the iskra
(from искра = "spark")
in '23, i discovered the work of mikiko hara and was absolutely mesmerized
as i am so wont to do, i immediately wanted to know what camera she used — it was a zeiss super ikonta 520/16
however, looking closely at photos of her camera, i learned that the lens — frankensteined onto the camera body — was an agfa solinar 3.5, presumably harvested from a super isolette
i was not willing (or able) to pay market value for an agfa super isolette, but soon learned that a soviet clone of the super isolette existed — the krasnogorsk iskra
i was fortunate enough to find one on eBay from a seller in quebec city, for $123 CAD
on the name "iskra:"
what gets parroted around about the origin of this camera's name by folks such as mike eckman is that the iskra has some tenuous connection to an early bolshevik newspaper of the same name, from the tsarist era
that is, of course, nonsense. i am convinced that the camera was called the spark for its resemblance to a cigarette lighter.
in '23, i discovered the work of mikiko hara and was absolutely mesmerized
as i am so wont to do, i immediately wanted to know what camera she used — it was a zeiss super ikonta 520/16
however, looking closely at photos of her camera, i learned that the lens — frankensteined onto the camera body — was an agfa solinar 3.5, presumably harvested from a super isolette
i was not willing (or able) to pay market value for an agfa super isolette, but soon learned that a soviet clone of the super isolette existed — the krasnogorsk iskra
i was fortunate enough to find one on eBay from a seller in quebec city, for $123 CAD
on the name "iskra:"
what gets parroted around about the origin of this camera's name by folks such as mike eckman is that the iskra has some tenuous connection to an early bolshevik newspaper of the same name, from the tsarist era
that is, of course, nonsense. i am convinced that the camera was called the spark for its resemblance to a cigarette lighter.