jeff_swauger

Thanks for the tips! I hope this body turns out reliable, but I'll take your advice and run a fair amount of film thru it before I run out and dump a ton of money on lenses. The meter seems, so far, to be about one stop underexposed, but it's hard to say as I haven't used it much, mainly my Sekonic. I have a feeling the meter will not be as consistent as, say, the honeycomb meter in my wife's Minolta. ;-) I really like the camera, it reminds me of the feel I get with my Diana and Holgas, only with more control and better optics. But it's that kind of crude, old fashioned feel I like. The body on this one if well flocked, but I definitely will heed your advice on changing lenses in sunlight.

 

Keeping my fingers crossed that my luck will hold...

I recently purchased a Kiev 60 camera and thought I'd share the

results of my first tests, as Kievs are a subject of some controversy

regarding their performance and quality. This is my experience, your

mileage may, of course, vary.

 

I bought a Kiev 60 kit with mirror lockup and also purchased the 30mm

Arsat wide angle lens from Mike Fourman in Atlanta

(www.kievcamera.com). I chose the 60 over the 88 because of both

price and the fact the 60 is supposed to be simpler and less prone to

problems. The purchase was uneventful, that is to say it went

smoothly, the camera arrived when he said it would, well packed and

in good condition. Good service so far, so that was a good start. I

immediately tore into the contents of the boxes, and found I had a

Kiev 60 made in 94 according to the serial number, with the 80mm lens

made in 95. The 30 mm serial number seems to indicate that it was

made in 98, but the paperwork says it was inspected/produced in 2000.

 

The camera does not have the fit and finish of a Hasselblad or one of

the major Japanese MF cameras, but it isn't bad. I little work with a

fingernail managed to remove most of the excess glue and other minor

cosmetic flaws. The manual is in Russian, but a badly translated

photocopied manual in English is provided, and a well worded and

clear page describing how to load film to avoid frame spacing

problems is also included.

 

I followed the directions and loaded up some slide film and tested

the camera out. I shot two frames at the same shutter speed/aperture

combo, then moved to a shutter speed/aperture setting that would

yield an equivalent exposure, did the same, and so on to test shutter

speed accuracy and consistency, using the 80mm lens. I then shot a

roll playing around with the 30mm lens. The mirror lockup is the good

kind, a silver button on the left side of the lens that when pushed

locks up the mirror (as opposed to the kind that requires two pushes

of the shutter release).

 

The results have been impressive. I have not encountered any of

the "normal" problems attributed to the Kiev 60. Frame spacing is

good, quite uniform (better than my YashicaMat), no overlapping

frames, the film advance level is smooth and not notchy. Looking at

the film on a light table, I couldn't detect any differences in

exposure between any of the frames, which indicates that, at least

for my uses, the shutter speeds are accurate enough and consistent.

The standard 80mm lens appears a little soft wide open, but then that

also could have been due to my not using a cable release and the fact

I had tripod column a bit too extended in the first few frames, the

camera does have a fair amount of shutter slap even with the mirror

locked up. The shots were contrasty, sharp at smaller apertures, and

showed good resolution. Same went for the wide angle, it's a hoot,

the effects are interesting, gotta watch where you put the tripod

legs (or your feet!). This lens also has an incredible depth of

field, at f22 the hyperfocal range is from about 1.5 feet to infinity!

 

So, this has been my experience. Time will tell how durable/reliable

it is, but I'm happy. I finally have found a system where I can

afford to have a MF camera that accepts interchangeable lenses and

actually afford more than one lens. If this one keeps working, who

knows, maybe I'll try a Kiev 88 next.

 

Jeff Swauger

This brings up another question. I've got an old Agfa Ansco Readyset Royal No. 1 folder that shoots 620, and appears to shoot a 6x9 neg (am I right about negative size?). What numbers line up in the red window? Or do they? I am anxious to try this camera out both because I like odd cameras and because it was my great-uncle's. I've got pics in the family album shot with it that are interesting, and I'd like to see what it does today.

