In anticipation of Red Oktober I have been cleaning up and testing my Kievs. In doing so I have run across an odd situation and am wondering if there is an easy fix for it.
The camera in question is a 1964 Kiev 4a. While testing the shutter speeds all the lower speeds from 1/2 through 1/125 I found they were almost exactly correct. The funny business started at the top 3 speeds. For each subsequent speed starting at 1/250 the very first shutter actuation is wildly inaccurate on the fast side. This occurs at 1/250, 1/500 and 1/1250. Each time for each of the three speeds the first shutter speed recorded was always about 1/4750. However, for each speed the subsequent shutter speeds were very close to accurate. At 1/250 the average of 5 tests was 1/247. At 1/500 the average of 5 tests was 1/553. The fastest speed, after ignoring the intial 1/4750 reading, the speeds settled in at 1/1485. This is admittedly too fast but in my experience it is not unusual for this speed to be unreliable.
Does anyone know why this is happening? Is it something that can easily be corrected or should I just plan on wasting a frame each time I adjust the shutter to one of these three speeds? I plan on using this camera for October if possible because the shutters speeds are very accurate with the exception of this odd problem.
Thanks for any hints or suggestions on what to do to correct this problem.
The camera in question is a 1964 Kiev 4a. While testing the shutter speeds all the lower speeds from 1/2 through 1/125 I found they were almost exactly correct. The funny business started at the top 3 speeds. For each subsequent speed starting at 1/250 the very first shutter actuation is wildly inaccurate on the fast side. This occurs at 1/250, 1/500 and 1/1250. Each time for each of the three speeds the first shutter speed recorded was always about 1/4750. However, for each speed the subsequent shutter speeds were very close to accurate. At 1/250 the average of 5 tests was 1/247. At 1/500 the average of 5 tests was 1/553. The fastest speed, after ignoring the intial 1/4750 reading, the speeds settled in at 1/1485. This is admittedly too fast but in my experience it is not unusual for this speed to be unreliable.
Does anyone know why this is happening? Is it something that can easily be corrected or should I just plan on wasting a frame each time I adjust the shutter to one of these three speeds? I plan on using this camera for October if possible because the shutters speeds are very accurate with the exception of this odd problem.
Thanks for any hints or suggestions on what to do to correct this problem.
