Kiev film cassettes

[brachal]

Hello! Does anybody have any experience using the old Kiev film cassettes as a take up spool? I have a theory that using one might help prevent the irregular picture spacing that seems to happen to a lot of Kiev negatives.

It seems like you'd have to thread the film into the cassette, close the cassette, and then let the locking latch open the cassette once the back is back on, but I'm not sure if it'll do that without damaging anything. Any advice on how to use these darned things will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[peterc]

It works for my 4a, Bill.
I removed the spool from the cassette and replaced the takeup spool with the one from the cassette. I get nice, even frame spacing now.
However, this won't work for my Kiev 4. The spool is too long and the back won't close.

Hope this helps,
Peter

 

[brachal]

Thanks, Peter. I decided to try to load one -- can't cost more than a roll of film and processing, right?

After a couple of tries, I was able to get everything lined up and the film is moving into the take up cassette smoothly, so the door must be open. With luck, I'll have an OK roll of film.

I wound up doing this:
1. stick film leader into the spool
2. seat upper half of cassette in the camera.
3. place spool with film into the cassette, carefully lining everything up.
4. fit the bottom half of the cassette into the top half and twist closed.
5. replace the back and let the key open the cassette.

Seems to have worked, but I guess I won't know until I get everything processed!