One thing I like about this Kiev 60 is its ability to produce larger negatives compared to traditional 35mm cameras. This larger negative size, approximately three times larger than 35mm, allows for higher resolution, greater detail, and improved dynamic range in the resulting images. It is worth noting that the negative size will depend on the version chosen, either 6x6 or 6x4.5.

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The hidden outside pocket I've barely used, and provides room for things like manuals, photo books, a jacket, film, and the like. This pack also features a fold-out tripod holder, which is also a nice thing to have if you need to keep your hands free. Walnut Creek Mobile Truck Repair

None .. .

1. Unbelievably affordable, high quality lenses in every imaginable focal length. 2. One of the few MF's that's an SLR. 3. Camera body is very inexpensive for MF. 4. A TON of fun 5. Excellent results but you MUST flock the camera and you MUST tape over the dof lever on the 80mm Volna that comes with the camera. It's not brain surgery.

1. Reputation for being unreliable (mine works fine... metering accurate, frame spacing worked itself out, takes standard batteries... not issues at all.) 2. You need to flock the camera and cover the 80mm Volna's DOF preview lever with black electrical tape due to a design flaw that causes a light leak when focused close in. 3. Frame spacing might mean your camera needs a break in period like mine did. Also be careful how you load the film. 4. Make NO assumption!!! READ THE MANUAL!!! Espcially regarding how to use the uncoupled meter, and how to load the beast. 5. Brace yourself, it's a rather "LARGE" beast, which "gets noticed" espcially if you're using one of the larger lenses. Folks will ask you, "what newspaper you work for". Handles well though once you get used to it.

This is an outstanding, addictive "little" (heh) camera for the serious hobbiest on a budget who wants a medium format system. While others might argue that you can find more reliable camera bodies in MF on the used market - and yes, that's true, you simply will NOT find the wide range of extremely affordable, readily available, very high quality lenses in medium format anywhere near the price range of the Pentagon 6 mount lenses available for this camera. $200-ish for a (minty used) renound portrait lens, the 180mm Zeiss Jena Sonnar? You must see the beautiful bokeh of this lens. The out of focus regions look like a watercolor painting, the subject is in sharp focus wide open at 2.8. It's a remarkable lens, deserving of its reputation. Again - $200 bucks(!) Then there's the magnificent F4 50mm Zeiss Flektogon, a fantastic, sharp wide angle lens, as good if not better than the western Zeiss Distagon at a fraction of its cost; mine cost $150 on eBay in minty condition. Then there's the way too much geeky fun Russian Arsat 30mm fisheye. Price paid? $141 used in pristine condition from Ardorama. Bottom like is this is a FUN, addictive camera, that takes outstanding pictures, a perfect "hobbiest" camera for lovers of film photography. I had NONE of the quality issues that others have reported with this camera. Well - almost. The first few rolls I shot, some of the frames overlapped slightly. Problem went away after two or three rolls. Guess the camera needed a breaking in period? I say, if your a hobbiest who loves film, go for it - especially if you develop (or want to develop) your own black and white negatives and make your own prints. (This camera has yet to see a roll of color film...) You can take a chance and get one sight unseen on eBay, like me, or spend a little more and get one from the domestic resellers or Arax who CLA, Q/A them, do some upgrades and offer a warranty for about $150 more than the Ukranian eBay sellers. I love mine, and since purchasing it my digital has seen very little work. Beware, though, you will find yourself with a Pentagon 6 "lens" addiction in very short order.

Customer Service

Not applicable.

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Agfa Ventura 66 MF folder My ancient, trusty, all manual "K-mart Special" Consina-built Vivitar S3000 35mm SLR.

Best bang for the buck award goes to the kiev 60 !! amazing quility pictures for a reasonable price.

Sadly ..its the sellers that I think let this fine camera down ..followed secondly by long storage times and infrequent use ..see review box...

