R
ruben
Guest
After two threads of discussion about the Kiev caameras, being the last one "All My Kiev Dead" http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=54793
I would like to post here, in a separate thread, my conclusions about those exchanges.
Here I will take into consideration two other folks having trouble as well with the Kievs, one is Kevin, a current posting member, the other is Per Andersen, a RFF member or reader from Denmark, who is in contact with me via email.
The Kiev cameras have a positive side, and a negative one too. I will start with the positive.
Whas is a Kiev today, compared to other film rangefinders ?
It is a camera maintaining up to day three basic edges, the third one more of a subjective character.
1) It continues to be the camera with the most accurate range finding mechanism and the most sophysticated way to focus, making accurate and fast focusing a whole unity, provided it is done as it should be.
2) It is the camera with the most sophysticated shutter mechanism, which at its early times had the edge of the highest shutter speed, and today maintains the edge of the most quiet shutter for a curtain shutter camera. Its silent shutter can be surpassed, to my knowledge, by the Olympus RC, a leaf shutter compact camera mooving two or three leafs.
Recently I wrote that also the Electros have a more quiet shutter, but after a more recent comparizon, I retreat. The Kievs are even more silent.
Unfortunately the Kievs lack, from the perspective of today, a film advance lever, and a coupled Auto Exposure system.
As for the lack of Auto Focus it is a rather a phylosophical question weather such fast and sophysticated distance metering and focusing system could be improved by AF.
3) And as I said it is very controversial and subjective, it may be the most beautifully countured camera made up to day.
Can a Kiev be cathegorized as a Pro level camera for street photography ? Once this cathegorization was used following the number of frames the camera can resist. I think a camera able to shoot a hundred thousand frames was considered a pro-level. But with the Kievs, at least the lack of AE keeps is out of that race. Of course we are not forgetting all the lower quality cameras with AE that stand much below the Kiev quality.
But can a Kiev be used with great efficiency for street photography? My experience comfirms it. By day to day use, you learn to lean less and less upon the hand held meter, you absolutely forget abut the lack of bright lines on the viewfinder, and your parallax error diminishes more and more. But it is just my experience, as a day to day user. If you are a week-end only user, it may be harder.
Lastly in the positive side, within a post not going into fine detail, a Kiev can be brought to work as few cameras today, in terms of tactile emotions, i.e, smoothness and softness. Here I would like to recall as examples my New Olympus 4Ti. Compared to the Kievs, the winding lever and the lens focusing are quite ugly feeling - a feeling I started to become aware of after my Kievs started to work as they should.
Manipulating a high quality CLA-ed Kiev, is a tactile unique pleasure, making you aware what a top luxury camera of the good and old times have been. I assume this feeling has disappeared from the camera industry.
The Kievs, as the Contaxes, and perhaps their highly priced Japanese clones I don't know, continue to be top luxury cameras.
THE NEGATIVE SIDE
But there is a problem here, a basic one. In order to bring a common Kiev purchased from elsewhere to the above pedestal, you will need the service of a great technician, at a highly cost -perhaps several times the one you paid for the camera- or do it yourself.
Within its CLA price, I believe Oleg Khlayavin can make many things better, from the former situation in which you sent the camera, but I do not believe the price enables enough work time to bring a Kiev to its real potential.
Doing it yourself, takes a lot of time. Recently I was asked why I myself don't start a bussiness CLA-ing Kievs and I answered that even if I price the work at $300 it will not cover the time a Kiev needs to be attended, and that time by itself it will be a total loss in my life.
Accordingly, from a less than a dozen Kievs I own, I CLA-ed only two of them to top condition in my free time along some three months. Since I use these two simultaneously every day, I should prepare a third one, "just in case", and I have not done it.
The Kievs are time predators for CLA. This, once you know how to CLA. You can imagine how long takes learning it. The issues to fix are not so complex, and kindly take into account that I am not at all a gear minded person with fast grasping of tech issues. The problem is in dealing for each time you open the camera with a tremendous amount of microscopic screws, testing your nerves into a real challenge.
