Kiev 6 mother lode... some excitement, some questions

[ottluuk]

Well, after a lot of rationalizing, I had recently come to the conclusion that I should definitely not buy a medium format camera. They're big, heavy, a good MF-capable scanner will be very expensive etc - and for the cost and trouble I might as well get a 4x5. But as we all know, planning and rationalizing is a surefire way to experience the laughter of the gods.

So, thanks to being in the right place at the right time, I am no a somewhat confused owner of a relatively extensive Kiev 6x6 kit, consisting of:
1) Kiev 6S body - used but appears to be working
2) eye-level TTL prism - the previous owner had the sanity to take out batteries before storage so it might actually work if I can find some new ones.
3) user Vega 90/2.8
4) nice and clean Zodiak 30/3.5 fisheye. Probably used once or twice.
5) TWO copies of Mir 45/3.5 wide angles. Sadly, both seem to have mechanical problems but hopefully I can bring at least one to working condition
6) nice and clean Jupiter-36B 250/3.5. Probably used a couple of times.
7) Extension tube with aperture actuator pin
+ ridiculous huge neverready case, cases for each lens, caps, hood for the tele. Rear filters for the fisheye (red, yellow, green) and a couple of yellows for the other lenses. I could find some original boxes, I think.

I am most excited about the relatively fast 250mm. This could be a killer portrait lens... It really is an impressive chunk of glass, and mechanically quite sound, with half-stop clicks on the aperture, even.

Now, some questions.

Inevitably, I would like to know whether any of this has some resale value - either separately or as a kit. I am definitely going to try and use it for a while but in the long run, a 4x5 might still be a better idea... I do realize that Kiev 66 is pretty low-end stuff so no high hopes for easy cash here.

The weak point of the kit certainly seems to be the camera. The build quality is relatively flaky and it has the stupid left-hand shutter release and a no-return mirror :bang: So, was there ever a decent body with this lens mount? Pentacon Six? Exacta something? Or, could the lenses be adapted to be used on any of the modern cameras like the Mamiya 645 or Pentax 645 series?

Any tricks to stabilize the 250/3.5 on a tripod? It has no tripod collar and the whole rig is quite front-heavy, especially when used with the extension tube (as would be appropriate for tight portraits).

I also scored a couple of M42 lenses, a Kiev rangefinder and a Ljubitel, all of which I'm going to sell or give away. Still need to examine them closer. Lucky day I guess.

 

[oftheherd]

Sounds like a good kit. I have a friend who has one of the Kiev 6x6 cameras. He hasn't used it a lot, I think mostly because he doesn't develop or print his film himself. I think you will enjoy the camera and lenses. You will just need to get used to them, both carrying and using.

As to the 250mm, I would suggest investing some money at a machine shop for a collar with a proper bolt welded to it for a tripod mount. It should be adjustable, either by a screw of some kind, or a curved spring for tension. It should also have felt or something else glued inside with a fabric glue, thick enough to provide protection to the lens finish. 250mm in MF is nice. I have one for a Super Press 23. It is just that you almost need a wheeled cart to use it. 😀

Hope you will show us some of the photos you get with it.

I don't know which Kiev you have, but since you mentioned M42 lenses, I presume it is an SLR?

 

[Peter_Jones]

Just picked up a Kiev 60 myself - not put a film in it yet, but hopefully will test it out tomorrow.

Sounds like a nice setup you've got there. The lenses, I believe, can be adapted to Mamiya 645 (or maybe that's the Kiev 88 lenses ?) Give the Kiev a go - it may be OK (frame spacing can be corrected if problematic, mirror box may need flocking and TTL meter may or may not be accurate).

Other cameras with same mount are Pentacon Six, and the Exakta 66, both have non-returning mirrors, but with the shutter release on the right hand side (as also is the Kiev 60). Arax and Hartblei seem to be Kiev 60s with mirror lock up.

