I was just asked about a camera I have never heard of;an FED.Anyone know anything about these cameras? Junk?Good?Optics?

I never heard of it either, but I did find this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FED_(camera)

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Lou

FED started out during the Soviet era and most were basically rather poor copies of the older screw mount Leica rangefinders. In mechanical terms they were train wrecks that usually needed the attention of a skilled repairman to make them funtion.

Odd thing is that the lenses were a completely different story, Soviet era lenses have a great reputation of being very good optically at bargain basement prices. I sort of suspect the reason for this was because the Soviet Union probably relied on satelite imagery on film which requires superb optical quality and the result was that the lenses for their film cameras benefitted from the research effort put into developing lenses for spy satelites.

Can't remember the name, as it's been a number of years ago, but there was a firm that imported and sold the Soviet/Russian cameras like the FED. There were two prices ranges- as-manufactured, and those that had been "adjusted" by their trained technicians. Those that had been worked on were 2-3 times more expensive, but as I recall, that what the only way to go! I've also heard that the lenses were pretty decent- unlike the mediocre mechanics, they were relatively faithful copies of the lenses they were copied from.

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LEO since 1981.

Amazing! I did give a quick look on the net and from what I am hearing here am sorta amazed that the optics were good.Too bad as they did look like the nice Leica's that I would love to own.

I had a Zhorki, made in the USSR and similar to the Fed. I bought it in London in about 1975. These were popular with less well-heeled amatuer photographers in the UK at the time. The one I had was not poorly made, just not well made. I used the original Russian lens and got reasonable photos with it. The lens was prone to flaring and had some edge distortion. The shutter speeds had to be calibrated against another camera. For use around an offshore drilling rig it was absolutely perfect since photos were required for documentation and not artistic purposes and the camera was inexpensive. I never had any mechanical problems with the one I owned. Since all my Leica lenses were bayonet as opposed to threaded, I tried and was never successful in finding an adapter allowing use of the Leica bayonet lenses. Remember, at the time, there were very few interchangable lens rangefinder cameras available.

I don't think Leica made an adapter for bayonet lenses. I had an adapter for screw mount lenses; for use on M series cameras, but never saw an adapter the other way around.

If you're interested in that kind of thing, the magazine "Shutterbug" frequently does nostalgia pieces on older cameras including the East Bloc models.