FED is the name of a camera
produced in Kharkov in the
USSR (now Kharkiv, Ukraine) between 1934 and about 1996. The
first models were blatant copies of the 1932 Leica II. I've had two, more or less.
1966: Leica forgery
I bought the first one in Plymouth on 2 April 1966. It was sold to me
as a genuine Leica, and it had a 5 cm f/2 Summar and a
genuine Leica top plate (that's how close the copies were!). I was quite annoyed when an
expert pointed out that it was a copy. I gave it away to a girlfriend without ever taking
many photos with it.
2022: FED from Ukraine
I bought the second camera online from somebody in Nikopol, Ukraine on 7 April 2022, almost exactly 56 years later. It took forever to arrive due to the
conflict in Ukraine. It has a 5 cm f/3.5 FED lens that looks like a pretty accurate copy of
the 5 cm Elmar:
It's not a very nice camera—neither was the Leica II—but I knew that in advance. According
to this list it is probably a FED 1 type 13 or 14, made between 1953 and 1955.
