Ebay really is the world's attic and its quite amazing what turns up for sale. On a quiet day last week, a random trawl through the Photographic section for russian and soviet lenses revealed something described as 'Super Interesting Russian Enlarger Lens M42'. It was reasonably priced, but I made an offer, as sometimes the information in a listing can be misleading or wrong, so I didn't want to risk buying another paperweight. My offer was accepted and a few days later a small package arrived.
The lens itself is quite small, about an inch and a half in diameter, with a flared aluminium cone adapting it to the M42 thread. Aperture is controlled by a three stop slider on the front and a small yellow/green filter screws in over the lens. The only markings on it were the three stops, all in cyrillic. I initially mounted it on a focussing helicoid and then on the Samsung to M42 adaptor, but the flange distance was too great and I couldnt achieve focus. So I took off the helicoid, mounted it directly on the adaptor and tried again. This time, by rotating the lens barrel itself, I could achieve focus and found it to be very sharp and clear. The aperture stops jumped quite drastically between three points. Unscrewing the filter, the image was even cleaner and the overall focal distance was excellent.
The overall design of the lens did not look like anything used on a projector or enlarger, so I used Google Lens to investigate. Almost immediately, I discovered a Soviet camera enthusiast site and found out what the item was...
According to the website, the lens is part of a
C-13 Fotopulemet Airplane Gun Camera, usually mounted on russian MiG 15 and 17 aircraft.
The small unit uses a 100mm F 6.3 lens in the nose of the aircraft to record activity in dogfights etc, by being connected to the weapons system. The second cylinder next to the lens contains a clock dial, which by means of a system of prisms, records the time on the image, as well as the target. The unit uses a cartridge based 1000 ASA film and the three settings on the lens are for Clear, Cloud and Overcast - presumably set manually before takeoff.
MiG 17
The camera can clearly be seen in the small aperture, just above the main jet intake and the image below shows a shot taken in flight with the analogue clock clearly visible in frame.
Apparently, the cameras and lens units are quite sought after by collectors who use the clock element and the lens for photography and other hobbyist projects. Personally, I was quite amazed and excited to have found such a strange piece of hardware and wonder if the aluminium cone has been specially made by one such hobbyist in order to mount on a camera. Having tested it briefly in the evening and found it to be extremely clear and sharp, even considering the rather clumsy focussing method, I took it out in daylight to try out.
Using it handheld, with such a small aperture was tricky and achieving sharp focus without a tripod proved difficult, but it did prove its ability rather well, with great colour and modelling.
I used it mounted on the Samsung NX1000, rather than the full frame Sony, but the results were more than impressive.
The following evening being Bonfire Night, November the 5th, I took it out, along with a digital pancake lens, hoping to shoot some fireworks. As it turned out there were none on display, bu the bonfire set up in a local nature reserve proved to be an ideal subject. Taken from about 50' away, the flames were captured beautifully and far superior to the quite blurred and soft images I got with the digital lens.
Even focussing on the sparks flying above the flames, the detail is excellent, even handheld. I look forward to taking it along to the Cotswolds in December, where it should be ideal for capturing the xmas lights and decorations.
