With the quiet announcement that the Kiev 88 is now available with a Pentacon-type bayonet mount, the circle closes on a remarkable, largely-overlooked 2 1/4 SLR phenomenon. Designers of the German Pentacon and Ukranian Kiev (sometimes called the Hasselnyet because it's a knock-off of in old Hasselblad design) created a family of basic, budget-priced cameras with a common lensmount. This bayonet mount accepts the widest variety of medium-format lenses ever, many of them unique. The lenses shown below represent only a small part of a veritably lush optical jungle, ranging from a widely available 30mm fisheye coveting 180 degrees to a rare 1000mm f/11 Zeiss mirror lens, plus two Schneider zooms covering a range from 75mm to 250mm in the middle.
While all the lenses have price tags in the hundreds of bucks, most cost but a fraction of their well-known, widely touted and advertised competitors. One example: the aforementioned 30mm f/3.5 fisheye, costing $375, looks suspiciously like a Zeiss fisheye for a major-brand medium-format camera. Street price of the Zeiss lens is $5,800.
On a less esoteric optical front, a standard 80mm f/2.8 Ukranian lens in Pentacon mount at $129 is quite a bit cheaper than the $1,100 charged for a competing lens on another camera.
Are the Pentacon-mount cheapos equal in optical and mechanical quality, to the posh, better-known brands? Read on. Cameras first.
Compared to today's sophisticated electronically controlled, motorized medium-format cameras, the Kiev/Pentacon/Exakta all-mechanical operating breed is primitive and pesky to operate. None have autoexposure, rapid return mirror, or provision for motor drive. Except for the Exakta 66, all TTL meter prisms are uncoupled. You make a reading and then transfer the information from the dial to the camera controls. There are no push buttons; your right thumb and fingers do the work.
Acquiring one or more of these camera bodies plus lenses can be a good, practical, budget entry into medium format, a continuing, satisfying amateur/pro venture, or an amusing collector's feast of interesting, oddball, but quite usable equipment. It's all repairable when necessary, but don't expect pro tech reps to jump to your aid if and when things go wrong.
You'll be wiser and more capable of deciding whether you want to buy into the German-Ukranian connection after we give you the straight dope, namely where did these cameras come from, where can you find them, and how good are they? It's a largely untold saga worth the hearing even if you never buy a camera or lens.
Pentacon 6: Following World War II, the East German K.W. factory in 1957 introduced the 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 Praktisix SLR, a very convenient-to-use camera even at eye level. It was followed by the mechanically improved Praktisix II, which was renamed the Pentacon 6 when production was transferred to the Dresden Pentacon factory in 1962. Pentacon had previously been Zeiss-Ikon, Dresden, but, after the German East-West split, the East lost the legal rights to sell the Zeiss name and all Zeiss trademarks in the West.
Praktisix and Pentacon 6 cameras had identical features and a unique breech-lock bayonet leasmount, cloth focal-plane shutter with speeds from 1 to 1/1000 sec, flash sync at 1/30 sec, interchangeable finders, and 120 roll-film backs. Lenses were made by Carl Zeiss, Jena (later C.Z., with lens types also abbreviated, Biometar becoming B.M. and Sonnar becoming S., for instance). East German Meyer-Optik also made some lenses.
Pentacon 6 production continued on and off, principally for Eastern European Bloc sale until about 1986. Despite intelligent engineering, quality and finish were compromised by the East German factories' lack of the best materials.
Production has now stopped. Only used Praktisix and Pentacon 6 cameras and their Zeiss and Meyer lenses are available in varying condition, from mint to heavily used. (We'll give you some sources at the end of this article.)
These cameras are generally reliable, and their metering is reasonably accurate and easy to use. Eye-level prisms have fairly low magnification compared to Kiev cameras.
Exakta 66: In 1996, the Exakta 66 made its appearance, thanks to some West German businessmen who apparently had spirited the rights to the Exakta name from East to West Germany. The new Exakta 66 bore no resemblance to any East German Exakta. Instead, its shape, size, and features were the spitting image of the Pentacon 6, which isn't surprising because internally and control-wise, it is/was the Pentacon 6. However, newly designed shutter-speed dial, wind lever, and focusing hoods were beefed up, electrical contacts were added for the coupled TTL metering system, a sliding 120/220 pressure plate was added, and the entire camera body was enveloped in a somewhat bulky but attractive, easily grippable, new rubberized exterior. Schneider lenses are the standard optics, but all the lenses for the Pentacon 6 and Kiev 88CB are usable as well.