There are websites that give support to this affliction 😀

 

[ottluuk]

Sounds like a good kit. I have a friend who has one of the Kiev 6x6 cameras. He hasn't used it a lot, I think mostly because he doesn't develop or print his film himself. I think you will enjoy the camera and lenses. You will just need to get used to them, both carrying and using.

As to the 250mm, I would suggest investing some money at a machine shop for a collar with a proper bolt welded to it for a tripod mount. It should be adjustable, either by a screw of some kind, or a curved spring for tension. It should also have felt or something else glued inside with a fabric glue, thick enough to provide protection to the lens finish. 250mm in MF is nice. I have one for a Super Press 23. It is just that you almost need a wheeled cart to use it. 😀

Hope you will show us some of the photos you get with it.

I don't know which Kiev you have, but since you mentioned M42 lenses, I presume it is an SLR?

Having a tripod collar made may indeed be the best idea - I'll need to think about it. Since it is square format, it doesn't even have to revolve. I have a 400mm with detachable collar for my Canon kit so I could probably take some clues from there.

The Kiev is one of the Contax rangefinder copies, not sure which model. It has a meter hump and comes with a dirty J-8. The M42 lenses are unrelated.

All this stuff comes from a mixed lot of detritus stuffed into the basement of a scientific institution during decades of its existence. Now, the institute is moving to a new building and the old one is destined to be demolished. It's quite hard to decide what to move, what to give away and what to trash. Room will be tight in the new building. So there's a frenzy of people trying to salvage valuable books, manuscripts and instruments from the stuff that management has decided to leave behind. It's a hoarder's wet dream 🙂 but of course, most of the stuff _is_ useless: tons of obsolete textbooks in Russian, soviet-era lab and field equipment (anyone need a doghouse-sized weather station for their garden?), broken office appliances, piles of conference proceedings and obscure journals...

 

[Mark Wood]

A well looked after and properly serviced Pentacon Six is certainly a nice body for these lenses. (Pentacon themselves still service them.) The 45mm Mir suffers from a bit of noticeable barrel distortion (nothing like as bad as most digital compacts mind you) but stopped down, they're all very usable, mechanical issues aside.

Apart from the 90 mm Vega, "real life" tests of most of them are at:

http://www.pentaconsix.com/

The Kiev 88CM (or any of the Arax variations) will also accept these lenses and assuming you can find one that works properly, they're actually not bad cameras at all. (Well I like mine.) A later Kiev, the 88C, with a fixed film back also has the same lens mount.

Mamiya 645 to Pentacon Six mount adapters seem to be relatively cheap too.

 

[Livesteamer]

They can be good cameras. The East German 50mm is very good and there was a Russian 60 or 65mm that is also nice. Mine have one fault. After you wind it, do not touch the wind lever again. If you pull the wind lever to see if it is cocked, it will move the film a bit and you will have overlapping frames. I once had a Hasselblad 50mm lens but sold it because it was so big and heavy and the Kiev 60 with its 50mm lens felt much nicer and was good enough.

Good Luck, Joe

 

[bogdanb]

The Kievs 6c/60 are deemed pretty robust, in spite of the rather shabby manufacturing. Unlike the original Pentacon Six/Practisix, whose advance mechanism once broken, will typically be impossible to repair, the MF Kievs can be at least be mended. Nevertheless a working used Kiev 6c body (with prism or wlf) fetches typically between 40-80 euros, depending on its condition. Exactas are basically P6s. Other P6 mount cameras are the Kiev 88CM (a Hasselblad 1000f copy with a P6 mount), reputed to be unreliable, although from my experience they're not as catastrophic as some on the net would lead you to believe. All of them are reasonable amateur cameras. I have extensive experience with all of them (except for the Exacta, which IMHO is unreasonably expensive), and never had any problems, except for a couple of 88cm backs that were not light-tight.
Russian MF glass is nice. Nevertheless, the big advantage of the P6 system is the Carl Zeiss Jena glass, which is superlative and comes at a fraction of the cost of its western counterparts for the Hasselblad.
My suggestion is to enjoy your kit, as it is quite fun and very adept at delivering superb image quality.

