About Us
Hello and welcome to sovietcameras.org
My name is Stepan Ayvazyan. I am a photographer, artist, and sculptor, and I have been working with film photography for more than 20 years. Over this time, I have accumulated extensive knowledge of analog photography and assembled a large collection of Soviet cameras, lenses, and accessories produced in the former USSR.
Over the years, a significant number of Soviet cameras began to accumulate on my shelves. I have worked with the vast majority of cameras and lenses manufactured in the Soviet Union, and I have shot a large amount of film with many of them. During this time, I have also created a substantial body of photographic work, some of which you can see on this website.
In 2020, I decided to create the Sovietcameras website in order to share everything I know about analog photography and Soviet photographic equipment.
This website is dedicated to Soviet cameras, lenses, and other photographic accessories that were produced on the territory of the Soviet Union.
Here, I publish detailed reviews of Soviet cameras, manual lenses, and related equipment. In addition, I write about film photography in general, including its technical aspects and the basic principles of photography as a whole.
From the beginning of the 20th century until the very end of the Soviet Union, a vast number of different cameras were produced, including legendary models such as Zenit, Zorki, FED, and many others. Most of these cameras were either direct copies of well-known German and Japanese designs or were heavily inspired by them. At the same time, there were also fully original models that had little or no direct equivalents on other markets.
The Soviet photographic industry also produced an enormous number of lenses. Some of them were direct copies of German and Japanese optics, others were based on those designs, and some were entirely original.
In addition, a wide range of related equipment and accessories was manufactured, including interchangeable viewfinders, flashes, light meters, tripods, and much more. All of this equipment was produced at several major factories, such as KMZ, Arsenal, LOMO, and others.
For a beginner – and often even for an experienced photographer or film camera collector – it is not always immediately clear where a particular camera was produced, what its equivalents are, what designs it originated from, what it represents technically, or how it is meant to be used in practice. On the pages of this website, this information is carefully collected and systematized in the form of detailed and accurate reviews with clear and honest conclusions.
The site is structured in a way that makes it easy to navigate. Cameras and lenses are organized into categories and sections, with tags and subdivisions, allowing readers to quickly find the information they are looking for and to get acquainted with both the technical characteristics of a specific camera and photographs taken with it.
In addition, the website covers the history of Soviet cameras and the development of the Soviet photographic industry as a whole. I also write about how and where to find and buy Soviet and other film cameras and lenses, how to check their condition, how to store and maintain them, and how to use them in practice.
This project is not a dry collection of technical facts. All the cameras and lenses reviewed on the site are used in real shooting. For this reason, the articles discuss not only specifications, but also practical experience, strengths and weaknesses, and what makes each piece of equipment interesting today.
On Sovietcameras.org, you will also find sample photographs taken with every camera reviewed, curated selections and rankings based on specific criteria, and guidance on which cameras are better suited for beginners and which are more appropriate for experienced photographers and collectors.
This is work that is genuinely important and interesting to me, and I hope that the materials published on sovietcameras.org will also be useful and interesting to you.