Part of it is cost, the prices charged by most places for doing any B&W work are pretty high, particularly prints. The main reason for me, however, is control. There are so many variables in B&W that are under your control as opposed to color, where the options to get acceptable results are much more limited. The type of look depends on what film you use, what developer, how you agitate it, how dilute the developer is, how long you develop the film, what temp you do it at, whether you need to deliberately over or under develop the film if you are doing Zone system type exposure control, etc. This can affect things like grain size (you might not always want fine grain, sometimes you want baseball sized grain for artistic effect), how contrasty the negs are, how well the midtones come out, how much shadow detail is present, are the highlights blocked up (losing detail), etc. You will probably find that you want your negs to have a certain density so that you can get consistent results printing without a lot of manipulation. So, control is a big issue, and as the previous poster pointed out, developing B&W is not that hard to do at home. Compared to what I've had done by labs, I've only gotten about 2 or 3 rolls that I thought didn't come out as well as ones done at a lab, and all of mine have fewer dust particles imbedded in them than the ones I had done commercially.

 

When you get to printing, everything said about control is increased about 100 fold. But that's more expensive as you need an enlarger, etc.

Ah, it's good to know there is someplace that can fix them. I've grown quite attached to mine, it's kind of the VW Bug of TLRs, but it occasionally locks up like Martin's, but fortunately I've always managed to get it to unlock with some fiddling with the wind lever, although I usually wind up losing a frame or two. Using a cable release doesn't help, in fact most of the time I've had the problem was when using a cable release, so now I rely on the timer.

If you like the Holga, try and get your hands on a real Diana. They are really overpriced since they are rare, unless you find one at a flea market, but worth it IMO. I paid $50 for a good one on E-Bay, and haven't regretted it. The styrene lens on it is even more magical than the Holgas cheap polycarbonate one. BTW, I have 3 Holgas and none shoot the same, shutter speeds wander all over the map from unit to unit.

 

I know what you mean about Kalimex. I've never dealt with them, nor know anyone who has, and they do have great prices. But the idea of dealing with a firm that far away, and the additional difficulty of financial transactions with Czechoslovakia as opposed to EU countries is a turnoff to me. Also, if there is a problem it's a lot more involved to ship back and forth. I might consider a lens or something that's less likely to need work from them, but for a main camera body and backs I think KievUSA is a safer bet. Plus you get the warranty and 30 day return period.

 

You flocked your Zenit the same way I treated my Holga that I pulled the 645 frame out of to get rid of some flare. Back years ago when I worked at an aerospace firm they had a special black coating that they used for optical devices, mainly spy satellites. It was made by growing a titanium oxide coating on the surface, which was very black and made up of feather like crystals that acted like microscopic baffles to trap even more light. Absorbed something like 99+% of all incident light, but it was really fragile, if you touched it it would destroy the surface. Saw a disk coated with it, it was freaky, it was so black it didn't have any reflection from the surface, it literally looked like a hole in the universe right in front of you, like you could put your finger in it and it would just disappear.

 

One thing to consider when painting gears would have to be to make sure the paint isn't on a surface that gets a lot of wear so as not to make flakes that would get on the film plane or lens.

 

I know what you mean about used gear being a risk too. I was looking at various cameras including Mamiya 645's, but a lot of the ones I looked at had seen really heavy use by pros as wedding cameras.

 

That's good info about the Zenits, I may have to try one as a cheap camera for taking places I might get ripped off. Have you seen the Zenit photo-sniper? That thing looks like a rocket launcher, I'd hesitate to use it to take photos at political rallies, it'd probably really get the attention of the body guards!

 

If/when I get a Kiev, I'll post my impressions and experiences here. The main drawback I see to the cheap one is the lack of mirror lockup, but you can't have everything for $500 in MF. I could always use the Yashica for conditions where I know I'm going to use slow shutter speeds, I've gotten sharp pics from it hand held at 1/30th of a sec if I'm careful.

Some people have reported flare problems from the lens on the 'Mats, but you're right, there's not much between the lens and film plane that could reflect. It'd have to come off the lens or shutter, and the Kiev is a lot more complex parts wise behind the lens.

 

Ain't Holga's great? They really reduce photography to the basics of composition. Whenever I get too serious about it or get blocked where I just can't seem to see anything to take pictures of, I pull out the Holga or Diana (which is much better because it's much worse, if that makes any weird kind of sense) and go wander around and shoot things I probably never would otherwise. Usually the results are pretty good, and at least get me thinking about what I want to photograph and get me back on track.

 

Gee, all this talk about photographers sitting around flocking their cameras...

