The FED 4 is a 35mm film rangefinder camera made by FED and produced between 1964-80 in present-day Ukraine. Lenses, of which there are many choices, can be changed by way of an M39 screw thread. The standard lens that was supplied was a 53mm f2.8. Shutter speeds range from 1s – 1/500s +B, with flash sync at 1/30s and a self-timer too. Although it is similar in many ways to the Zorki 4 I featured last year, the FED 4 has a a built-in selenium light-meter. This seems to be very accurate and works as well as many modern ones. There are several versions of the this camera that can be identified by small differences in looks.
My particular one is a 1979 and I have to say I love it. Prices for these are currently around £35 for a good example and they work very well indeed. If you’d like to try out rangefinder photography, you could do a lot worse. In this video I show you how to load a film, as the process is quite different to many other cameras.
