Kiev light leaks & other...

[mike goldberg]

Hi All,

There appear to be 3 separate users below, complaining of Kiev light leaks.
My Kiev 4a purchased from Fedka does NOT leak light.

My only complaint with the Kiev is the characteristic uneven, but tolerable
spacing between negs. Also, the shutter speeds are difficult to change, even
when cocked, in the direction of the higher speeds.

Other than the above quirks, the Kiev long RF base, bright VF and accurate RF are great on my K4a.

When replacing the back on the camera body, there is a normal amount of
tension in the two locking handles in the base plate. As I've learned the feel
of the K4a plus its sounds, I know that all is well.

Cheers, mike

 

[alternatve]

I am experiencing a problem of a different kind. My shots end up too close to the sprokets on the bottom, leaving a border on top. Also, I have trouble lifting the knob and setting it to the highest speed and changing from a high speed to a low one. Can anyone help? Thanks.

Regards,
Samuel

 

[Edward Felcher]

Your mechanical problems are basically a result of increasingly shoddy materials and construction from around the mid 1960's onward.

If you get a Kiev II or Kiev III in good condition from the 1949 to around 1962, you will not have the problems with poor alignment, uneven spacing, etc. The build quality will be almost the same as a German Contax.

Get a good one, give it a competent CLA, and shoot away.

 

[mike goldberg]

From what I know, I'm with Ed above on the earlier models being better.
This is not an absolute; some users are quite happy with their Kiev 4am's.
Both the K4a and the Fed-2b that I bought from Fedka are from the 60's, and both are excellent. From what I have heard, Yuri at Fedka is careful in what he buys. Some of his Kievs and Leica copies have had CLA, but which ones and when, he cannot guarantee. To me, the following makes sense: If you have a good FSU shooter that you like and feels good in your hands, go for a CLA if you are having problems.

Further, I have found that contact spray with light oil in it, very carefully applied in winding areas that are visible, and to latch handles on the bottom plate... help to get things moving. Of course you have to wipe up any oily spots inside the camera with a cloth lightly sprayed with alcohol, or a 50-50 alcohol and water mix, as I do.

The Kiev's shutter & winding mechanism are far more complex than those of the Fed's and Zorki's, and Ruben is our local expert on the Kiev.

Perhaps the best thing you can do after buying a 50-year old FSU camera that may have been on someone's shelf, unused... is to use it, especially in the warm weather.

Good luck, mike

 

[Malcolm_J]

I posted one of the threads you refer to.

What puzzles me is that my Kiev (purchased from fedka) was fine to start with but then I suddenly have a light leak that is intermittent and has no evident source. The leak "stain" does not run across the rebate, so where is it coming from? The shutter? Difficult to accept that, because the stain extents slightly outside the area of the exposure frame, and there is an intermittent patch on the edge of the film outside the sproket holes at regular intervals. This patch does not relate to the leak inside the exposure. In some cases the patch is not there at all but the exposure has the scar of the light leak.

I have checked the original test roll for this camera and it shows not a shred of evidence of a light leak.

Could it be a development error? Not likely, but what else is?

Very mysterious!

 

[Wayno]

I am experiencing a problem of a different kind. My shots end up too close to the sprokets on the bottom, leaving a border on top. Also, I have trouble lifting the knob and setting it to the highest speed and changing from a high speed to a low one. Can anyone help? Thanks.

Regards,
Samuel

If it's any consolation Samuel, my Contax does the same (and if you've seen Robert Capa's D-Day shots, you can see that his did too!). This is a pain when I use a minilab because the automated process seems to scan/print from the centre of the film and also crops slightly, so I end up losing quite a bit from one side of each picture (and so the composition is quite different to what I'd intended).

I presume this problem occurs because the cameras were originally designed for slightly different (reloadable) cartridges. After investigating the problem I came to the conclusion that this little flange (circled in the picture) was the only thing stopping the film cartridges from going up a little higher.



I removed the rewind shaft assembly and took that part off of the shaft. I filed it down just a little (a millimetre or less), and that seems enough for the film to be now more or less centred at the film gate. I've since repainted it matt black & added a small spacer to the camera back where the cartridge sits to make sure it's held up in position. I haven't film tested yet, but hopefully it'll do the trick.

 

[alternatve]

Thanks Wayno! Robert Capa is my hero. Anyone charging down a ramp facing machine gun fire, artillery shells and armed with two contax II cameras and taking pictures while trying to stay alive earns my undying respect.

I find that it isn't the same for every shot. Some is worst then the other. So now I have shutter problems as well?! It's not as bad as to obscure half the picture, but it takes of the top 1/15th in the very serious case.

 

[mike goldberg]

Hi Malcolm, Wayno and all,

For anything to do with the Kiev shutter & winding, PM Ruben. Having seen one, it is indeed, a complex mechanism. Wayno, that filing down in the Rewind shaft assembly, is really a bit of creative, mechanical thinking. And, some of the above described problems might show up more in some model year production runs, than others. See Link:

http://www.fedka.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=32&products_id=430

I bought the K4a, of a long running and successful production line, and was lucky enough to get a 1960 version.

Though I cannot speak personally for Ruben here, I know that he has resolved a lot of the characteristic Kiev problems... so much so, that he considers it a good street shooter.

Cheers, mike