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The FED-2 is a Soviet-made 35mm Leica clone, and is a very well made rangefinder camera that feels solid in the hands. The name FED comes from the initials of Felix Edomundovich Dzerzhinsky, the son of Polish aristocrats and Bolshevik leader who lived from 1877–1926. Most notably, Dzezhinsky served as the first chairman of the Cheka, or Soviet secret police from 1917 through 1921. Under his direction, the reign of terror against anti-Bolsheviks reached its height in 1918. Dzerzhinsky also headed the OGPU and the GPU agencies that succeeded the Cheka and held other high posts in the government. The FED camera company, which was neither owned nor run by Dezezhinksy, made use of prison and child labor to produce its products. However, the practice of using child labor by the factory was not neccesarily frowned upon as FED, through its program of hiring orphaned children, taught them manufacturing skills so they could support themselves as adults. Thought I have not studied this extensively, I have heard that many of FED's child laborers stayed on many years with good jobs at the camera factory or went on to attain good jobs in other factories and industries. OK, enough history already! Let's talk about the FED 2 camera... The FED 2, which was produced from 1958 through 1963, is the first 35mm Soviet made camera that I have owned. Overall I've been very impressed with this camera. The FED 2 features a cloth focal plane shutter, with speeds ranging from 1/30 sec to 1/500 sec plus B. The camera has X-sync flash, and therefore will work well with any modern electronic flash that can be attached to the camera via a standard PC socket. The standard lens is an Industar, which is a fairly decent clone of the famed Leitz Elmar. The Industar has a minium aperture of f/22 and a close focus of 1 meter. One of the nicer features of the FED 2 is that the lens mount is a standard Leica 39mm screw mount which means that a wide selection of high quality lenses should fit it. Other noteworthy features include an automatic self-timer and an eyeglass diopter adjustment which is adjusted via a lever found at the base of the film rewind knob. The diopter adjustment allows photographers who wear eyeglasses or have poor uncorrected vision to adjust the viewfinder so they are better able to correctly focus their subject's image in the viewfinder. As good as this camera is, there are a few things I do not like about it. Primarily, the film rewind mechanism is tricky to operate, especially if you are blessed with big fingers as I am. Rewiding the exposed film back into the film cartridge requires the photographer to depress and rotate a small knurled ring around the base of the shutter release button in order to unlock the film sprockets. This ring is located in a congested area on the top of the camera and can be tricky to depress and rotate. Another area of difficulty I have had using the FED 2 is the finding the correct place to grip the focus ring on the lens. Invariably I find my left hand blocking the viewfinder window when I intuitively reach for the focus ring. I have to make a conscious effort to focus the FED 2 using the tips of my fingers on my left hand to grip and turn the focus ring from the bottom of the lens. My final criticism is that I do not like the shutter speed selector dial. I find it difficult at times to know for certain which shutter speed I have selected as the spacing between speed settings is highly irregular. Also, anyone interested in acquiring or using a FED camera should be warned that under no circumstance should he or she ever attempt to change the shutter speed setting unless the shutter is cocked. (The shutter cocks automatically when advancing the film.) Otherwise serious damage could result to the camera. So far I have gotten outstanding results with my FED 2 in the time that I've owned it. I hope to post a sample photo or two in the near future. In the mean time, I invite other collectors who own this camera to drop me an email to share their experiences. |
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