You may have noticed if you've seen the preview for the new Wes Anderson film, Asteroid City, the Kiev is featured as a repeating prop. Funny, though, the lettering on the camera, even though Kiev could care less, has been altered to a fictitious name, with an emblem, giving it a quasi Swiss Knife cross stamp. It's called Greeking the prop, to get rid of the brand name. Someone went to a lot of trouble.
I think that Kodak must have thought that all their birthdays had come at once when they designed the disc system and realised that they could sell a full priced complete film by just using the area of film which was the same as one frame of a 120 film ,and sell it for more than the entire length of a 12 exposure 120 film.
We had one of the Kodak disc cameras. The image quality was horrible because of the tiny film size. I wish I could still find it so I could add it to the camera collection in my office.
Not only is only one of the cameras shooting an obsolete format (disc) but I nearly fell over when you included the Canon 110ED. News to me that it is unusable. It is an excellent aperture priority rangefinder that I love and use. I love the f2 lens. A very underrated camera that seems to get a bad rap from some due to the instamatic bar shape, but it has a much better lens than any of the lenses for the Pentax 110 Auto, and while not quite so perfectly sharp as the Rollei A110, a far more durable camera than the Rollei.
I think the Canon 110 camera takes those disposable quadruple flash cubes. The Kodak ones were called Magicube but I don't know if they are compatible. Pentax even made a 110 SLR system.
I like the shutter speed control system used by the Purma Special. If I were designing such a thing, I might make holding the camera upside down engage bulb mode, just to be cheeky... 😁
Very interesting seeing these unusual cameras. Thanks for showing them. I remember all the commercials in the 80's that used to air at Christmas time advertising the disc cameras. Back then both of my sisters had 110 cameras, I remember the drop in cartridges they would use for the film.
The APS system a few years later was the last gasp by Kodak who were already aware of the possibility of digital. The Canon is a beautiful 110 as is the Rollei if you can find one and Minolta did a fabulous waterproofed camera in yellow. All dead but all fun.
As someone who worked in photo labs in the 90s, I cannot begin to fully express my hatred for the 110 format. They were a pain to process and without fail produced absolutely horrible images, leading to us having to attempt to explain that a terrible plastic lens exposing a tiny little negative will never, ever, produce good images. Apparently I'm still scarred by those damn things. 🤣
Hi I’ve been getting obsessed with old cameras that use different film sizes I’ve cut 120 to 127 and used 35mm in 127 cameras all work great I’ve 2 perma’s one bakerlite and one all metal both working well Now just converted 126 cartridge to 35mm with great success nice not to let these old cameras become table lamps
There is/was a film format between "110" and "135" (24 x 36) that produced quite good quality images, it's the "126" from the 1970s. It was film cartridges (26 x 26) for the Kodak Instamatic and Agfa Instamatic cameras. It was very popular in the 70s and early 80s and comparable to the popularity of smartphone cameras of today. It hasn't survived either - although the films can still be bought and developed.
Talking about buying useless cameras, I have an Olympus APS and a Canon APS camera. I can't use them because they both use the Advantix cartridge film system which became defunct years ago. They have interchangeable lens mounts, I can fit EF lenses onto the Canon, the Olympus came with a set of lenses, useless they may be, but they are beautifully engineered, esp the Canon. Great video again.
@@zenography7923 well not sure if that's possible, who makes the film, no idea, probably nobody, shame eh. Still they're great looking machines, and in my humble opinion, need to be preserved.
Hi. Thanks for the video. I collect cameras and have recently purchased a Dixon 5000 Telephoto disc camera. I obtained some film, and as Patrick McCeag, wrote the images were poor to say the least. However, I believe partly due to the degradation of the film due age. Keep up the good work.
I did once find a post on how to mount your own film onto a disc to take pics with, but it was very complex. I did buy some old stock but never exposed it. I understand some of the problems with these and with the equally short-lived film APS-C format was that processors would not install the enlargers formulated for the new small formats and quality of prints was below optimum. Analogue Wonderland are selling 127 but it is about £14 per roll. Cutting down 120 at home is a much cheaper option but is very fiddly, especially if you replace the backing paper as well.