 

I've seen some one mention flocking they got from Edmunds, what did you use to flock your Zenit?

 

I'm really interested in the Kiev USA rebuilt ones, with the metal shutters, that are going for $499 with warranty. If the metal shutters work OK that's a significant savings over the cloth shutter ones, and close enough to the price of a Kiev 60 to make it worth the difference to get interchangeable backs. Plus Kiev seems to make the only shift lens I could ever hope to afford.

Thanks for the response. From my experience with that prime example of sophisticated photo technology, the Holga, flocking and black paint internal to the camera really seems to be the trick to controlling flare and reflections. Of course, anything helps a Holga, it makes a Kiev look like a Contax AF 645 in terms of sophistication.

 

I wonder if flocking the inside of the Kiev is hard to do yourself, or if it demands fairly extensive disassembly of the camera?

 

Currently I use a YashicaMat 124G, and have never had a flare problem (though some seem to), but I always use the lens hood, and the insides seem well baffled.

This question refers to the Kiev USA variants in particular, but am

interested in any experiences. I notice that Kiev USA has a good

price on rebuilt 88's with the metal shutters, much cheaper than the

cloth ones. The question is, are the stories about flare resulting

from the metal shutters true, or does the flare actually come from

somewhere else (i.e. not using a lens hood, bad fitting backs, etc.)?

I know from experience on other cameras that where you think flare is

coming from isn't always the case, it's not always intuitively

obvious.

 

Any experiences?

Does anyone know if the Kiev Report is still around? All the links

I've found to their web site go nowhere now.

 

If they have gone away, wonder what if anything this means about Kiev

cameras now?

I was looking at the Kalimex page, and am curious about the

differences between the standard 60 and the two mirror lock up units.

How bad is the mirror slap on the standard unit, i.e. how important

is mirror lockup on this camera? Also, from their descriptions it

appears that the units with mirror lockup don't have a mode that

doesn't start with locking up the mirror first, which would make

freehand shooting difficult.

 

Does anyone have experience with the MLU units and can offer a more

detailed explanation of how the mirror lockup works? Is it worth the

extra money?

 

Responses appreciated.

>>With a little ingenuity, you should be able to carry 50 rolls of 120 in your pockets for places like Heathrow, but

ensure you have NO metal in your pockets, or you will be 'pat-searched'. <<

 

Apparently the way to go with 120. I recently bought some plastic snap top containers for 120 from Porters that work well, and could be used to protect the film from light although they add bulk.

 

Interesting comment though, change it to "With a little ingenuity, you should be able to carry 50 small rolls of C4 in your pockets for places like Heathrow, but

ensure you don't put the pen detonator in your pockets, or you will be 'pat-searched'."

 

Makes you wonder just how safe checks make it if someone is really determined.

Thanks for the responses! Glad to hear depth of field preview is possible.

 

With respect to the AE vs PDS prism, two more questions. I take it when you say the meter still works on the AE when in manual shutter speed mode, that means that it the prism still indicates what it thinks is the correct shutter speed with the needle for the selected aperture, and you are free to select it or not with the shutter speed control? Also, any opinion as to which is the better prism to use, is there anything that would recommend the PDS over the AE, or vice versa (other than the speed of use for the AE of course)?

 

Both prisms seem to be about equally priced on the used market, at least from looking at the KEH webpage.

I've been trying to find some information on the Mamiya 645 1000S

model. I've found a lot of info, but haven't found the answers to the

following questions, so if anyone could help I'd appreciate it.

 

With respect to metered prisms, I've read about the PDS prism and the

AE prism. What I can't find out is if you can override the auto

exposure of the AE prism and meter manually, or if there is an

exposure compensation dial that's easy to use. I'd like the ability to

use AE when needed, but not at the expense of being able to bracket

and manually adjust for lighting. The PDS prism sounds like the light

meters in cameras I'm used to using, i.e. set shutter speed and

aperture manually until the meter reads proper exposure.

 

Also, does the 1000S have depth of field preview?

One of my petty vices is a fascination with toy cameras, Diana/Holga/etc. If you shoot one of these you definitely know what loosely wound film is. I usually unload in a changing bag, and use a square of aluminum foil to wrap the film roll in. Cheap, expendable, and it works for me. Haven't had any loose rolls in my YashicaMat as yet. Can't afford a Blad yet alas, but someday.