Well, finally it happened -- a Kiev 88 arrived to me for routine maintenance/service.
I had never seen one in real life, only through the web, articles, etc. In general, and for many technical reasons, i plainly refuse to service any soviet camera, even though I would love to own some of them like the Kiev-15.
I will describe here certain peculiarities that are often never mentioned on reviews of this camera.
So, for the ones who didn't know this already, the Kiev-88 is an evolution of the Kiev-80 itself an evolution of the Salyut-S itself an evolution of the Salyut... which is almost a direct copy of the Hasselblad 1600F. The soviet ones all use almost the same screw mount (the Hasselblad is slightly different), and there are later versions (i.e. Kiev-88CM) with the Pentacon Six mount. Lens availability is wide, from fisheye to tele, and lenses are generally liked.
A close examination of the Kiev-88 service manuals and the Hassy 1600F service manual will show how similar they are externally and internally; for example the speed retarder circuit is completely identical. This camera (and the 1600F/1000F) has a very atypical way of achieving the delay for the slow speeds: a fan!! Yes, the retard system uses a small propeller that rotates at high speed to achieve the delay down to 1/2sec speed.
This means the camera will make a curious "camera go brrrrrr" noise after fired. You don't hear the typical clockwork whirr common to mechanical cameras fired at slow speed.
Another peculiar thing on those cameras is the outer-shell/inner-shell construction. The camera itself and its mechanism are supported by a cage which in turn goes into a cage that provides the body of the camera. In theory this would make the camera nearly indestructible, sadly once you check out the mechanism you'll see you need to be gentle with it.
There are interlocks -- you can't release the camera with the dark slide in; nor you can release the back with the dark slide in. This already makes it better than the original RB67, lol. It has no easy provision for dual exposures, unless of course you make some tricks.
The camera backs use the very ancient system for frame spacing that doesn't measure actual linear film advance, and thus it relies on a specific thickness of the film to work right (unless re-adjusted). It also needs you to peep through a small window until finding frame 1. Then, reset the counter to "1" and you're all set. You also have no obvious warning to know the roll has ended unless you peep at the counter or are very aware of the change of resistance when winding.
There is a lot of tension applied to the main (winding) knob, since it needs to tension curtains and advance film. So my piece of advice for owners is have camera AND backs well lubricated! Otherwise, died grease and oil from the Gorbachev/Brezhnev or even Kruschev era will put dangerous stress on the whole mechanism!!
Now, some of the nicest thing about this machine is not just that it looks like a regular Hasselblad 500C for the unitiated -- it also allows you to experience the very same light leaks and occasional jamming than in the old Hasselblads, for much less money!! @Sirius Glass take note.
The design of the light trap for the dark slide has to be one of the worst of all times. Basically, a strip of foam wrapped in a simple folded strip of fragile aluminium foil is all that is used as a light seal. This must to be one of the worst designs of all-time and the culprit are not the soviets but the Swedish: it is exactly the same design as in the classic Hassy backs, including the ones used in the 500C and C/M. Quite unlike the design on the Mamiya RB67 or Bronica backs where a sturdy, sprung metal leaf with felt on top provides the light seal for the dark slide, and only rarely gives trouble.
This kiev was provided with two backs and both had a TON of light leaking through the dark slide. A TON of it, easily ruining the roll even on moderate lighting coditions.
Now for the good parts, the mirror shock and vibrations in general are commendably low. I'm sure this machine can be handheld at low speeds with success. Б. Маргарет Сагдиев, a contemporary reviewer in Kazahstan (Kazakh SSR) wrote that this was a "Great Success!!" and wanted to give a "High five!" to (congratulate) the designers for "make benefit glorous nation of available-light photographers".
On to the more technical side, many times the Hasselblad 1600F is considered "a failure" due to not being able to sustain the 1/1600 speed with uniformity. This was to be obvious even on the design stage -- at 1/1600 speed, with typical curtain travel times to achieve sync at 1/30, means only 2,5% of the curtain is opened as a slit, in other words a slit of only 1.4mm (!!) which is absurd. So Hasselblad released the 1/1000 with a lower top speed. In the same way, the soviet camera (Salyut) had its top speed reduced to 1000 as well, as part as the evolution of the machine.
