Your choice-Kiev 4 or 4a?

[john341]

Fair enough-I often use my old Weston Master incident or reflected and the readings compare favourably with the meter on the Kiev (must have been lucky and bought a camera built on a Tuesday) but in the end, I like having the meter sitting on top - Kiev on hormones!

 

[acheyj]

Nope on the meter they are truly ugly ! .
Whole purpose for me playing with all these old RFs is to relive the days gone by, kinda like Capa, Bresson etc and my first intro to 35mm a book called My Way With the Minature by Lancelot Vining.
Love working on broken Kievs and I what I like abt a good one is I KNOW its going to break soon
cheers all
ron

 

[john341]

OMG mate, I hope you are wrong on their breaking down so soon! I was just about to load mine with some film tomorrow JB

 

[40oz]

My Kiev's are all good. Worst defect has been minor light leak along the sprocket holes. Of course, all of mine were got cheap - at least one has been dropped on the lens (matching dent in body and lens when it arrived), but mechanically sound and functionally fine for several years now.

 

[Murray Kelly]

Funny you should say that. I have had a J-12 that fitted the one (4) and not the other (4A). Close inspection revealed that the lens was fouling against the inside of the body where it looked like the piant was just a 'smidge' thicker. Scraped some off and it is now fine.
OTOH I have both C/K and LTM J-12s and they are both junk. Others rave about them but mine are hopeless.

Murray

All true, my one exception in the last model Kiev with or without meter. I have had three 4A(m) cameras and they were all rubbish. The built in takeup spool is flimsy and breaks easily. The J12 lens fitted two but not the third. They were true train-wrecks.

 

[dee]

I guess we all need one of each ... plus dozens of spares !!!
The problem being that even an authentic Contax from before the war will have both it's inate complexity and time against it ... though I hope to minimise this with a Kiev heart
in my nice condition parts Contax II .
Why don't we buy a reliable Leica M 3 instead ?
Because there is something about them .....

 

[ruben]

I think we should differentiate between two different issues.

One thing is if I love the metered Kievs.

But a totally different thing is what's the value of owning a Kiev with a working meter.

The last sentence points both to options for use, as for price when selling. A good Kiev with an accurate working meter is not an average us$ 70 Kiev, but much more. This average silly price answers the fact that the average Kiev is an untested and unknown Kiev, and possibly a Frankenstanized one.

And since we are talking abou fairly cheap cameras, I find it quite interesting to have a flat top Kiev besides a metered one for different shooting situations or states of mind.

A working meter Kiev is something to be.

Cheers,
Ruben