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Photographing Soviet chess sets with Soviet lenses

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WandelKoningin
WandelKoningin
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1 day ago
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A few months ago, I got the idea that it would be interesting to take photos of my Soviet chess sets by using camera lenses from the same time period.

Here is my c. 1943 Laughing Knights set (top) and my 1954 mini Mordovian (bottom)—taken with a 1936–1937 FED Industar-10 lens from Kharkov, Ukraine.

Fascinating to see these old Soviet sets in ’30s-quality photography! I thought maybe I had to add a film grain texture to achieve the look, but the grain was already in the photos I took. I believe I used iso 600.

Here is the photo further zoomed in so you can see more of the grain.

It takes a bit to get used to taking photos with such an old lens, as the minimum focus distance is a meter (around 3 feet). My Sony stock lens for comparison can get more than three times closer.

And below is my c. 1952 small Red Combine set with 8 cm kings. The depth of field is rather shallow; only the white pieces are in focus.

—

The Industar-10 was the first lens I bought, but this innocuous idea of using a few Soviet lenses has now evolved into a whole new special interest. Below is my lenses collection so far! Well, most of it. And it's growing.

Lenses on display:

  • Helios-44-2 58mm ƒ/2 [Zebra] (MMZ, 1970)
  • Meyer-Optik Görlitz Domiplan 50mm ƒ/2.8 [Zebra; with zebra extension tubes] (MOG, 1977)
  • SMC Pentax-M 50mm ƒ/1.4 (Asahi Optical Co., 1977–1978)
  • Industar-10 50mm ƒ/3.5 (FED, 1936–1937)
  • Industar-61 53mm ƒ/2.8 [Zebra] (FED, 1988)
  • Triplet-5 100mm ƒ/2.8 (Diaproektor, 1970s–1985)

One German lens, one Japanese, and four Soviet lenses. Another Soviet lens, the Jupiter-8, should arrive in a few weeks.

The Helios-44-2 is my favorite lens to shoot with, as the out-of-focus background highlights tend to turn into glory blobs with a slight background swirl. I will have to find a way to create a setup with small lights in the background for some more artistic chess photos with interesting bokeh (i.e., background highlights). Or I might just bring one of my chess sets into the garden, as the sunlight coming through the leaves produces nice bokeh. Below are two examples taken with my Helios.