7 degrees of Kiev...

W

wlewisiii

Guest
I stopped at the tailor's shop to pick up some mending the other day. The woman who owns the little shop is an older Ukrainian lady, so I decied to show her my newest Ukranian toy - my Kiev 5. She looked at it, asked if it was better or worse than western cameras and then commented how her grandfather had worked most of his life at the Arsenal factory...

William
 
You found some Ukrain connection, hah, hah! I got my kiev 5 that's in a mint condtion. Very clean. The helios 94 that came with the camera has 2 bending aperture blades. Fortunately, I have a spare helios lens with heavily scracthed front element. So I used the lens housing with the perfect blades from the spare one. It took me 4 hours to put them back and of course that included cleaning.

pangkievrange
 
That sounds like it was an interesting project. I'd like to get a Helios 94 to go along with my Jupiter 8nb, but it's nearly impossible to find one without the camera still attached.... :eek: and while I'd love to get a backup body, my budget isn't going to go there anytime soon.

William
 
So, in your opinion, is it better or worse than western cameras?
 
My answer to her was "Both". It's a durable sucker and I could probably fight off a mugger with it and still take an infocus photo of the result. OTOH, fit and finish are iffy and you have to get a good one to start with. In the case of the Kiev the FSU started with one of the best designs ever and made them for decades. Even thier idea of QC couldn't kill them.

I like them. They do what they're supposed to do and I can get some da*n fine glass for little $$$.

William
 
I also cleaned up helios 94 (70). I took out the aperture blades and found it's hard to fix the bending. In the process, I destroyed 2 blades (a hard lesson). I decided to make this lens exclusively at 1.8. I cleaned the lens glass elements. Despite of numerus scratches (no blurred area), the lens appeared to be sharp. This lens has a longer body than the lens (71). The good thing about 1.8 makes you be able to shoot under low light condition (at 1/50s, f/1.8 with 400 film rated at 250).
 
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