 

[Peter_Jones]

As an aside, I once borrowed a Pentacon Six with a view to buying it. The shutter jammed open on most shots, I only had one useable one from the Zeiss Biometar - but that one useable one was rather good, and planted the seed in my head that I wanted one of these systems.

Ran a film through the Kiev 60 today, but need fresh developer before I find out how it performed. The eyepiece dropped off the prism so I need to "get to know" the Kiev 60 a bit more 😱

 

[rjbuzzclick]

I have a 6C with the Vega 12B. The left handed release is a little odd, but in practice it really isn't a big deal for me after a few minutes. I like the image quality of Russian lenses as well. I just have the metering prism with seems accurate on mine. I just tape three silver oxide batteries together with a small flat washer and powers up fine. The view through the prism is a little dim and not all that clear, but it is possible to focus without too much trouble. The WLF by itself is much brighter, but I don't have a hood with a magnifier, so I don't use it much.

 

[Spanik]

Unless you go to a completely different camera the Kiev is the best of the P6 mount ones. Got a pair of Kievs and P6TLs and prefer the Kiev by far. The P6 may look nicer but isn't the better camera: dimmer viewfinder, more fragile transport, back opens too easy, unusable waist level viewfinder.

Just check the transport before you go out for real. Put in a film, and just take photos or run it through and mark the film from the front if you can spare a film. As already said, you need to advance in one single fluid motion without being rough with it. Take care that the strap doesn't hang over the stop for the handle. If the strap gets cought between the stop and the handle when you advance you'll have trouble. And those lugs are at the most idiot place imaginable!

The batteries for the prism can be found, but you are better off with an adapter for common LR44. They can be found on ebay. Nothing more than a tube of plastic to keep them in position. Those prisms are not very convenient in use as they are not coupled to the lenses. (can't couple them as some open from left to right while others go the other way round) Using them stopped down is an option but an hand held meter is a better option as they are often not very well calibrated.

Other nice lenses are the Arsat 55 shift and the CZJ Sonnar 180/2.8.

 

[ottluuk]

Unless you go to a completely different camera the Kiev is the best of the P6 mount ones. Got a pair of Kievs and P6TLs and prefer the Kiev by far. The P6 may look nicer but isn't the better camera: dimmer viewfinder, more fragile transport, back opens too easy, unusable waist level viewfinder.

Just check the transport before you go out for real. Put in a film, and just take photos or run it through and mark the film from the front if you can spare a film. As already said, you need to advance in one single fluid motion without being rough with it. Take care that the strap doesn't hang over the stop for the handle. If the strap gets cought between the stop and the handle when you advance you'll have trouble. And those lugs are at the most idiot place imaginable!

The batteries for the prism can be found, but you are better off with an adapter for common LR44. They can be found on ebay. Nothing more than a tube of plastic to keep them in position. Those prisms are not very convenient in use as they are not coupled to the lenses. (can't couple them as some open from left to right while others go the other way round) Using them stopped down is an option but an hand held meter is a better option as they are often not very well calibrated.

Other nice lenses are the Arsat 55 shift and the CZJ Sonnar 180/2.8.

Thank you for the film transport instruction! I hope to try it out during the weekend. I think I won't bother with the TTL meter at first. I've become accurate enough in guesstimating exposures, especially since I can do a little sanity check with a pocket digital every now and then.

 

[Joosep]

I can speak Estonian !

Vega ja Mir on mõlemad väga head. Minu Vega tõi koju ikka väga mõnusa joonisega, ta tegi bokehit portreedes kuidagi silmapuhkavalt.

Or in english... Great find !

 

[KoNickon]

The Kiev 6/60's main issue is the overlapping frames, which is indeed adjustable without too much difficulty, though it's trial and error. One of the websites (I forget which one) shows how to do it.

