FED (camera)

FED (camera)

The FED is a Soviet rangefinder camera, mass produced from 1934 until around 1990, and also the name of the factory that made it.

FED is indirectly named after Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Cheka. It was his name that was given to the labour commune at Kharkiv (Ukraine) whose manager, Anton Makarenko, encouraged a workshop education for indigent children and who decided to copy the Leica in 1932.

Large-scale production began in 1934, and in the same year the factory was put under NKVD control and Makarenko was fired. Production continued until 1941, when German forces destroyed the factory, and resumed in 1946.

Until 1955, the factory made a huge number of cameras that resemble the Leica rather closely (and are often altered, given "Leica" markings, and sold as Leicas). However, the design is cruder: for example, the rangefinder cam is not fitted with a wheel.

From 1955, FED began to innovate, combining the rangefinder with the viewfinder in the FED 2 and all its successors. The FED-3 added slow shutter speeds and on the later version FED-3 (b) the film advance was changed from a thumbwheel to a lever. The FED 4 (1964–77) added a non-coupled selenium exposure meter. The FED 5 marked the end of the FED rangefinder family, and was meant as a replacement for both the FED-3 and FED-4 that were in production at the time of its introduction. There were versions of the FED-5: the original FED-5 had an exposure meter, the FED-5B was a cheaper version without meter, and the later FED-5C had reflected framelines showing field of view of 50mm lens and an exposure meter. All FED-5 cameras were delivered with an Industar I-61L/D lens. Production of FED rangefinder cameras ended in the mid 1990s (Fed-5 Serial Number 545446 was made on February 28, 1994; Fed's site claims that it was in fact 1997: "Start of serial production of vertical drive for control system of tanks. Production of all types of cameras has stopped. 8,647,000 cameras were manufactured since the beginning.")