The Kiev 60 is a great camera , within limits. Firstly , If you are more familiar with the all auto computerised 35mm SLR's on the market today and dont know the basics of operation of a fully manual camera of course you will have a huge learning curve to tackle. If on the other hand you know how to read light meters and select suitable speeds and apertures manually ,,then there should not be any huge operational suprises for you with the Kiev 60. The biggest disadvantage to this camera as opposed to say a Hassy is its non interchangable film backs and its slow sync speed. The sync speed is the fastest speed that allows flash operation. This is not anything to worry about for night shots but will be of concern if you wish to use flash fill in bright daylight. Saying this one has to remember that the sync speed is appropriate for a medium format camera with a large focal plane shutter camera of ANY brand. Thats about it as far as downsides of use is concerned. Downside of supply is another thing all together.!! Many of these cameras are sold essentially sight unseen on eBay and as there is no real fraud protection , sellers CAN and DO get away with anything. For instance one LARGE seller gets old silver Kiev60's , paints them black and sells them as ¨NEW¨. Another seller says ¨NEW¨ but realy they are about 2001 production dates even though they are genuine black models this time. Kiev 60s are not made NEW any more and have not been for at least 2 or 3 years.(maybe more) Many of these so called new ones have actually been in storage since production and while this might seems OK ,,the grease and oils inside dont like it. This causes many of the frame overlapping and lock ups that people complain about with Kiev cameras. The mechanism inside is actually of a quite sound design , but even the best machine wont work for long with lubricants that have gone bad. It actually would be better to get an older used camera that has been regularly excesized than one thats been sitting in a warehouse for 15 years. I must stress this point again ,,simply put , MOST problems in Kiev 60's come from long term storage with NO use than from bad design or construction. (note: you should not need to CLA a brand new camera) If you get a nice working example it will last for MANY years. My pictures have been truly outstanding with Zeiss lenses and quality films. I found that inner flare was present though , so I developed a flocking kit to stop this. Others flare kits I have seen for sale were not good enough. My flare kits are now available for sale from my web page http://www.geocities.com/kiev60slr/ . Also on my page is lots of DIY help and tips. I show ways to test and/or use the camera with easy to follow pictures and simple text so that even an absolute beginner can know what to do. My comments are shown with photographic proof from thorough testing and is not from a repetition of hearsay that is so common on internet chat groups that never offer PROOF , only talk. -- So in summary , If you can get a Kiev 60 that is in good condition you should have a very postive experience with it. It is solidly built and should provide huge value for money. I recomend it 100% :-D

Customer Service

Warranties even from the best sellers are sometimes dodgy. I sent a lense away to Atlanta for a warranty repair and it come back with the same problem and now with dents all over the built in metal hood. Dont count on any warranty offers by anyone :-(

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various other medium format cameras and prety well most other popular 35mm slr's

Works well, inexpensive, sharp lens.

Large and heavy. Also, the ground glass does not show the full frame. But most photographers who have been around awhile are used to this.

I bought a Hartblei-modified Kiev 60 MLU from Michael Fourman on a whim. Normally I shoot with a Leica M6 and a Canon D60, but I thought it might be fun to shoot landscapes with roll film. To my surprise the K60 has quickly become my favorite camera. I have had none of the problems other users have reported. The frames are spaced accurately, the shutter speeds are correct, there are no light leaks, and the Arsat 80/2.8 that comes with the camera is extremely sharp. Mirror bounce on handheld exposures over 1/125 does not seem to be a problem. In any event, the mirror lock-up feature eliminates bounce altogether when the camera is used on a tripod. (In fact, you can use the mirror lock-up button without a tripod if you can hold the camera very, very still, and if your subject is not moving!) Even though the K60 weighs a ton, I'm anxious to take it on my next wilderness trip.

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Not needed.

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None, so I can't tell you how it compares with a Pentax 67.

Cost: It's Cheap Optics: They are great. the Russians took the Zeiss Factory home with them after ww2 ease of use: if you ever used a manual 35mm SLR you can handle this camera.

Heavey, mirror slap can be an issue for some, GOSH is a wierd way to mesure film spead, even though I love this camera it wouldn't trust it to shoot a wedding or any thing like that.

Well I baught this camera used from some one who baught it from Kiev Camera. The camera needed a little tweeking but any one with a little bit of mechanical knowledge can do it. All it needed was a little extra film spacing. I find that MOST not all people who hate these cameras either complain about things they should know about it before they but it, buy from a random russian guy on ebay, or just have a lemon. It's not a Hassy don't expect it to act like one

Customer Service

If you want customer service don't by this camera... But hey be brave and buy some tools.

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I have no other wierd Russian Cameras

Good handling, build and adequate metering.

