Kiev (brand)

Kiev is a Soviet and Ukrainian brand of photographic equipment including cameras manufactured by the Arsenal Factory in Kyiv, Ukraine.

The number of Kiev rangefinders vastly exceeded that of the pre-war Dresden and post-war Jena and Stuttgart Contaxes.

After the Second World War had ended, the Soviet Union demanded new sets of Contax tools from the original toolmaker in Dresden and then ordered a fair number of trial cameras to be made with Zeiss trademarks and coated lenses from these 1946 in post-war East Germany.

It included all the modifications made to the Kiev 4A, but also added a new, smaller and more sensitive light meter.

The camera inherited a lot of its cosmetic changes from the Kiev 5, like the self-timer level and rewind knob.

It offered a lens mount similar to the older Kiev rangefinders, but it removed the internal bayonet for 50mm lenses.

Not a lot of information can be found online about this lens, but it seems that it cannot be mounted on older Kiev rangefinders – the focus scale of internal bayonet prevents that.

Apparently, this was due to shiny chrome lenses reflecting the sunlight, rendering the center-positioned light meter on Kiev 10 inaccurate.

To satisfy the large internal demand, there was no discernible export at the time they would have found a ready market in the West.

It has a top shutter speed of 1/500s.This camera model adds the aperture coupling and the self-timer to Kiev 19 design.

The body type is changed to molded polycarbonate, making it only Kiev SLR not made from metal.

The Kiev brand of medium format cameras started forming, when the Arsenal factory decided to try copying the Hasselblad 1600F around 1956–57.

Most film backs are not compatible between Kievs and Hasselblads due to different gear mechanisms.

The Salyut, like Hasselblad 1600F, was a medium format SLR with a modular design - it offered interchangeable lenses, viewfinders and film backs.

The other family of Kiev medium format cameras are based on Pentacon Six and probably inspired by Zenit 70.

These cameras have a simpler frame-advancement mechanism than the Pentacon Six but it is often poorly adjusted at the factory resulting in incorrect frame spacing.

There are export versions which instead of КИЕВ on the nameplate say KIEV, the lens as well changes from Вега to Vega.

Otherwise, it is a mechanically similar camera as the Kiev 6S but it is the only Pentacon Six based model that can be modified with mirror lock up.

Many of the less favorable reviews come from people comparing the camera directly to the more expensive Hasselblad models.

For this reason, a number of third party distributors have appeared offering Kiev cameras in improved, quality controlled forms.

However, some have taken advantage of the Arsenal plant's variable quality to add value through varying levels of third-party rebuilding, modification, and testing of the Arsenal-supplied cameras.

This is certainly known to be an issue with some cameras modified by Hartblei to add a mirror lock-up (MLU) feature.

Some of these cameras have a really strong mirror slap, creating motion blur even when not shooting handheld, so MLU is a really useful feature if you tend to use the slower shutter speeds.

The Pentacon Six-based Kievs are sometimes modified to shoot with a 6x4.5 frame size, often called Kiev 645 or similar, yielding more pictures per roll of film in a "print-friendly" rectangular format versus the original camera's square 6x6 format.

On the other hand, the Hasselblad-based Kievs can shoot the 6x4.5 frame size by simply using a different film back.

It is, however, possible to overcome this issue by third party modifications that allow Kiev 88CM to accept all the lenses made for Pentacon Six lens mount.

These lenses allow photographers to take advantage of the Scheimpflug principle for achieving greater apparent depth of field without adjusting the aperture, and gain other controls similar to those found on view cameras.

Even if it isn't widely publicized, the Kiev 6S did go to space in a modified variant called the "KIEV-C SKD", according to some information around 33 sets were produced.

[10] The camera was much wider and heavier than the regular variant and had a motorized film wind mechanism, it also came with a remote shutter release.

Shutter speeds remained the same and the 3 lenses made for it were based on regular models and greatly modified for use in space with different coatings and specifications.