Kiev 60: In 1970, the then-USSR Arsenal V.I. Lenin factory produced its own copy of the K.W.-made Praktisix with the same mount, but this KV6 had a 1/2 to 1/1000-sec cloth focal-plane shutter. The KV6 evolved into today's Kiev 60. It's an efficient sturdy, but heavyish and ugly camera. However, at $390 for a complete kit with 80mm f/2.8 Arsat or Volna lens, waist-level finder, prism TTL-meter, and filters, it's a bargain.
Its TTL metering is simplicity itself, if not the utmost in convenience. You set the calculator dial to proper film speed and maximum lens opening in use, point the camera at the subject and turn the calculator dial until two red LEDs light in the TTL finder. Read the shutter speed and aperture suggestions from the calculator and transfer the settings to the camera's own shutter speed and aperture scales. The TTL meter prism has very good image magnification.
If you're a 645 aficionado, you might want to consider the Kiev 645, which is actually the 60 with film focal plane and focusing screen masked down to 4.5x6cm and winding system regeared to shoot 14 or 15 of the smaller-format images. The Kiev 645 Kit is $430.
Kiev 88CB: In 1957, Arsenal introduced the Salyut 2 1/4 SLR, a slavish designed, still trouble-plagued, metal roller-blind focal plane shutter for a new camera design using interchangeable lenses, each with its own Synchro-Compur leaf shutter.
Arsenal kept right on attempting to perfect its metal, roller-blind focal plane shutter, which is still used, now successfully, in the present Kiev 88C. However, a few years ago, the Kiev 88CC appeared with a quieter and smoother-functioning cloth focal-plane shutter operating, like the Kiev 60, from 1/2 to 1/1000 sec plus 1/30 sec flash sync. but still with the old lensmount. The latest model, the 88CB with Pentacon mount, also uses the cloth shutter. TTL metering and image magnification are similar to that of the Kiev 60.
We wouldn't recommend the Kiev 88CB (or the Kiev 60 or 645, for that matter) if it weren't for the importer, Kiev/USA, and its remarkable president, Saul Kaminsky, a frequent visitor at the Kiev factory who palavers with the engineers. What he can't get done at the factory level, Kiev/USA does here.
Cameras as imported from former Soviet Bloc countries, are seldom up to specs. Kaminsky's crew of Russian (Ukranian?) repairmen literally take apart almost every camera and reassemble it correctly, often with new parts. Each camera is fully tested before it leaves the premises. The gloss of finish, cosmetics, fine tolerances, careful cutting and glueing of leather isn't where these camera are at.
While all the lenses have price tags in the hundreds of bucks, most cost but a fraction of their well-known, widely touted and advertised competitors. One example: the aforementioned 30mm f/3.5 fisheye, costing $375, looks suspiciously like a Zeiss fisheye for a major-brand medium-format camera. Street price of the Zeiss lens is $5,800.
On a less esoteric optical front, a standard 80mm f/2.8 Ukranian lens in Pentacon mount at $129 is quite a bit cheaper than the $1,100 charged for a competing lens on another camera.
Are the Pentacon-mount cheapos equal in optical and mechanical quality, to the posh, better-known brands? Read on. Cameras first.
Compared to today's sophisticated electronically controlled, motorized medium-format cameras, the Kiev/Pentacon/Exakta all-mechanical operating breed is primitive and pesky to operate. None have autoexposure, rapid return mirror, or provision for motor drive. Except for the Exakta 66, all TTL meter prisms are uncoupled. You make a reading and then transfer the information from the dial to the camera controls. There are no push buttons; your right thumb and fingers do the work.
Acquiring one or more of these camera bodies plus lenses can be a good, practical, budget entry into medium format, a continuing, satisfying amateur/pro venture, or an amusing collector's feast of interesting, oddball, but quite usable equipment. It's all repairable when necessary, but don't expect pro tech reps to jump to your aid if and when things go wrong.
You'll be wiser and more capable of deciding whether you want to buy into the German-Ukranian connection after we give you the straight dope, namely where did these cameras come from, where can you find them, and how good are they? It's a largely untold saga worth the hearing even if you never buy a camera or lens.
Pentacon 6: Following World War II, the East German K.W. factory in 1957 introduced the 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 Praktisix SLR, a very convenient-to-use camera even at eye level. It was followed by the mechanically improved Praktisix II, which was renamed the Pentacon 6 when production was transferred to the Dresden Pentacon factory in 1962. Pentacon had previously been Zeiss-Ikon, Dresden, but, after the German East-West split, the East lost the legal rights to sell the Zeiss name and all Zeiss trademarks in the West.