Mirror slap prevents sharp negs

This is not the camera for the serious amateur wanting to move up from 35mm. Basically, unless you have something done about the mirror slap mentioned in other reviews, sharp pictures are hard to come by. Using a range of lenses, and with a Nikon and my Kiev 35 as comparison, I ran a couple of films through the camera. I used a tripod throughout. Apertures/speed were standardised, except with the little 35A because it's not possible. The results? The Nikon had far better sharpness and contrast than the Kiev 60, but then so did the 35A. Not only that, it didn't matter which lens I put on the 60, the negatives were uniformly unsharp. There was no way you could blow them up to 10x8, the quality simply wasn't there. Intrigued, I set the Kiev up at home in the studio, and, using a manfrotto tripod costing way more than the camera, ran through every variant of shutter speed/aperture and lens. I came up with the obvious. Unless you use the fastest possible shutter speed, that mirror slap sets up vibrations which kill any chance of a nice, sharp neg. Note that I thought the handling was good throughout, the metering, if you must use it, not bad and had no problems with overlapping frames So, unless you buy an (expensive) re-engineered model, don't touch this camera. You will be far better off buying a used Mamiya 645 or TLR. Even the humble Lubitel isn't that far off in terms of picture quality.

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Not rated

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-Inexpensive medium format camera -GREAT lenses -Easy to use (if you know what you're doing) -GREAT image quality compared to 35mm film (and occassionally as good or better than more expensive medium format cameras).

-Heavy mirror slap and shutter movement cause camera shake unless secured to a tripod to shooting close at 1/100 or faster. -Quality control issues at factory. Many of these cameras sold on Ebay have serious problems. Be careful what you buy.

As a professional photographer, I have switched to digital and rarely use film anymore. That said, the Kiev 60 is one of the few film cameras you will have to rip from my cold, dead hands. There's nothing too special about this camera. It's totally manual, it's heavier than some bricks, but it delivers great images and is pretty reliable (if you get a good one and you know what you're doing.) This is the ideal medium format camera for those studio photographers looking for manual control for creative/artistic shots. Within the next decade, film photography will be a thing of the past. If you want to experiment with medium format film photography before it dies, buy a Kiev 60 and be happy.

Customer Service

None.

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Solid, many good lenses available, reproducible results, easy to operate. PRICE!

Heavy! Meter is difficult to adjust. Scale on meter is in GOST (not fitting to ASA scale, but this seems to be valid only for older Kievs). Film advance lever needs to be turned in only one turn!

It is quite heavy and operated manually. Operation is very easy, you don't need a manual actually(*). TTL meter and all knobs are "on your fingertips". I hold the whole brick of camera with both hands but only need two fingers to operate it. Flash synchronization with 1/30 is enough, meter is correct, shutter gives exact (measured with method of Keinath) and reproducible results. Lenses are fine, film transport does not overlap and is reproducible enough. Film transport crank has to be operated in one step and returned with care. I broke a spring when I did not but was able to repair it on my own. Well documented instructions at Hartblei site(*). My camera is of 1993 (TTL prism of 1992) and obviously revised and maintained by a professional. For my 30 films I took so far, I did not experience any problems (inspite of the broken spring, but that was my own fault. Read the manual first!!!). Good deal! Especially with Jupiter 3.5/250mm tele. I do not see much difference between Kiev lenses (I own a MIR 65mm, a Volna 80mm and a Jupiter 250mm) and the Tessar 75mm on my Franka. The 80mm Volna appears to be better in sharpness over the total of film. As flash, I'd recommend some type of used Metz 45 CTn. I own a 45 CT1. It gives fine results and is strong enough to hold the camera and the 65mm Mir lens. For use with 250mm Jupiter lens, I'd strongly recommend a tripod. Monopod is fine for shorter lenses and should be used with shutter times of less than 1/30 sec (with my Canon, I need a monopod for less than 1/15 sec). A Kiev-60 is an affordable camera for amateurs. I won't say it is good for wedding photographers because of its weight, but of its reliability it should match the job. If it gets broken, I will have it repaired. If it gets stolen, I will buy another one. (*): Manual *should* be read for film advancing

Customer Service

None needed so far. My own mechanic skills are sufficient to adjust and do simple repairs on my own.

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Medium format: Yashica D, Franka Solida III Small format: Canon AE 1 Program Else: Minox C

- Price! - Range of lenses available. - No battery needed (except for the metered prism, but the camera operation doesn''''t depend on battery)

- slow sync. - not ergonomic.

This is not a fast or ergonomic camera in today''''s standard. However, it''''s a very workable camera if you know how to use it. I got a 97 production from Mike Fourman, and I like that a lot. I prefer the waist level finder for portrait and landscape. MLU is very useful to cut out some of the vibration. My only complaint is the slow sync speed, which makes fill flash a bit limiting. Used Carl Zeiss lenses are readily available for reasonable price and Kiev lenses are pretty nice also. Their fish-eye lens for $200 is hard to beat!

Customer Service

Mike Fourman @ Kievcamera.com is very nice.

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