I have recently gotten into taking photographs using film, despite popular believe film is not dead, and I wanted to get a great camera. After quite a bit of investigation and talking with fellow photographers in the film area I fell in love with the Kiev 88CM. I bought one off of eBay in a brand new state with upgrades applied. This is a photo of the camera itself

This camera looks old, like it had been built back in the 60’s or something but it was actually built somewhere between 1999 and 2004 in Kiev, Ukraine. The company Arsenal, who mostly specialized in the creation of weapons and was funded by the Ukraine government, got into the business of creating film cameras and this is one of their last models, or so my research has said, and it’s an update to the Kiev 88 model. The design of the Kiev 88 and Kiev 88CM was based off of the Hasselblad 1000 and 1600 models.

The Kiev 88CM is a medium format camera, this means that it uses a film which is bigger than the more common 35mm film and it works great for making bigger prints out of the photos, the size of each frame, at least for the Kiev 88CM that I have, is 6cm x 6cm. I still haven’t developed the first roll of film that I shot, each 120 film has 12 frames. This next photo shows the camera with the waist level viewfinder open

Gotta love this viewfinder which allows for shots to be composed by having the camera at the waist level. If you’ve never seen through one of these viewfinders I strongly recommend doing so as it is simply amazing, the view is completely different that what is seen through the viewfinder of any DSLR today. This is a completely mechanical camera, meaning that it does not use a single battery for anything, the big knob on the side allows you to set the shutter speed, the fastest it will go up to is 1/1000nd of a second, and also allows you to advanced to the next frame and ready the shutter for the next photo.

When the shutter button is pressed, which is the button shown in the middle of the image, it will lift the big mirror inside the body and open the curtains but after the shot is taken the mirror won’t go back down until the big knob is turned, which means that this isn’t a camera that you would use for high speed photography such as sporting events.

Despite not using a single battery at all, one can still attach a flash unit to this camera, but don’t expect it to meter through the lens like your latest DSLR. In fact the camera won’t tell you that you are using the wrong exposure, it’s left up to the photographer to know, though you can get an accessory for this unit which will allow you to meter through the lens and it’s placed on the top of the camera, replacing the small box-like device you see on the top half of the image above.

The shot above is of the body all by itself, the lens and film back removed. The inside of the body has been covered using a light absorbent material and it’s one of the upgrades applied to this unit, the original units didn’t have this material which caused for light to be bounced off all the reflective surfaces inside the body and would cause for flares in the image to appear and would ruin the image. One of the reasons why this camera is relatively cheap is that the quality control wasn’t the best ever thus the photographers that purchased this camera had a tendency to encounter issues with the camera. If one were to purchase an original non-upgraded model it would be like getting a box of surprises as some report that the unit would not work from the start.

Another of the issues that the camera can encounter is having light leaks and until I develop the first roll of film I won’t know if I have a light leak or not. Hopefully not.

This is the back part of the camera body. What you see in the middle is the shutter curtain, if you use a DSLR then your camera has a shutter curtain and it’s there to prevent the film from being exposed until the shutter is pressed, and, for the Kiev 88CM, the material used for the curtain is a cloth as it provides a quieter shutter sound. To be honest with you if that’s quiet then I can’t imagine what the Kiev 88, which has a metal curtain, sounded like. One drawback of having a cloth curtain is that if the camera is pointed toward the sun and the mirror is up you could potentially burn a hole through the curtain hence it’s recommended that the shutter be readied soon after the shutter is pressed when shooting in a bright hot sunny day.

There are still companies out there who will fix and replace any part of the Kiev cameras, one of the companies is located in Ukraine and they even sell brand new Kiev cameras and accessories.

The film is placed inside the film back, shown above, and the Kiev 88CM allows the user to remove the film back and use a different one without having to finish the film, which is a great idea and allows the photographer to carry film of different ISO speeds or color and B&W film. The metal plate prevents the film from being exposed to light when the film back is not attached to the camera body, in fact the user is unable to remove the film back from the body when the plate isn’t inserted. Shown below is the film back with the plate half way inserted, if there were any film inside this film back then it would have been exposed to light.

The two film backs that came with my camera are the New Type or NT which allows for multiple exposure of a single film frame as well as being more reliable than the older models and also the loading of the film is different than the older type. Shown below is the film back opened

In the foreground the piece where film is loaded is shown. The red line works as a guide to load the film, the roll of film has a big arrow printed and has to be aligned to that red line for correct loading of the film. In this type of camera the film only moves forward, it isn’t rewound when finished with the 12 frames, so the plastic piece that comes with the roll will be left behind and used for the next roll.

The image above shows the film back closed and the two levers which are used to open the film back, the one on the left, and release the film back from the camera body, the one on the right.

The lens that comes standard is an 80mm f/2.8 prime lens, this is known as the normal lens for medium format and the equivalent focal range in 35mm film is 50mm

This next photo is of the front of the lens

The ring on the back is used to set the aperture of the lens and only has the full stops shown, from f/2.8 to f/22, and the front ring is for the focus. The diameter of the front element is 62mm which means that I can’t use the filters that I have for my Nikon D60, since the diameter of those lenses is 52mm.

The next photo is of the back of the lens

I don’t really plan on getting more lenses for this camera though the possibility still exists.

It is often mentioned that the Ukraine and Russian cameras have a terrible smell which is the worst out there, I guess I didn’t have that issue because my camera didn’t smell bad at all, and this is assumed to be due to the lubricant that’s used or the glue that’s used on the leatherette that covers the body and components of the camera.

I really love this camera and would recommend it to anyone that wants to shoot medium format film and is willing to really learn about photography and manual exposure.

I’ll be taking my first roll of film, well in ages that is because I used to shoot with 110 film back in 2001, to the lab soon and will be posting the photos as soon as I get them. So far I can only find B&W Ilford Delta film in Costa Rica so I’ll be definitely ordering a couple of rolls of film from B&H.

-LM