Praktisix and Pentacon 6 cameras had identical features and a unique breech-lock bayonet leasmount, cloth focal-plane shutter with speeds from 1 to 1/1000 sec, flash sync at 1/30 sec, interchangeable finders, and 120 roll-film backs. Lenses were made by Carl Zeiss, Jena (later C.Z., with lens types also abbreviated, Biometar becoming B.M. and Sonnar becoming S., for instance). East German Meyer-Optik also made some lenses.
Pentacon 6 production continued on and off, principally for Eastern European Bloc sale until about 1986. Despite intelligent engineering, quality and finish were compromised by the East German factories' lack of the best materials.Production has now stopped. Only used Praktisix and Pentacon 6 cameras and their Zeiss and Meyer lenses are available in varying condition, from mint to heavily used. (We'll give you some sources at the end of this article.)
These cameras are generally reliable, and their metering is reasonably accurate and easy to use. Eye-level prisms have fairly low magnification compared to Kiev cameras.
Exakta 66: In 1996, the Exakta 66 made its appearance, thanks to some West German businessmen who apparently had spirited the rights to the Exakta name from East to West Germany. The new Exakta 66 bore no resemblance to any East German Exakta. Instead, its shape, size, and features were the spitting image of the Pentacon 6, which isn't surprising because internally and control-wise, it is/was the Pentacon 6. However, newly designed shutter-speed dial, wind lever, and focusing hoods were beefed up, electrical contacts were added for the coupled TTL metering system, a sliding 120/220 pressure plate was added, and the entire camera body was enveloped in a somewhat bulky but attractive, easily grippable, new rubberized exterior. Schneider lenses are the standard optics, but all the lenses for the Pentacon 6 and Kiev 88CB are usable as well.
Kiev 60: In 1970, the then-USSR Arsenal V.I. Lenin factory produced its own copy of the K.W.-made Praktisix with the same mount, but this KV6 had a 1/2 to 1/1000-sec cloth focal-plane shutter. The KV6 evolved into today's Kiev 60. It's an efficient sturdy, but heavyish and ugly camera. However, at $390 for a complete kit with 80mm f/2.8 Arsat or Volna lens, waist-level finder, prism TTL-meter, and filters, it's a bargain.
Its TTL metering is simplicity itself, if not the utmost in convenience. You set the calculator dial to proper film speed and maximum lens opening in use, point the camera at the subject and turn the calculator dial until two red LEDs light in the TTL finder. Read the shutter speed and aperture suggestions from the calculator and transfer the settings to the camera's own shutter speed and aperture scales. The TTL meter prism has very good image magnification.
If you're a 645 aficionado, you might want to consider the Kiev 645, which is actually the 60 with film focal plane and focusing screen masked down to 4.5x6cm and winding system regeared to shoot 14 or 15 of the smaller-format images. The Kiev 645 Kit is $430.
Kiev 88CB: In 1957, Arsenal introduced the Salyut 2 1/4 SLR, a slavish designed, still trouble-plagued, metal roller-blind focal plane shutter for a new camera design using interchangeable lenses, each with its own Synchro-Compur leaf shutter.Arsenal kept right on attempting to perfect its metal, roller-blind focal plane shutter, which is still used, now successfully, in the present Kiev 88C. However, a few years ago, the Kiev 88CC appeared with a quieter and smoother-functioning cloth focal-plane shutter operating, like the Kiev 60, from 1/2 to 1/1000 sec plus 1/30 sec flash sync. but still with the old lensmount. The latest model, the 88CB with Pentacon mount, also uses the cloth shutter. TTL metering and image magnification are similar to that of the Kiev 60.
We wouldn't recommend the Kiev 88CB (or the Kiev 60 or 645, for that matter) if it weren't for the importer, Kiev/USA, and its remarkable president, Saul Kaminsky, a frequent visitor at the Kiev factory who palavers with the engineers. What he can't get done at the factory level, Kiev/USA does here.Cameras as imported from former Soviet Bloc countries, are seldom up to specs. Kaminsky's crew of Russian (Ukranian?) repairmen literally take apart almost every camera and reassemble it correctly, often with new parts. Each camera is fully tested before it leaves the premises. The gloss of finish, cosmetics, fine tolerances, careful cutting and glueing of leather isn't where these camera are at.
You will see dealer mail-order advertisements for used Kiev cameras from unknown sources at very low prices. Buying one is worse than playing Ukranian roulette.
|
Where to get what And now for some sources in case you want to pursue the Pentacon-mount venture further: Kiev cameras, Ukranian lenses and accessories are imported, sold, and serviced directly by: Kiev/USA, 36 Sherwood Avenue, Greenwich, CT 06831; 203-300-0300; FAX 203-340-9382. Kiev/USA also has used lenses of various makes. |
This article ©1998, Popular Photography. Reproduced and used by permission.
Edited to reflect current KievUSA prices as of 10/27/03.
