The 2022 Fourth of July Parade Through the Eyes of an 80 Year old Soviet Camera -- Prescott, Arizona

 

The Fourth of July parades provide a unique opportunity to a street photographer. Not only is it a celebration of a nation’s independence, but also a reflection of local traditions and the character of the population in each town where the parades take place. In the past years, I have tried to capture moments from the parade in Prescott, Arizona, a cowboy town mile high in the mountains of Arizona’s high desert.

 

Yesterday, when I was deciding which old mechanical camera to take with me, one that has been sitting on my shelf of collectibles seemed ask for that outing, looking at me with both of its round “eyes”. It is the first Soviet rangefinder camera, a FED made in 1940, modeled after the venerable Leica II. I had not used this camera for a few decades and had no idea if it still worked. After testing the camera for winding, focusing at infinity and shutter speeds, I decided to take a risk and load it with film.

But, to make sure that I will get photos from my sortie, I also loaded a 1970’s Olympus OM-1 as a backup.

Here are the two cameras

 

Since the FED has such historical meaning, it is worth revisiting its origins.

The history of the FED camera, the first camera ever made in the former Soviet Union, is described on Wikipedia as:

The factory emerged from the small workshops of the Children's labour commune named after Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky (the acronym of which gave name to the factory and its products) in December 1927 in Kharkiv (Soviet Ukraine, now Ukraine). Initially the factory was managed by the head of the commune Anton Makarenko and produced simple electrical machinery (drills). In 1932, the new managing director of the factory, A.S. Bronevoy (Russian: А.С. Броневой), came up with the idea of producing a copy of the German Leica camera.

 

For collectors, this camera is known as “FED-NKVD” as the NKVD was the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (= Народный комиссариат внутренних дел Narodnyy komissariat vnutrennikh del, НКВД (=NKVD), a public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union later known as the KGB.

Quite the history!

My camera’s serial number indicates that it was made in 1940. Information from Camerapedia shows that it is a FED Type-8. Here is more from that site:

FED type 8

• 1940-41
• the last type of the NKVD engraved cameras
• Engraving: FED NKVD-USSR Kharkшv Combinat IM. F.E. Dzerjinsky (=ФЭД НКВД - CССР Харьковский комбинат им. Ф.Э. Дзержинского)
• Distinctive feature of this type is the engraving which only found on the FED type 8

(https://camerapedia.fandom.com/wiki/FED_(Original)_(_FED_NKVD,_FED-S,_FED-1)

 

Each camera’s top plate was had engraved, and each model had a different engraving. In part, that is the attraction for collectors.

As for the lens, it is an Industar -22 made in the 1950s. I have owned many variations of this lens; most did not couple correctly with any of the Soviet rangefinder cameras I have. This one does, perhaps it was made in a factory in Kazan that specialised in optical instruments while others were made in factories that produced machinery of different kinds.

To complete the historical background of this camera, here are details about this lens:

Kazan KOMZ

Kazan Optical and Mechanical Plant (КOMЗ) began operations in 1940. During the Second World War, KOMZ produced a wide range of optical instruments like binoculars, photographic lenses, photo controlling devices, marine range finders, and dive-bomber scopes. Their camera lenses include the Industar-22, Industar-27, Industar-50, Industar-51, Industar-37, Jupiter 11, Jupiter 37 and Fodis 1K.

(https://camerapedia.fandom.com/wiki/Soviet_Factory_Logos)

Ok, so I shot a roll of B&W film, ASA 100, all at 1/100 sec speed, and an aperture of f11. I could not trust that the speed was correct as the last time I got this camera services was by a Ukrainian photographer in Baltimore, Maryland 3 decades ago.  But when I developed the film and printed a few frames, I was delighted by the travel back in time…

The photo atop this page shows how a 70 year old lens, without a shade, flares up in the high desert sun. The head of the pony is in a “cloud” and   the riders are out of focus either because the lens did not couple well with the rangefinder, or because the shutter speed was much lower than the 1/100 sec I set the dial on.

But this second photo indicates that it is the shutter speed that is unreliable as the focus is acceptable. Still the flare is there.

However both photos are a delight to a photographer who enjoys the unpredictable from old cameras and lenses. It is a moment when the camera becomes a “partner” in capturing the moment, and not just an instrument.

 

To show the difference with “modern” cameras (well, the OM-1 is still 50 years old…) here are two photos I took, always with ASA 100 film, with the Olympus. There is no comparison regarding the technical quality of the lenses, but that is not the intent of anyone who enjoys using vintage cameras and lenses.

I do like this photo of the Polynesian dancer that was part of the parade – the juxtaposition of the arm from the woman behind her makes this dancer resemble the Hindu goddess Gayatri.

 

And the horses show a synchronised harmony in their trot, which the now unsynchronised shutter speed of my FED would have never captured.

 

… Many take their camera to a parade for the parade itself. Yesterday, the joy for me was to let the first Soviet rangefinder camera “see” the parade with its 80 year old “eyes”.

 

July 3, 2022

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2022