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I am an Soviet and Russian camera collector residing in State of Illinois, USA. I have only somewhat recently started collecting (since May 2007) these fine examples of Soviet and Russian mechanical engineering and design that until late 80s have been closed off to the rest of the world. Now that these cameras have come to light, I want to share them with all of you. Recently I have decided to start cataloging Soviet and Russian cameras online, thus the USSRPhoto.com project was born, which is a Wiki catalog of Russian and Soviet cameras.
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Vlad's Soviet/Russian Photographic Equipment Collection
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Start
| Vlad's Description |
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Body Serial #:
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6106880
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Lens Serial #:
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I-50 6000395
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| Wiki Catalog Entry |
The Start is a very well made and interesting Single Lens Reflex camera manufactured by KMZ. There is a removable back with a film pressure plate made of black glass. The shutter is made of cloth and travels horizontally. The rewind knob has a film reminder on the top. The rapid advance lever has the film counter on top , is tipped with a small knob. The viewfinder has a dual prism rangefinder in the central focusing area and a removable pentaprism. On the back of the camera is a small round button for the pentaprism lock. There was also a waist level finder available as an option. The Start has a unique breech-locking bayonet for a lens mount. Only the Helios-44 58mm f2 was made in this mount. This lens is unique in that it has an extension of the shutter release built in to provide f-stop automation. There was an adapter ring available to adapt m39 lenses to this camera but no dedicated lenses. The Start was meant use either of two film transport schemes. The film was to be used in the normal manner from cassette to spool and rewind or to transport film from cassette to cassette. The cassette to cassette system required that a mechanism to open the cassettes be built into the back latches and a film knife was also built into the camera. When the rewind button id depressed and the film advance is used in this mode the film is advanced but the shutter is not cocked. This allows the film to be wound into the cassette after use of the film knife (source: www.rafcamera.com).
The final picture shows the export version of the Start with Roman inscription. (David Tomlinson).
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