Therefore in what relates to my discussion with ZORKIKAT, a pro photographer in need to work, and with limited time to fiddle with cameras, I do agree wholeheartedly the Kievs are not very much practical for him, or any other folk in similar situation.
Accordingly, and although the discussion heated up to medium height flames, (the flames were fairly far from what RFF is used to), I have not hard feelings at all towards our member Zorkikat, and fairly understand him.
Our clash started since Zorkikat confused between the hardships in CLA-ing a Kiev and the necessary time for it, and the basic postential of the Kievs in general. I don't think that a curtains breaking, happening once in ten or twenty years would be an argument Zorkikat would like to maintain as a flagship issue.
Nevertheless, Zorkikat's bunch of unworking kievs should be taken into account by the folk unwilling or unable to pay for an expensive CLA and unwilling or unable to invest the huge time to do it by himself. Such a folk may soon arrive to Zorkikat conclusions.
On the other hand, we the amateurs can chart our way into the do-it-yourself way with patience. For this we will need a camera for shooting, and our Kiev aside to deal with when we find our free time, from time to time. I promise the day you master the basic CLA and perform it, you will hardly desire to have any other camera, non-standing your money capacity.
Others among us can compromise for a less than perfect working Kiev, if they want. Or you can ship you Kiev to Oleg, and finnish the work at home, on the basis of the pockets of free time.
But one thing I can stand by, dealt with as it should, a Kiev is a luxurious top quality working camera.
Cheers,
Ruben
Latter Addendum
Perhaps it may interest the reader, the funny things I went through after being hitched by the Kievs, but before knowing how to CLA them.
First, I had a nice discussion with our friend FERIDER, in which I suggested going Kiev is cheaper than going Leica. Although ferider is a master folk in charting a way to cheap Leica entry level, I refused it knowing that once I get into the Leica thread mount I will spend out of question amounts of money in buying a myriad of Leica lenses.
Secondly, before being able to overcome the Kiev stiff winding knob, I purchased an exxagerated amount of substitute cheap cameras,
But the beauty of the Kievs, allways kept me dragging myself towards them and pushing me to learn more, like the song of the syrens.
I would like to post here, in a separate thread, my conclusions about those exchanges.
Here I will take into consideration two other folks having trouble as well with the Kievs, one is Kevin, a current posting member, the other is Per Andersen, a RFF member or reader from Denmark, who is in contact with me via email.
The Kiev cameras have a positive side, and a negative one too. I will start with the positive.
Whas is a Kiev today, compared to other film rangefinders ?
It is a camera maintaining up to day three basic edges, the third one more of a subjective character.
1) It continues to be the camera with the most accurate range finding mechanism and the most sophysticated way to focus, making accurate and fast focusing a whole unity, provided it is done as it should be.
2) It is the camera with the most sophysticated shutter mechanism, which at its early times had the edge of the highest shutter speed, and today maintains the edge of the most quiet shutter for a curtain shutter camera. Its silent shutter can be surpassed, to my knowledge, by the Olympus RC, a leaf shutter compact camera mooving two or three leafs.
Recently I wrote that also the Electros have a more quiet shutter, but after a more recent comparizon, I retreat. The Kievs are even more silent.
Unfortunately the Kievs lack, from the perspective of today, a film advance lever, and a coupled Auto Exposure system.
As for the lack of Auto Focus it is a rather a phylosophical question weather such fast and sophysticated distance metering and focusing system could be improved by AF.
3) And as I said it is very controversial and subjective, it may be the most beautifully countured camera made up to day.
Can a Kiev be cathegorized as a Pro level camera for street photography ? Once this cathegorization was used following the number of frames the camera can resist. I think a camera able to shoot a hundred thousand frames was considered a pro-level. But with the Kievs, at least the lack of AE keeps is out of that race. Of course we are not forgetting all the lower quality cameras with AE that stand much below the Kiev quality.
But can a Kiev be used with great efficiency for street photography? My experience comfirms it. By day to day use, you learn to lean less and less upon the hand held meter, you absolutely forget abut the lack of bright lines on the viewfinder, and your parallax error diminishes more and more. But it is just my experience, as a day to day user. If you are a week-end only user, it may be harder.
