Film Camera 35mm tested Iskra Spark vintage cameras photo film Zeiss Super Ikont

Iskra is a family of Soviet rangefinder medium format folding cameras. Iskra replaced the Moscow line of cameras, the final, fifth model of which was discontinued in 1960, and Iskra began to be produced that same year. Iskra is considered to be an apparatus of a higher level in comparison with Moscow, we will see this below. The Iskra devices were made only at the Krasnogorsk Mechanical Plant and only for a few years. Already in 1964, the production of Iskra ceased and only one medium-format apparatus, Salyut, remained in production in the USSR.

Since 1957, it has been produced at the Kiev plant Arsenal. In general, this is logical. Fans in those years were already quite satisfied with a narrow film.

The medium format became the lot of professionals, and for them the consistency of Salyut was more important than the compactness of Iskra. The German apparatus Zeiss Super Ikonta IV, as well as several other foreign cameras very similar to Ikonta, are considered to be the prototype for creating the Iskra.