A mixed up Kiev...

[physiognomy]

Here is a pic of my Kiev 3a... It has the body from my 'parts' 2a who's broken shutter I swapped with one from a Kiev 4. The top plate is from a Kiev III that I bought recently to convert to a II... All in all its a functional, but very mixed up camera.

One thing I was curious about is the J-8... its pretty early (1951) & I was wondering whether the aperture ring looks a little Zeiss to anyone? None of my other J-8s have the little tabs that I have seen on some Sonnars.



Peter

[doubs43]

Peter, those tabs are VERY Zeiss and I've seen more than a few fake "Zeiss Sonnars" made from these early FSU lenses. It's a lens you should hang onto as there weren't that many made and the fakes have taken a toll on those remaining.

If you have the skills to do the work on these babies, I'm impressed! Looks good.

Walker

[PeterW]

Hi Peter,

The 1.5 Sonnar on my Contax II has tabs like that on the aperture ring, but none of the Jupiters on my three Kievs have them. On the other hand, the Jupiters have click stops for the apertures while the Sonnar doesn't.

As you've more or less built the camera from parts, the serial number on the body won't mean a lot, but I notice the serial number on the lens is 51xxxx. If this follows the usual Russian numbering of starting with the first two numbers of the year of manufacture, it could be a 1951 lens, possibly before the design was changed from a complete 'Sonnar built in Russia' to a Jupiter in its own right.

I've also seen one example of a Jupiter labelled as a fake Sonnar, but that was a built-up fake from a later Jupiter (or several Jupiters). It had tabs and no knurling on the aperture ring, but it also had click stops, and something about the knurling further back didn't 'feel' quite right. Too sharply cut. Also the serial number should have been on a much, much later Zeiss lens. I mentioned this to the guy who bought it, and he was quite downcast ... till he tried the lens, then he perked up a lot because its performance was superb. Maybe I should have kept my big mouth shut and let him live on in blissful ignorance.

BTW, despite having successfully partly stripped and rebuilt three Kievs because of ribbon faults I STILL can't get the gear train timing right on one still in pieces which I had to strip almost totally as it had seized (a sleeve gear had seized on its shaft because it was never greased) and it took me ages to find the cause. Either it's OK on the fast speeds and won't wind up the slow ones or vice versa.

I had an email conversation with Russ Pinchbeck about it, but he couldn't see where I'd gone wrong either. It's been in pieces nearly two and half years now, but I hate to admit defeat. One fool put it together in the first place so another fool should be able to do the same.

I think maybe the only thing to do is not to fiddle with it any more but take the gear trains completely to pieces and start again from a pile of bits!

Any timing tips to pass on? I've got Peter Tooke's book on repairing the pre-war Contax, but I haven't got Maizenberg's book. I saw one on ebay recently but with an expensive Christmas I couldn't spring the funds to get it. You wouldn't happen to have a copy that you could check in for me?

PeterW

[physiognomy]

Thanks for the replies. Considering the age of the lens & it's quality 'feel' I figured there was a chance that it might have some Zeiss parts. Peter, it has no click stops, so that was an initial piece of info that triggered my thoughts.

I'm sorry that I don't have any repair literature on the pre-war Contax or Keivs... Everything that I have worked on so far was done by following the instructions on Russ' site or by working backwards from what I had unnecessarily disassembled

Peter, maybe you might do yourself a favour by sending your Kiev to someone like Oleg who (for a reasonable fee) will surely put it back into working condition. I guess if you have other working Kievs putting the money into it might seem unecessary, but it will get your mind off of it.

Peter

[PeterW]

Peter, maybe you might do yourself a favour by sending your Kiev to someone like Oleg who (for a reasonable fee) will surely put it back into working condition. I guess if you have other working Kievs putting the money into it might seem unecessary, but it will get your mind off of it.

I had thought of that, and I've heard excellent reports of Oleg's work at reasonable prices. But I'm such a stubborn old b.........r that I'm determined not to give up on it. I just hate being beaten by innanimate things like this.

They don't have minds of their own, no matter how much I might feel they have sometimes!

I'll work it out and get it right some day, and probably learn a lot more about Kievs (and Contaxes) in the process.

When I figure out where I've been going wrong I bet it'll be a case of "of course"

One thing I like about older designs like this is that you seldom need special tools to work on them. A few screwdrivers and some tweezers and you're up and running.

Anyway, thanks for coming back on it.

PeterW