Kiev (brand) - Kiev 35 Mm Cameras

Kiev 35 Mm Cameras

Kiev also produced several 35 mm film rangefinder cameras which were clones of the pre-war Contax II and Contax III cameras, and a range of 35mm SLR cameras.

After the war had ended, the Soviet Union demanded new sets of Contax tools from the original toolmaker in Dresden and then ordered a fair number of trial cameras to be made with Zeiss trademarks and coated lenses from these 1946 in postwar East Germany. With this successful, everything together with German instructors were transferred to Kiev. Missing specialists were in a few cases recruited in West Germany. These had better contracts than the de-facto prisoner-status colleagues from Dresden. Any still available parts went in the same direction. In fact, removing the top of some very early Kiev II cameras, one could see that the metal was originally stamped with the Contax name, then pressed out and re-stamped as Kiev.

Kiev rangefinders retained the same lens mount as the prewar Contax rangefinders and the lenses can be interchanged. The cameras went through a few minor modifications to become the Kiev III and eventually Kiev 4. There was also a Kiev 5 with a modernized upper part with integrated meter. Attractive, though poorly made and unreliable, its production was soon terminated. The other models were kept in continually downgraded production until the 1980s. The number of Kievs vastly exceeded that of the pre-war Dresden and post-war Jena and Stuttgart Contaxes.

35 mm rangefinder lenses, all pre-war Zeiss designs except the newer 1.8/53 made by Arsenal and other Soviet lens manufacturers:

• 1:6.0/28 mm Orion-15
• 1:2.8/35 mm Jupiter-12
• 1:1.5/50 mm Jupiter-3
• 1:2.0/50 mm Jupiter-8
• 1:1.8/53 mm Helios-103
• 1:2.0/85 mm Jupiter-9
• 1:4.0/135 mm Jupiter-11

Kiev also made a range of 35 mm SLR cameras:

• The Kiev 10, which was among the first 35mm SLRs with automatic exposure.
• The Kiev 15, a successor to the Kiev 10.
• The Kiev 17, desirable due to its Nikon mount and cloned budget Nikon E lenses. Derived from early Cosina SLR and Rollei SL35 designs. Full manual without meter.
• The Kiev 19, which is partly restyled successor to the 17. Stop-down TTL-metering with red light-balance LEDs in Viewfinder. Top speed reduced from 1/1000 to 1/500.
• The Kiev 20, which adds aperture coupling and a self-timer to the 19 design. 1/1000 top speed.
• The Kiev 19m, which uses a molded polycarbonate body rather than the metal used in earlier models. Despite its model number, it succeeds the Kiev 20. Same top speed as the plain 19, though.

The rare and unique Kiev 10 and 15 both used their own unique lens mount; only a handful of lenses were available in that format. Both the Kiev 10 and the Kiev 15 use an unusual fan shaped shutter. They are collector's items that were not exported.

The Kiev 35A is an aperture priority point-and-shoot 35 mm camera. It's a clone of the Minox 35 EL, and in all probability made with sold-off Minox 35 tooling.

The Kiev 17 and later 19/20-Line, available since around 1980, constituted the most westernized 35 mm SLRs available in the days of the Soviet Union. To satisfy the large internal demand, there was no discernible export at the time they would have found a ready market in the West. Instead, the hopelessly outdated Zenit with a poor-quality external selenium meter was unloaded in large numbers.