I have a problem: Kiev 4

I have a Kiev 4 on the way from the Ukraine, thanks to an anonymous paid-donor on ebay. It comes with the M42 Jupiter 8m lens, which I think was standard for the Kiev rangefinders. I've been wanting to buy one for the Zorki for a while, but never bothered. Now I will have one that won't fit the Zorki anyways. Huzzah!

I blame the USD-AUD exchange rate.

Sausages, Monkeys & Cyclamens

Kiev 6C

KNEB has landed in all his massively impressive glory.

I've decided that "The Beasht" is a bit of an obvious name, so this one will just be KNEB (the K is definitely not silent), in honour of the English rendering of the Cyrillic letters for "Kiev", as seen on the front. And he's definitely a boy.

Just for the sake of knowing, I weighed KNEB on the kitchen scales, and he weighs in at just over 1.5kg - about twice the weight of the Zeiss Ikon, which is small, solid & nuggety. KNEB is just a monster.

Took me a while as well to realise this morning what was so different about the view-finder: everything's in mirror-image. Bit odd at first, but I'm sure i'll get used to it with a bit of practice.

Welcome to the family, KNEB.

Reala gone?

I was told today that Reala is no longer being manufactured. As I can't find anything to back this up, I'm running with the idea that it might have been a sales pitch (especially as the salesperson in question also said "we'll be doing an order soon, so if you want to buy 20 rolls, you better get in quick". Hmmmm.

I'll wait until I confirm this news before I start to panic.

Velvia? No thanks.

When we finally booked our honeymoon to NZ, I went a bit nuts with the idea of taking the Minolta on a bit of a trip. I'd always regretted not taking it to Europe in 2007, so I was determined to make this a good'un.

So I stocked up on film: 10 x Reala, 2 x Velvia 100, 2 x Kodak slide film (not used).

After quite a while of waiting, I finally got the Velvia developed. Results above. The thing holding me back was that it was going to cost a lot of money to have them developed & scanned (about $42 each film done locally). SO thanks to a reasonably favourable return from Mr Swan, I finally got them done.

And I found out that I don't much like Velvia. It's okay, but not something I'll be using again. Feels a bit...er...over saturated. Silly thing to notice about Velvia, I know. But I just don't much like the feel of it. Over saturated & very cold (the examples above don't relfect this well, as all those scenes were fairly cold anyways).

Another learning experience. I'll stick to Fuji & Ilford print film in future.

Agfa success

First roll from the Agfa Isolette. I'm pleased. I had to eyeball the exposure, but you can't really go wrong with 800 film, can you?

Kudos to local camera chain store for getting the job done well.

Now, bring on that Kiev...

I have a problem...

Thanks to a decent tax return, I have one of these on the way.

Despite not having a good lab in town that develops C41 120, I have confidence in the specialist B&W lab to do a good job. That'll be the only way, I guess.

And yes, this already has a name: The Beasht ('h' very much intentional).

14 days to wait...

Latest arrivals

From ebay: 5 rolls of Svema FN 64, expired 2004. Svema were one of the major film manufacturers in the Soviet-era, however I'm lead to believe that these days the film's more than likely just re-branded Foma. Even if it's not "proper" FSU film, the boxes are worth it alone.


And to something more useful - my new Leningrad 4 light meter, direct from the Ukraine. Terribly useful, particularly considering I've recently acquired a few meter-less cameras. I checked it against the meter in the Minolta, and they seem to more or less agree, so I assume it works correctly.