Week 48 – The Kiev 80
Kiev 80, or 88, or even the other several names it carried I
believe aside from a few alterations here and there they are much of a
muchness. I had the 80, mid to late 70s hunk of hammered out iron built in an
ordinance factory in the soviet Ukrainian city of – you guessed it Kiev! The
decision to run this came with several points. 1, it had given Russell and me a
headache just getting it to work. 2, a chance to sample interchangeable film
backs. 3, it came with a monster 300mm prime lens as an extra. 4, I was
interested how it compared to my own Bronica s2a as they are both Hasselblad
copies.
We will pick away at the what is on this all manual medium
format 6x6 SLR as we go along, I will miss lots so please do look it up, it has
a cult following and more is written about its quirky personality than the
techy stuff. So we loaded the first back we shall call “1”. This went wrong
straight away as the 2 indicators that should concur red or white didn’t. A
quick online search revealed I had set the counter too early! Grrr, A very
precise order must be followed > load cassette > place in film back off
camera> wind on until Frame 1 indicator can be seen in rear window> THEN
set counter > Advance and cock shutter> then attach film back! What a setup!
Anyway FP4+ was in and set, I taped the joint with dark slide removed as I
suspected light leaks having seen tell-tale sticky black lines on the dark
slide. Film back 2 was loaded with colour, Portra 160vc expired. We were off,
let battle commence…
A battle it was too, all started well with back 1. I
photographed the returning fishing boats, swapping lenses. I had a solid metal
tripod but this seemed to struggle with the monster 300mm Tair-33 prime lens, I
could sense movement. Everything in fact felt off balance and ratchety, once
halfway through the roll I untapped and started swapping the film backs around.
Then I went to put the Vega 90mm on, I had already done this once with no issue
but this time it would not fire, I removed the lens causing an unexpected fire.
It did it again meaning 2 lost frames! Then it was fine. Bloody frustrating as
I had done nothing different! It was at this point I figured out it was best to
remove the film back, sort your lenses out and cock it, when you knew all was
ok pop the back on again. I don’t think it is broken but just finicky stubborn
mule. You really have to work this camera, precisely too or it will bite you! I
worked for a few days seeing of the FP/4+ and then taping up the second back to
give it a light tight chance. I worked the shutter speeds as much as I could, I
suspect a little lag on the slower end but nothing that can’t be allowed for in
later rolls. You just have to spend real time learning the camera.
So the results are mixed, I lost 2 frames to the lens
shenanigans, and as expected there is a lot of light leakage on the untaped
frames. The protected ones are fine, the 90mm lens is a fine sharp lens and
nice to work with. The 300mm needs a faster film and shutter speed even on a
tripod, a couple are slightly off. The waist line viewer is clear and bright
and outside off its contrary nature the camera did its job. As a Bronica user I
thought it lacking in finesse, quality and looks. When all said and done it is
considerably cheaper than similar others so you can’t complain too much. It is
I suppose much like me, grumpy, stubborn, and a bit creaky > works well if
it can be arsed!
For me it made me appreciate my big Bertha, I realise I have
no real need for a big medium format lens. The appeal of 2 film backs is goer
though, I can see a real usefulness to having a different speed film in the bag
for those changeable condition. Frustrating at times with mixed results I still
had a lot of fun this week and that is why we do this? Right!
