The life and death of a Kiev 4AM

[royalrat]

Here I’ve got a sad story about the last roll a camera took before dying in my hands…

It wasn’t a love story of any sort, and when I looked at her for the first time she didn’t leave any impression at all. Leonid told me that in those days (early 70th) he used to shot with his Zorki, but when he got a job with the Russian news company he was given a more professional tool – The Kiev camera. It was a crude beast in comparison to the Zorki, but considered by the craftsmen’s of the era to be a working horse. Since then he had a few Kiev cameras, but they all died on him eventually. “It is possible to fix the camera”, he said, “but it is too complicated operation, getting inside this body stuffed with little parts, and fishing for that torn spring. Better to let her rest in peace. Be glad that she gave you this last roll”.

When working with old cameras you should be very careful; any wrong turn of a button could lead to a disaster. I’m not sure what the turning point with this one was, but when unloading the film it suddenly happened, I couldn’t wind it anymore, and it just kept turning to no end. A sad moment indeed, but I didn’t have any real feeling for this one. It was hard work to shot with, it’s heavy and you have to do the focus from above, which is just hell to get used to. I wasn’t sad about her death, just disappointed…

But then I got the roll back from the lab. Of course the film had many flaws – Flashes of light at the sides, dots, scratches, and an ugly horizontal line which went all over the negative that was caused in the cassette chamber when I rewind the film. But still, I just loved the photos. At that moment I felt the sting. I’m not sure I’ll go searching for another Kiev, but I sure will miss this one.

To see the photos and read the full review:
royalrat.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/kiev-4a/

[Deleted]

The Kiev 4AM was the last model made and by that time manufacturing in the Soviet Union was in shambles. I have cited this story previously but one of the last batches of Kievs made were hauled directly from the plant to the landfill because they were so poorly made. That is a nice photo. Certainly nothing wrong with the Kiev lens. You might save money in the long run by just finding a good used Contax 2A.

I have to admit my favorite Soviet camera is the Zorki 1 model made for export--sometimes called the "Double Zorki" because the name was on the top of the camera twice. I is an amost exact copy of the Leica II and is much easier to repair than the Kiev/Contax.

W.

[mickeyobe]

Yaniv,

Yees'gadal v'yees'kadash .....

Mickey

[royalrat]

That's nice... Though it's still alive. It came back from the dead.

[julio1fer]

That Helios-103 is one of the finest lenses I have used.