Lubitel 2

Lubitel 2 (Любитель 2) is a Twin-Lens Reflex (TLR) camera made in the USSR from 1954 to 1977. During these years more than 2 million copies were made, some with small variations. "Lubitel" means "amateur" in Russian and this camera was intended to be accessible to amateurs and proffessionals. The design copied the 1930s Voigtländer Brillant and the first version was a camera called Komsomolets, followed by Lubitel in 1950, leading to the Lubitel 2 and later to Lubitel 166.

Like in all TLR cameras, it has two lenses. The top one is for viewing and the 2nd one is the actual lens that takes the photos. Those two are coupled together so that they can "see" almost the same way. On the top of the camera there is a brilliant finder of very good quality, which also includes a tiny magnifying glass that pops up and helps focusing in detail. The viewfinder must be viewed from weist-height to properly compose your frame. The finder hood has a back flap with a small window that combined with the collapsible front one, can be used to roughly compose your image by looking directly through it.

Lubitel 2 has a self-timer function and can also accept accessories such as flash and cable release.

This camera is a very good and cheap option for photographers who want to step into the medium film format and can't afford the usually very expensive 120 film cameras. It offers full manual control and the results are quite good.