I like the feel of the camera and the lenses are quite good, I think. So I think you will enjoy them.

Very cool that we have two Estonians (if not more) on RfF!

 

[ottluuk]

The Kiev 6/60's main issue is the overlapping frames, which is indeed adjustable without too much difficulty, though it's trial and error. One of the websites (I forget which one) shows how to do it.

I like the feel of the camera and the lenses are quite good, I think. So I think you will enjoy them.

Very cool that we have two Estonians (if not more) on RfF!

Around here we like to point out that in some obscure passage, Hemingway has written that "In every port in the world, at least two Estonians can be found" 🙂

But there is/was definitely at least one more on RFF and hopefully more.

 

[ssmc]

of course, most of the stuff _is_ useless: tons of obsolete textbooks in Russian, soviet-era lab and field equipment (anyone need a doghouse-sized weather station for their garden?), broken office appliances, piles of conference proceedings and obscure journals...

Not meaning to hijack this thread, but are any of the "obsolete textbooks" geology-related? There is a particular book about silicates I have been after for some years that's out of print and almost impossible to find in English. It doesn't matter that I can't read Russian, it's the graphs and equations that I'm after...

I know the chances are slim but I thought it couldn't hurt to ask 🙂

Nice job on grabbing all that gear, BTW!
Scott

 

[Spanik]

If it wasn't that far I'd come over to have a look at the pile. Love such finds.

 

[rbiemer]

I've owned and used 3 of those four lenses: the Mir, Zodiak, and the Jupiter.
I liked the photos I took using them but the lenses them selves varied quite a bit in how well the mechanics worked.
The Mir was OK but not great--this is likely down to sample variation as I have seen some very good photos from these.
The Jupiter I had would not stop down but it worked well enough other wise.
And the 30mm was just a lot of fun! One caution: be very careful about using that lens on an extension ring: the combination can put the point of focus effectively behind the front element depending on which ring you're using.

I used an Arax 60 body which is an upgraded version of the Kiev 60 so I don't know much about the earlier 6S.

For a good collection of links about these cameras and their lenses see here:

http://www.araxphoto.com/links/


Good luck with the kit!
Rob

 

[oftheherd]

Having a tripod collar made may indeed be the best idea - I'll need to think about it. Since it is square format, it doesn't even have to revolve. I have a 400mm with detachable collar for my Canon kit so I could probably take some clues from there.

The Kiev is one of the Contax rangefinder copies, not sure which model. It has a meter hump and comes with a dirty J-8. The M42 lenses are unrelated.

All this stuff comes from a mixed lot of detritus stuffed into the basement of a scientific institution during decades of its existence. Now, the institute is moving to a new building and the old one is destined to be demolished. It's quite hard to decide what to move, what to give away and what to trash. Room will be tight in the new building. So there's a frenzy of people trying to salvage valuable books, manuscripts and instruments from the stuff that management has decided to leave behind. It's a hoarder's wet dream 🙂 but of course, most of the stuff _is_ useless: tons of obsolete textbooks in Russian, soviet-era lab and field equipment (anyone need a doghouse-sized weather station for their garden?), broken office appliances, piles of conference proceedings and obscure journals...

Sounds like you have the Kiev III or the 4m. The meter may well not work, or not accurately. However, if everything else on the camera works you may well enjoy using it. I have a 4am that I often enjoy using.

 

[rjbuzzclick]

In my Kiev 6C (and also in my Koni-Omega Rapid M backs) whenever I have frame spacing issues, it's always related to Fuji films (Velvia 50 and Acros). I do not have issues with Ilford for Fomapan films. Anybody else have this experience?

 

[Spanik]

Not really. I only use Fuji Provia 400X and have no problems with spacing. Both my Kiev 60 bodies come Hartblei and both P6TL were CLA'd by Photo-service-goerlitz.