They say the Hasselblad 1000F wasn't also a reliable machine, and I am not sure if this is true. In any case, what Hasselblad did afterwards was a very clever move: let all the critical, hard-to-make stuff to be designed and made by other company -- so they went to use leaf shutters (Synchro Compur) by Deckel, and the rest is history.
As for the Kiev-88, so far i've seen the mechanism and I can't find anything that would make them inherently unreliable other than poor material quality or finish. Certainly the example i have at hand (made in 1985) doesn't show gears or levers with the polish and quality of something inside a Bronica or inside the best german camera makers. Yes, i don't like the materials quality on the inside and I think the eBay price for these machines is currently higher than it should. But i'm thinking that unreliability, on examples that have been properly assembled, should be more due to lack of maintenance. And, of course, getting uniform exposure at 1/1000 means having the mechanism very clean, lubricated, and adjusted. Otherwise, forget it. But the same is true, for example, of any pro 35mm SLR camera with 1/2000 top speed and an horizontal curtain.
But I can see a camera like the Arax versions of these machines, where the gears and the mechanisms have been upgraded and properly fitted, being very very reliable, or at least not less reliable than any other focal-plane shutter medium format camera.
Another thing is lack of flocking. The mirror box is surrounded by three panels of rather shiny black paint. Couple this with the bright copper-colored shutter curtains and this is a galore of reflections within the mirror box! There are flocking kits sold on e-bay, another practical solution is to use an efficient hood like a compendium hood, to narrow down the light rays at the film plane.
The lens fitted is a MC Volna-3, which indeed shows multi-coating applied to most (all?) its surfaces, has a nice smooth focus movement. Iris blades are shiny which is also another no-no. Theorically they should be matte black or at least gray. But well, the loved lenses from Carl Zeiss Jena often sport shiny iris blades and nobody complains. Lens dimensions are very compact.
Now, finally, other bad news: Documentation, or the lack of it. There is no service manual in english available other than a very poor "TENTO" manual which leaves a lot of details out. I have a better manual in my hands but it's completely in russian. Thus, I think the service of these machines should be ideally left to specialists such as Arax in Ukraine (they're currently back in operation, against all odds!)
All in all, I would recommend this machine to anybody with enough patience to operate it gently and to source a well-cared-for sample in known good order. Certainly there is a very interesting lens system for it!!
I had never seen one in real life, only through the web, articles, etc. In general, and for many technical reasons, i plainly refuse to service any soviet camera, even though I would love to own some of them like the Kiev-15.
I will describe here certain peculiarities that are often never mentioned on reviews of this camera.
So, for the ones who didn't know this already, the Kiev-88 is an evolution of the Kiev-80 itself an evolution of the Salyut-S itself an evolution of the Salyut... which is almost a direct copy of the Hasselblad 1600F. The soviet ones all use almost the same screw mount (the Hasselblad is slightly different), and there are later versions (i.e. Kiev-88CM) with the Pentacon Six mount. Lens availability is wide, from fisheye to tele, and lenses are generally liked.
A close examination of the Kiev-88 service manuals and the Hassy 1600F service manual will show how similar they are externally and internally; for example the speed retarder circuit is completely identical. This camera (and the 1600F/1000F) has a very atypical way of achieving the delay for the slow speeds: a fan!! Yes, the retard system uses a small propeller that rotates at high speed to achieve the delay down to 1/2sec speed.
This means the camera will make a curious "camera go brrrrrr" noise after fired. You don't hear the typical clockwork whirr common to mechanical cameras fired at slow speed.
Another peculiar thing on those cameras is the outer-shell/inner-shell construction. The camera itself and its mechanism are supported by a cage which in turn goes into a cage that provides the body of the camera. In theory this would make the camera nearly indestructible, sadly once you check out the mechanism you'll see you need to be gentle with it.
There are interlocks -- you can't release the camera with the dark slide in; nor you can release the back with the dark slide in. This already makes it better than the original RB67, lol. It has no easy provision for dual exposures, unless of course you make some tricks.
The camera backs use the very ancient system for frame spacing that doesn't measure actual linear film advance, and thus it relies on a specific thickness of the film to work right (unless re-adjusted). It also needs you to peep through a small window until finding frame 1. Then, reset the counter to "1" and you're all set. You also have no obvious warning to know the roll has ended unless you peep at the counter or are very aware of the change of resistance when winding.
