[rollei_list] Re: OT: Contaces and Kiev RF's

At 05:42 PM 10/17/2006, Nick Roberts wrote:
Indeed, Marc - but he includes later Kievs that were not assembled from Contax parts in this assessment, and is of the opinion that detail engineering changes in the II and III at Arsenal led to greater reliability. I pass this on second-hand, as I have but a later Kiev 4 which is OK but nothing special. Although he hasn't got quite the literary pedigree you have, he is actually a published author in the Leica world. I can't recall how many Kiev variants he has identified, but it's either 53 or 56 - I have a copy of his work on the topic on CD somewhere, but would confess that I've not looked at it for a couple of years.

Although I have always liked the Contax and Kiev rangefinders, my personal interest lies rather more in the somewhat bizarre Kiev 10 and 15. 

Nick

Your friend seems to be a certifiable idiot: there might well be a village somewhere in need of his services.

Arsenal was able to maintain good quality until about 1960 but it never exceeded Zeiss Ikon standards. By 1960, two factors caused quality control to become a problem (actually, quality assurance, but let's not quibble). First, the German supervisors taken at gunpoint to the Ukraine were either allowed to return home or to retire, so Soviet nationals replaced them, and these guys were all over the board. Second, the Arsenal Works had grand access to quality products until the Soviet space program became the priority national effort, and they then lost the ability to obtain the fine steels, aluminium, and lubricants necessary to produce the Contax-based design. A lot of late Kievs are really good cameras but some are just so much junk. (I have been into the guts of a lot of these cameras and I do know that of which I speak.) I had no problem having a Kiev shutter crate installed into a very late O series Contax II as the QC on shutter crates seems to have been kept up well into the very end of production in 1986.

You do need to finally get around to buying your copy of THE ZEISS COMPENDIUM, as the Kiev 10 and 15 SLR's are discussed there in some detail. The late 15's are grand cameras: at one point, I had a camera set with all the lenses but stupidly sold it.

Marc



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