Maizenberg's Book + the kiev/contax cassetes

R

ruben

Guest
Finally I got Maizenberg's book. WOW ! There is so much insinght about the issues we are daily discussing here that I will say for myself that I have been waisting so much time without it... what a pity and what a treasure !

I cannot strongly enough recommend this book for all of us. It has been written for our average knowledge. For us.

I doubt I will end reading this book some day as there are so much cameras highly detailed there, and my main interest is in the Kiev chapter. Since I am not exactly a technical minded person, it rather takes me time to read it, but every single sentence there is gold.

In general, I can say that much of our critics of Soviet stuff comes from plain ignorance about how should we operate it.

One example that I will address now is about the contax/kiev cassetes. I am addressing this just because it is among the first things he speaks about and I have been able to read meantime.


Maizenbergs analyses the differet types of existing cassetes and finally he seems to recommend (*) the use of the two-cylindred cassetes, the dedicated ones for Kievs and Contaxes. The reason ? several ones but the most important refers to a "new" factor, never taken into consideration by me. There is a certain amount of friction at the lips of the feeding cassete, that Kievs and Contaxes are built to accept.

We can assume that any commercial cassete is built below that ammount, for free feeding action, and there is nothing to worry about here. But this is not necessarily the situation with home loaded cassetes from bulk film. The great advantage of using the two cylindred original contax/kiev cassetes is in their opening upon camera closing, fully freeing the sprockets, and the whole shutter mechanism, from unnecessary load. Interesting, not?

Now, comming back to Maizenberg's book in general, we have to take into account this book was written by the early sixties, when the Kievs were relatively young cameras. The Kievs we buy today, are rather different in their condition, making the Kiev Project highly relevant. Furthermore at his time, it seems from the book there were a lot of fixers of these breed available, therefore some hard issues he recommends us to go there instead of doing it ourselves.

Nevertheless, my good fellows, no better investment than having this book. In the long term it will save us a lot of money and time. Again, again and again, ignorance is the mother of all evils.

Cheers,
Ruben



BTW, there is a kind of problem there when reading, in that you may be at page 289 for example, and he refers you again to a pic found at page 356 or 253 - this resulting into a very annoying proceeding.
But with the instruments available today, I have scanned all pics related to Kievs, then enlarged each one to A4 size, printed them and made an auxiliary second book of drawings, allowing me speedy finding, extraordinary size view, and the most important - I can continue reading page 289 and have besides the drawing found at page 356.


(*) Note I phrase myself "he seems to recommend", because interestingly he takes along his book great care in not saying 'this is better', in issues we daily take sides here at RFF.

When analysing the options, Maizenberg usually weights the different positive and negative sides of each thing, leving final judgement upon the reader. Great master.
 
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Ruben

The advantage for me is there are no scratches using the Kiev cassettes, and they are cheaper than Contax origionals.

Also I discovered by chance that the Kiev cassettes (but not contax origionals) will fit some of the other FSU cameras! I found one in a Zorki 5!

Noel
 
This is mentioned by Maizenberg too, plus other details about the two cylindred cassete having to have its original take up spool. I rectify now this.

Cheers,
Ruben
 
It is indeed a great book. Got mine in 2001.

It is written in a language meant for the advanced lay person, and not someone who has been trained on the factory floors. Compare the factory manuals for the Leica. Or even the one issued for the Kiev-88, which I think is the hardest ever to read.
 
Interesting: In my Kiev 5 There was a plastic film cassette........Ithought that to be Ok, but it resulted in an empty film as so a cassette does not equal a cassette...contrary to the sellers belief
 
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There were in fact three different kinds of "double" cassettes: made by Arsenal (for Kiev), KMZ (Zorki and Start SLR), and FED. The latter two kinds don't fit Kievs, but might be interchangeable between screwmount bodies. FED cassettes are marked on top with FED logo, not sure about KMZ.

Kiev cassetes have "ЗАКР" written on it, which some ebay sellers advertise as type/name. In fact it is short from "ЗАКРЫТО": "closed", or "zu" as it was written in German on original Contax cassettes.
 
Eugene

The 14 off I have seem to fit Kievs and Zorki 5s, they seemed identical, I have to check now though.

Always embarrasing how good other people are at English, you do Russian as well?

Noel
 
Hi Noel,
Forgot to add that my comment was a warning for other members who may buy a Kiev and receive it with a plastic cassette (looks like the cassette of a Svema film), that it won't work.
The other experience I made was that the lens did not budge....I was in despair for a second until I thought of taking the lens of and turning the inner bayonet counterclockwise etc.
A pity because the Camera is quite OK the seller also..but littele mistakes like that could damage his reputation.
 
Noel,

I'm not sure: I have one cassette for screwmounts purchased by mistake (ironically, in Kiev). It is a bit thinner than Kiev proper, and has interlock lug in wrong place. And I recall trying out various cassettes at a fleamarket dealer; FED marked ones didn't fit either.

Russian is my mother's tongue, yes. I moved to Norway about a year ago, but am still a national of Belarus.
 
Mikael.N said:
where can i find Maizenberg's book ?or a copy it seems to be interesting reading.
Click to expand...