There is a lot of tension applied to the main (winding) knob, since it needs to tension curtains and advance film. So my piece of advice for owners is have camera AND backs well lubricated! Otherwise, died grease and oil from the Gorbachev/Brezhnev or even Kruschev era will put dangerous stress on the whole mechanism!!
Now, some of the nicest thing about this machine is not just that it looks like a regular Hasselblad 500C for the unitiated -- it also allows you to experience the very same light leaks and occasional jamming than in the old Hasselblads, for much less money!! @Sirius Glass take note.
The design of the light trap for the dark slide has to be one of the worst of all times. Basically, a strip of foam wrapped in a simple folded strip of fragile aluminium foil is all that is used as a light seal. This must to be one of the worst designs of all-time and the culprit are not the soviets but the Swedish: it is exactly the same design as in the classic Hassy backs, including the ones used in the 500C and C/M. Quite unlike the design on the Mamiya RB67 or Bronica backs where a sturdy, sprung metal leaf with felt on top provides the light seal for the dark slide, and only rarely gives trouble.
This kiev was provided with two backs and both had a TON of light leaking through the dark slide. A TON of it, easily ruining the roll even on moderate lighting coditions.
Now for the good parts, the mirror shock and vibrations in general are commendably low. I'm sure this machine can be handheld at low speeds with success. Б. Маргарет Сагдиев, a contemporary reviewer in Kazahstan (Kazakh SSR) wrote that this was a "Great Success!!" and wanted to give a "High five!" to (congratulate) the designers for "make benefit glorous nation of available-light photographers".
On to the more technical side, many times the Hasselblad 1600F is considered "a failure" due to not being able to sustain the 1/1600 speed with uniformity. This was to be obvious even on the design stage -- at 1/1600 speed, with typical curtain travel times to achieve sync at 1/30, means only 2,5% of the curtain is opened as a slit, in other words a slit of only 1.4mm (!!) which is absurd. So Hasselblad released the 1/1000 with a lower top speed. In the same way, the soviet camera (Salyut) had its top speed reduced to 1000 as well, as part as the evolution of the machine.
They say the Hasselblad 1000F wasn't also a reliable machine, and I am not sure if this is true. In any case, what Hasselblad did afterwards was a very clever move: let all the critical, hard-to-make stuff to be designed and made by other company -- so they went to use leaf shutters (Synchro Compur) by Deckel, and the rest is history.
As for the Kiev-88, so far i've seen the mechanism and I can't find anything that would make them inherently unreliable other than poor material quality or finish. Certainly the example i have at hand (made in 1985) doesn't show gears or levers with the polish and quality of something inside a Bronica or inside the best german camera makers. Yes, i don't like the materials quality on the inside and I think the eBay price for these machines is currently higher than it should. But i'm thinking that unreliability, on examples that have been properly assembled, should be more due to lack of maintenance. And, of course, getting uniform exposure at 1/1000 means having the mechanism very clean, lubricated, and adjusted. Otherwise, forget it. But the same is true, for example, of any pro 35mm SLR camera with 1/2000 top speed and an horizontal curtain.
But I can see a camera like the Arax versions of these machines, where the gears and the mechanisms have been upgraded and properly fitted, being very very reliable, or at least not less reliable than any other focal-plane shutter medium format camera.
Another thing is lack of flocking. The mirror box is surrounded by three panels of rather shiny black paint. Couple this with the bright copper-colored shutter curtains and this is a galore of reflections within the mirror box! There are flocking kits sold on e-bay, another practical solution is to use an efficient hood like a compendium hood, to narrow down the light rays at the film plane.
The lens fitted is a MC Volna-3, which indeed shows multi-coating applied to most (all?) its surfaces, has a nice smooth focus movement. Iris blades are shiny which is also another no-no. Theorically they should be matte black or at least gray. But well, the loved lenses from Carl Zeiss Jena often sport shiny iris blades and nobody complains. Lens dimensions are very compact.
Now, finally, other bad news: Documentation, or the lack of it. There is no service manual in english available other than a very poor "TENTO" manual which leaves a lot of details out. I have a better manual in my hands but it's completely in russian. Thus, I think the service of these machines should be ideally left to specialists such as Arax in Ukraine (they're currently back in operation, against all odds!)
All in all, I would recommend this machine to anybody with enough patience to operate it gently and to source a well-cared-for sample in known good order. Certainly there is a very interesting lens system for it!!
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