[ntenny]

I have 6 FED's acquired in a fruitless attempt to find one that is reliable. If you are serious about photography get a Bessa R body. I once saw an ad for an Industar lens "with a heavy, bulky lens cap" (in other words a FED body). This pretty much sums up my opinion of soviet camera bodies.

I have to admit that my Bessa-R pretty much put my Soviet bodies out of a job. I occasionally pull out the Mir simply because it's fun to shoot, but in practical terms it can't compete with its modern peer.

That said, people *did* routinely make these things work for them, enough that they were a standard household camera for millions of Soviets. Just about anyone who grew up in the Soviet Union, I find, will be sent on a big-time nostalgia trip by the smell of a FED or Zorki never-ready case. That doesn't really speak to their photographic quality, but it does suggest that they were good enough to be cameras rather than trash or doorstops. (They do make good doorstops, though.)

-NT