There are several places. Google : Maizenberg
Cheers,
Ruben
 
Mikael.N said:
where can i find Maizenberg's book ?or a copy it seems to be interesting reading.
Click to expand...

The easiest - and quite possibly the only current - source of the English Language edition is OTC, whom I believe own all the existing stocks of the last edition, which was produced for a British specialist camera dealer with the co-operation of the author's family.

You can find them here - http://www.oldtimercameras.com/stock/Model.asp?Model=10736&ModelPage=true

The book often sells for a much higher price elsewhere and is essential reading for anyone who wishes for authoritative knowledge of FSU cameras up to circa 1962.

Cheers, Ian :)
 
The Maizenberg book had a very low run. Only 1000 or so were made, I think.
 
There are definitely at least three types of these cassettes. Kiev, Fed and Zorki. The Fed and Zorki types won't fit all models. None of the three types are interchangeable. The lugs are in different places. Even when you have the correct type they sometimes don't work. They are more likely to work on the earlier Kiev models.
The Kiev cassette has a small lug about 4 mm deep. Both the other type have lugs about 4 times as long. The Zorki cassette normally bears the KMZ logo and the Fed cassette is usually labelled Fed. If the Zorki and Fed cassettes don't have these distinguishing marks then the only way to tell them apart is by the position of the lugs.
varjag said:
Noel,

I'm not sure: I have one cassette for screwmounts purchased by mistake (ironically, in Kiev). It is a bit thinner than Kiev proper, and has interlock lug in wrong place. And I recall trying out various cassettes at a fleamarket dealer; FED marked ones didn't fit either.

Russian is my mother's tongue, yes. I moved to Norway about a year ago, but am still a national of Belarus.
Click to expand...
 
The Maizenberg book had a very low run. Only 1000 or so were made, I think.
Click to expand...

They show up ocaissonally, my father bought an example with a white cover in english a few years ago on a photofair. The book claims to be copyrighted, but no sign of an ISBN or translator. The orignal Russian version might be copied in larger amounts.

My version looks quite new and is printed/copyrighted in 1996, it may have been reprinted around this time. Its hard to find a copy, but sometimes they appear on your path one day .
 
fanshaw said:
There are definitely at least three types of these cassettes. Kiev, Fed and Zorki. ............. Even when you have the correct type they sometimes don't work. ...........
Click to expand...

Hi fanshaw,

Fortunately our friend Noel has provided us with a solution, genial in its simplycity and simple in its geniality, which I call The Xmas Dry Film Test.

In this specific context, you load both suspicious cassettes with virgin outdated film you are ready to sacrifice, and start firing. You can fire the shutter without the back of the camera, or with the back and B speed, using the B time to mark each frame from the lens mount. When finishing the roll, the 36 marked frames will be your 'rentgan' proof of how the cassettes perform.

Cheers,
Ruben

PS,
The test was originally designed to know beforehand frame-space performance.
 
Valkir1987 said:
They show up ocaissonally, my father bought an example with a white cover in english a few years ago on a photofair. ............
Click to expand...


Hi Valkir,
I notice some photography history in your family...

Cheers,
Ruben
 
Valkir1987 said:
They show up ocaissonally, my father bought an example with a white cover in english a few years ago on a photofair. The book claims to be copyrighted, but no sign of an ISBN or translator. The orignal Russian version might be copied in larger amounts.

My version looks quite new and is printed/copyrighted in 1996, it may have been reprinted around this time. Its hard to find a copy, but sometimes they appear on your path one day .
Click to expand...


I remember a communication with Yuri Boguslavsky (fedka) years ago which described the circumstances of the english version of the book. The details are quite hazy now. Among these was the number of copies printed.

Maizenberg wrote many repair manuals. The original versions covered more cameras and even lenses. The english version is really a condensed edition of what all the originals contained. There were times when Maizenberg had to write under a pseudonym.

Yuri knew Maizenberg when the author was still alive. I also believe that Yuri was asking Maizenberg's heirs (his wife Ketti and his son) for permission to get more of the books printed. At that time, Maizenberg's widow was also ailing, and it's unknown if Yuri got the go signal.

The English version, if one looks at it closely, appears to have pages of a 'xerox' (but good one) type print than a 'real' printed book.

Many of Maizenberg's books still appear on eBay from Ukrainian dealers. Their titles would often have the keywords "repair" ("РЕМОНТ"). These were written in the 1950s - 60s. But these books were in Russian, and sometimes, in Ukrainian.

Jay
 
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Hi Jay - I had to contact a British dealer earlier today and I think I might now be able to clarify some of the history of the Maizenberg book (and correct my earlier comment).

Apparently the standard white hardback (1996) was indeed privately produced by Maizenburg, hence the "good Xerox" quality, the result of a short-run non-letterpress process used by a jobbing printer. This presumably explains the lack of an ISBN, not that this affects copyright etc.

Following Maizenburg's death (in 1999?) much of the unsold stock was bought by Peter Loy, the leading British dealer, who also bought up copies from other retailers. I believe the OTC copies were subsequently bought from Loy, who originally offered them at a considerably higher price.

Cheers, Ian



Cheeers, Ian
 
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