>>3509885They can be made into decent shooters there's a few scans in my Sugar Thread toward the bottom. The important one is doing the CLA. The shutter speeds are usually way off by now and sometimes the curtains have pinhole light leaks in them.
The other thing they usually need is the VF to be cleaned because 70-80 years of dust has gotten into them by now, as well as a rangefinder adjustment which there are tutorials online that show you how to do this and it's fairly simple and no real special tools outside of a very small flathead jewelers screwdriver and a small lens element removal tool are needed.
If you are set on getting a Soviet camera the FED-2 and FED-5c are great shooters. I like the bigger VF of the 5c and all of the RF adjustment is right on the front behind the nameplate so they are a cinch to fix. If you are a true baller the Leningrad is another option, it has a Leica shutter cock mechanism and a built in winder, you can get about 10 frames out of it before winding again.
The only thing about the 5c and the 5 I don't like is there are no strap lugs on the camera itself you have to buy a leather case for it, Yuri at Fedka has them and he will hook you up. Whatever you do, buy it from him, he is notorious in the Soviet camera community for his CLA and repair service, he has done one of my cams and all my lenses came from him.
