Kiev 88 :: Inexpensive Medium Format

The Art of Photography

Ted Forbes

Diy, Art, Arts, Visual Arts, Image, Technology, Photography, Tv & Film, Culture, Tutorials, Gadgets, Photographers

4.5 • 942 Ratings

🗓️ 31 March 2015

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Kiev 88 has long been hailed as the most inexpensive way to get into a medium format modular camera system. You can get an entire system for a fraction of what you'd pay for a Hasselblad. But how is the quality? Is it worth it? Or is it easier to save a little more and upgrade to an actual Hasselblad rig? I've had mine for years. I've had 2 actually - the first one died on me. They are great, but you earn every shot you take. They are extremely finicky and awkward to use. I gained a tremendous amount of knowledge about photography though when I first started shooting mine so I believe their value is in what you want out of a camera. If you're new to medium format or new to photography for that matter - you will learn a lot. And they are super cheap so its definitely an easy way to get into medium format. The Kiev 88 was produced in the Ukraine up until about 2009. There are third party companies that bought remaining inventory and modify them. Unfortunately this starts getting expensive so I still advocate the original model. The Kiev 88 is a copy of the Hasselblad 1000F. Originally known as the Salut - they later boasted a hot shoe and renamed the model the Kiev 80. A few more improvements lead to the classic Kiev 88 design. I've covered this camera on the show before, but not in a full deep dive review. Today we will finally do that! Resources: Kiev 88 on Camerapedia - http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Kiev_88 The Arax Kiev 88 Site - http://araxfoto.com/cameras/ My original video on the Kiev 88 from 2012 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddMA65LsLFg

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everybody Ted Forbes here and welcome back to the art of photography in the last video we talked a little bit about
0:04.5	roller flex and I had some people ask me if I could talk about the Kiev 88 once again the
0:09.6	key of 88 is probably my biggest love hate medium format camera.
0:14.0	The significance of the key of 88 is you can get these for a fraction of the price of what it costs
0:18.7	you to get into a expensive hostile blood system.
0:21.6	But it does come with some caveats. I have mentioned this
0:23.7	camera on the show before, it's been a long time, so I thought it would be fun to do a deeper dive on this,
0:27.8	tear it down, and I'll show you all the things about the Kyiv 88 and what you can expect
0:32.0	out of something like this.
0:33.0	And also address if this is something I would actually buy again today
0:37.0	if I were looking at getting one for the first time.
0:39.0	So come on over and let's take a look at the Kyiv 88.
0:42.0	So we're going to talk a little bit about the Kie of 88,
0:44.2	and I want to show you mine, and I want to break this down.
0:46.2	I'm going to talk about some of the pros and some of the cons,
0:48.5	because there are a lot of cons here.
0:49.8	But I want to talk about this,
0:51.0	and at the end of the video, I'll talk about whether or not this is something
0:53.4	I would actually purchase if I were to do it all over again.
0:56.3	The Kia 88 is a very cheap way to get into a modular medium format system of photography.
1:02.8	And the Kia of 88, when these were designed,
1:05.1	it was essentially a copy or a clone of the Hasselblod 1,000F,
	...

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