Lastly in the positive side, within a post not going into fine detail, a Kiev can be brought to work as few cameras today, in terms of tactile emotions, i.e, smoothness and softness. Here I would like to recall as examples my New Olympus 4Ti. Compared to the Kievs, the winding lever and the lens focusing are quite ugly feeling - a feeling I started to become aware of after my Kievs started to work as they should.
Manipulating a high quality CLA-ed Kiev, is a tactile unique pleasure, making you aware what a top luxury camera of the good and old times have been. I assume this feeling has disappeared from the camera industry.
The Kievs, as the Contaxes, and perhaps their highly priced Japanese clones I don't know, continue to be top luxury cameras.
THE NEGATIVE SIDE
But there is a problem here, a basic one. In order to bring a common Kiev purchased from elsewhere to the above pedestal, you will need the service of a great technician, at a highly cost -perhaps several times the one you paid for the camera- or do it yourself.
Within its CLA price, I believe Oleg Khlayavin can make many things better, from the former situation in which you sent the camera, but I do not believe the price enables enough work time to bring a Kiev to its real potential.
Doing it yourself, takes a lot of time. Recently I was asked why I myself don't start a bussiness CLA-ing Kievs and I answered that even if I price the work at $300 it will not cover the time a Kiev needs to be attended, and that time by itself it will be a total loss in my life.
Accordingly, from a less than a dozen Kievs I own, I CLA-ed only two of them to top condition in my free time along some three months. Since I use these two simultaneously every day, I should prepare a third one, "just in case", and I have not done it.
The Kievs are time predators for CLA. This, once you know how to CLA. You can imagine how long takes learning it. The issues to fix are not so complex, and kindly take into account that I am not at all a gear minded person with fast grasping of tech issues. The problem is in dealing for each time you open the camera with a tremendous amount of microscopic screws, testing your nerves into a real challenge.
Therefore in what relates to my discussion with ZORKIKAT, a pro photographer in need to work, and with limited time to fiddle with cameras, I do agree wholeheartedly the Kievs are not very much practical for him, or any other folk in similar situation.
Accordingly, and although the discussion heated up to medium height flames, (the flames were fairly far from what RFF is used to), I have not hard feelings at all towards our member Zorkikat, and fairly understand him.
Our clash started since Zorkikat confused between the hardships in CLA-ing a Kiev and the necessary time for it, and the basic postential of the Kievs in general. I don't think that a curtains breaking, happening once in ten or twenty years would be an argument Zorkikat would like to maintain as a flagship issue.
Nevertheless, Zorkikat's bunch of unworking kievs should be taken into account by the folk unwilling or unable to pay for an expensive CLA and unwilling or unable to invest the huge time to do it by himself. Such a folk may soon arrive to Zorkikat conclusions.
On the other hand, we the amateurs can chart our way into the do-it-yourself way with patience. For this we will need a camera for shooting, and our Kiev aside to deal with when we find our free time, from time to time. I promise the day you master the basic CLA and perform it, you will hardly desire to have any other camera, non-standing your money capacity.
Others among us can compromise for a less than perfect working Kiev, if they want. Or you can ship you Kiev to Oleg, and finnish the work at home, on the basis of the pockets of free time.
But one thing I can stand by, dealt with as it should, a Kiev is a luxurious top quality working camera.
Cheers,
Ruben
Latter Addendum
Perhaps it may interest the reader, the funny things I went through after being hitched by the Kievs, but before knowing how to CLA them.
First, I had a nice discussion with our friend FERIDER, in which I suggested going Kiev is cheaper than going Leica. Although ferider is a master folk in charting a way to cheap Leica entry level, I refused it knowing that once I get into the Leica thread mount I will spend out of question amounts of money in buying a myriad of Leica lenses.
Secondly, before being able to overcome the Kiev stiff winding knob, I purchased an exxagerated amount of substitute cheap cameras,
But the beauty of the Kievs, allways kept me dragging myself towards them and pushing me to learn more, like the song of the syrens.
Last edited by a moderator:
. Otherwise revolution will collapse.