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Originally an orphanage in Kharkiv, Ukraine, the FED factory was turned into a labor commune in the 1920s and renamed after Felix E. Dzerzhinsky, founder of the NKVD which was the forerunner to the KGB. Eventually it came to be known by the initials, FED (cyrillic ФЭД or фэд).

After the groundbreaking introduction of the Leica II in 1932, Soviet leaders stopped the import of photographic equipment and set the FED factory to its task of creating a Leica of their own. Only 18 months later, in 1934, the FED factory began churning out its first clone of the Leica II rangefinder camera. Since then, they have produced millions of cameras, some good and some not so good.

See also the article Soviet Factory Logos

Screwmount Rangefinder Cameras[]

Fixed-lens Rangefinder Cameras[]

Fixed-lens Viewfinder Cameras[]

Stereo camera[]

Links[]

Bibliography[]

  • BOUSSAT, Jean-Claude .- Les appareils soviétiques. In : France-Photographie, n° 209, février 2008, pp. 8-9.
  • Princelle, Jean Loup - Made In USSR - The Authentic Guide To Russian And Soviet Cameras, Le Reve Edition, 2004
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