ever get ambitious I'll carefully drill and thread another whole for correct seating.

The back lens of the viewfinder is held in place with glue and pops out if carefully lifted with a screwdriver. I wanted the lens to sit farther to the right in its recess and in order to do that, I had to carefully file away at the right-hand round edge of the lens as well as right side the rectangular front bit (the lens consists of a round, convex back lens glued to a rectangular front bit) so that the lens could move toward the right in its recess. I just used a wetted triangular metal file to achive this.

After fiddling with lens and rangefinder unit seating it is probably necessary to reajust the viewfinder optical block so that the rangefinder picture from the prism correctly aligns with the dark constrast patch inside the viewfinder block. I did this by looking at an object at infity and carefully jiggling the block until horizontal alignment is correct. It's probably a good idea to use a spot of glue to keep the block from moving afterwards. Once this is completed the rangefinder can be calibrated in the usual manner.

Anyway, I know this is a potato of a camera but I'll be damned if it's not satisfying to fix them. In hindsight I realised it should have been obvious that the whole rangefinder was facing "away" from the lens path. I have a Yashica Electro and the distance between viewfinder and lens is roughly equivalent to the FED 5. In the Yashica's viewfinder the lens barrel is just visible in the viewfinder picture and after tilting the FED's viewfinder, the lens barrel has also appeared in the viewfinder FOV.

WoW ! You are really invested into getting your gear in a perfect condition...
I felt in love with old soviets camera around a year or so ago.
I now own 2x FED-5c/ 2 x FED-5b / 2x FED-5 / 3xFED-4 / 2xFED-3 / Zorki 6 plus many Zenit SLR.

If people would take care of them as much you do then they'll be working longer than a Leica.
They have easy to repair mechanics with not much "extra".

A while ago, a friend of mine who's russian explained to me one simple thing...
The meaning of the word reliable for russians.
Here in the east, reliable mean it will work and never break. As it's impossible that something never break, it means that we expect thing to work as expected.

For russian, reliable mean something different.
It means that if it break, you can fix it yourself with a screwdriver and some thinking.

Thanks for the trick regarding the viewfinder etch mark. I'll check mine !

AgX · Apr 16, 2021

Maude Summerside said:
Here in the east, ...

Interesting to see it from the Canadian perspective.

Maude Summerside · Apr 16, 2021

AgX said:
Interesting to see it from the Canadian perspective.

I made a mistake, shall have said "here in the west" as USA, Canada and Europe is western part and USSR is eastern...
Hope you got it right...

I really like those cameras, their limitations forces us to be creative.

henryvk · Apr 16, 2021

Maude Summerside said:
WoW ! You are really invested into getting your gear in a perfect condition...

Thanks, Maude, I really appreciate your comment. Hope you're having a grand time with your FEDs! For some reason I really like this ugly brick of a camera. And, yeah, it did make me reconsider the notion of quality/reliability. It's too easy to sneer at different design philosophies that make do with less.

Here's a picture I took with that particular camera:

FED 5C framelines adjustment

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