'No Name' Contax....

[photovdz]

this is not a no name contax... (Hommage to Magritte)

but a kiev 53 with a contax plate... but it's still a very nice camera with export quality.

 

[photovdz]

a "real no name" contax is a kiev4 from 1963 engraved "ussr occupied germany" and sold origanilly with a carl zeiss (west) lens...
then came the second batch, from 1964 and usually not engraved , sold with jupiters lenses...

 

[Vince Lupo]

Not really sure what my camera is, but I'm enjoying using it just the same. I've just about finished shooting my roll of colour film, and hopefully should have it processed sometime this week.

Interestingly, I'd been lusting after one of those 85/2 lenses for quite some time, but really, I think I can pretty well shoot most everything I need to shoot with this 50.

 

[sevo]

a "real no name" contax is a kiev4 from 1963 engraved "ussr occupied germany" and sold origanilly with a carl zeiss (west) lens...
then came the second batch, from 1964 and usually not engraved , sold with jupiters lenses...

YMMV. In West Germany, these weren't sold (these presumably were put together by or for an US seller) and that would hardly have done on the Zeiss home market, but German sellers did their own exploitation of the Contax cancellation by distributing Kiev based no-names with Zeiss (East) lenses. There may have been even more variations - the USSR foreign export board had many small local partners everywhere rather than a few global resellers.

 

[photovdz]

in fact the first batch of noname contax... engraved "ussr occupied germany" seem to have been sold with Carl Zeiss lenses and not Carl Zeiss Jena lenses, meaning western production lenses on a russian body. Since the production of western contax IIa and IIIa was discontinued at the time there was no more concurrence.
but for the second batch (64... bodys) they were sold with russian lenses... and seemingly no engraving.

 

[Vince Lupo]

Just finished the roll of colour that was in the camera -- I'll try to get it processed today!

I have to say that this is one of the most enjoyable film cameras I've used in a long time -- if all works out, it could spark a partial return to film for me! Just need the motivation to kick-start home film processing again.....

 

[S.H.]

The Kiev/Contax is a nice camera 😉 Outdated finder, but nice.

 

[Vince Lupo]

Yes, the finder can be a bit 'approximate', shall we say. But I've been using their excellent turret finder to help.

 

[Vince Lupo]

Colour!


KievColour5 by Vince.Lupo, on Flickr


KievColour4 by Vince.Lupo, on Flickr


KievColour3 by Vince.Lupo, on Flickr


KievColour2 by Vince.Lupo, on Flickr


KievColour1 by Vince.Lupo, on Flickr


KievColour11 by Vince.Lupo, on Flickr



KievColour9 by Vince.Lupo, on Flickr


KievColour8 by Vince.Lupo, on Flickr


KievColour7 by Vince.Lupo, on Flickr


KievColour6 by Vince.Lupo, on Flickr

Really surprised at how nice most everything turned out. No weird light leaks, no overlaps, and even at 1/1250th of a second, the exposures are totally even. BTW this film is a 'no-name' film (um, to go with a potential no-name camera?) that I bought at a local grocery store a couple of years ago, and processed at Costco today (with Costco scans).

As mentioned in an earlier post, the built-in viewfinder of the Kiev is 'approximate', so I've taken advantage of a sweet Kiev Turret finder that I've had for a while. Probably one of the most accurate finders I've ever used -- if you look at the first photo, for example, please note that I didn't do ANY perspective / vertical correction in post-production.

So I think this camera is a winner!

 

[farlymac]

Oh, yeah, that baby's working great! Of course, it also helps that the photographer is good too. Congrats on your new best friend, Vince.

PF