• Welcome to Photrio!
    Registration is fast and free. Join today to unlock search, see fewer ads, and access all forum features.
    Click here to sign up

Russian Cameras

BMbikerider

Member
Allowing Ads
Joined
Jul 24, 2012
Messages
3,052
Location
UK
Format
35mm
I came across this website when I was loking for something not connected with photography. The lists are quite comprehensive:-

sovietcams.com

There are a lot of items I had never seen before and an explanation of some of the more common cameras we see in the west.
 
It's a very interesting site indeed if you have got hold of something slightly obscure and want to know the history.
I even have a photo credit on it because one of my lenses is a version previously unknown to Aidas
 
This one has been around for years. Very complete and comprehensive with several info not available everywhere else (especially some photos of prototypes).
 
Where are not just Russian cameras. They are also Ukrainian and Belorussian cameras. At least for me as Russian. Calling Kiev as Russian camera is very silly these days. Well, if you are educated not just on photo cameras.
 
Ko.Fe. said:
Where are not just Russian cameras. They are also Ukrainian and Belorussian cameras. At least for me as Russian. Calling Kiev as Russian camera is very silly these days. Well, if you are educated not just on photo cameras.
Click to expand...
Ha, tell that to Putin
 

Yes, this is a good website.

For me the apex of the soviet cameras is the Kiev SLR line, specifically the Kiev-15 TEE.
You can call it "the russian Contarex". Looks like a real high-quality item. I wonder who in soviet russia was able to afford that machine. Or who used them.

Russia also had some special, obscure, hi-performance lenses, but those weren't mass-produced, they came straight from the GOI (the optical institute that designed the lenses). Normal, mass-production lenses were designed at the GOI and then built by the different factories like KMZ, Arsenal, LOMO, ZOMZ, etc.
 
One camera seems to be missing though. Back in the early 1960's I owned a 'Start' SLR. It was a bit of a mixture with elements from Exacta, in that the release was on the front of the camera not the top and the release also stopped down the F2 58mm lens (Normal copy of the Zeiss Biotar I think) It had a film cutting knife also like an exacta but on the opposite side of the body.
There was a removable prism but no other finder. The Bayonet was unlike anything I have seen before or since. There was also a bayonet to 39mm screw thread adapter probably to take the same lenses as the Zenith 3m. Shutter speeds were 1 sec to 1/1000,
Also like the early Pentacon cameras the mirror was set in place when you wound the camera on using a thin woven cord to pull the mirror into place to focus the lens.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register