Hello Nigel, many thanks for this interesting topic! A classmate of mine had a disc camera back in 1985. A few years ago I purchased a Minolta 110 and the image quality was astounding. My Agfa Tele Pocket from 1982 was much worse in that respect. I didn't know that there was a rangefinder among the 110 pocket cameras! By the way: Recently I purchased a Minolta XD (aka XD-7 in Europe) from a Japanse dealer. Do you know this camera? It's fantastic! in my opinion one of the best. Best wishes Ralf
I was given my first 'slr' camera and it was a Minolta 110 with a 2x zoom lens. I loved it, but soon decided that 110 film was a joke and moved up to 35mm. But for a 110 film camera it was a seriously nice camera. Shame. The sad thing for 110 and disc owners was that there was a real problem with enlarging. Anything over the 6x4 or 3.5 print was grainy as a beach. From memory (dodgy) the films were faster 400ASA/ISO
My first 2 proper cameras were a zenit em and that Kiev , remember being told how worthless they were, I still have them of course. I like the Kiev bayonet mount ,and how it affects lens prices , the adapters look pretty good on a Sony . I have a disk camera also and last time I checked a year or so Beck. The non removable battery was still good.
That battery has certainly done well! The Kiev bayonet lenses are quite a bit cheaper - I think because of the expense of the adaptors. Makes sense if you buy enough lenses though!
@@zenography7923 I didn't think for a minute that you had. Sorry if it seemed that way. I am sure it was UA-cam. I've had the odd comment disappear before, but usually there's some plausible if ridiculous reason I can imagine for a bot to remove it. This was just saying that I was going to buy one of these cameras but the item was withdrawn but I still want one. Baffling.
i had the kodak disc 4000 with Lens: 1:2.8/12.5 mm. cost 66 uhmerikan dollars which was pricey back in the 80's. i also had the canon 110 ED. i bought the close up lens for it too with parallax correction. sweet photos on kodachrome 64. it had an electronic shutter but without a battery it would trip at 1/125.
i absolutely hate the brass roller shutters in the Kievs, every single one of those i've owned the shutter has failed either by jamming or only partially closing during its operation leaving part of the frame black from over exposure. Here in the what if drawer is a collection of kiev lenses in contax bayonet which consist of 35mm, 50mm. 85mm and 135mm that will never get used
The Kiev isn't just a copy of the Contax, it's a Contax in all but name. The Contax factory in Dresden was taken by the Soviets as war reparations and the machinery and many of the people relocated to Kiev where, from 1947, they continued to make the same Contax cameras but badged under the Kiev brand. Kiev cameras were considered much better quality than their Zorki or FED counterparts (certainly cameras built before the mid 1970s) and remained in production until 1986.
I was surprised to see the Kiev's shutter. I thought all Kievs and later Contaxes had a conventional cloth shutter because that type was unreliable. Wrong as usual 😲🙂 Does the meter work?
I have an APS camera Advanced Photographic System a fully automatic camera mine is an Advanced 2000 branded 'Boots' the system had some unusual feature the film is always in the cassette even after it had been developed with indicators to show if it was un-exposes partially exposed or developed it also had a choice of 3 formats the photos I have are all panorama giving a 4x11 inch print you could have a mix of all 3 on a film. Films were available up to 40 exposures
I got a LF camera Horseman LX and lenses that I never used. I replace it with a HB 503 CW with 2 lenses Also I got a Mamiya 7ii system with lenses and a Fuji GW 690III. I still have the analogue MF cameras but the cost of film and development is to high so I seldom use them. Got all the cameras used but still the cost was high
@@zenography7923 Thank for your feedback. Living in a one room flat. I cannot develop film at home due to the toxic fix? I use to do BW allot in school. I still have a Nikon LS9000 scanner. I love the Fuji GW690 camera. I will take some more BW picture. I convert to BW when using the Digital cameras. Still need a 50mm to HB but will finish upgrading to D850 first
Can't say the Kiev is really all that rare... easily purchased from Ukraine. However, yours seems to have a working shutter, which does up it on the rare scale. I have one without the meter and it really is a nice old camera. I bought it out of Ukraine just after the current events started, sold to me as rebuilt, which seems correct.
Not particularly rare I agree, but most are later Kiev 4 and 4a models, the 3 shown here is not so common. They do look better without the meter but there's something very mechanical looking about the meter equipped models - somehow compelling!
@@zenography7923 yes, agreed, older are better before they wore out the German machinery and German engineering staff. 70s and 80s production was very Soviet quality.... Err... Quantity, I mean.
It makes no sense to me why there's no 220 rolls. It would be such a great deal compared with 35, given how easy it is to get great looking shots, at least in my experience.
120 is the same format as 220. The 220 films were simply longer for twice the number of photos. however, some medium format cameras could not use 220 films, 120 always works. That is probably why the 220 disappeared.
Aper pro to nothing just found on e bay a black Leica iiig with f2.8 5cm Elmar with brassing and patina one of few made for the Swedish army.... bargain price €65,000 euros...
You may have noticed if you've seen the preview for the new Wes Anderson film, Asteroid City, the Kiev is featured as a repeating prop. Funny, though, the lettering on the camera, even though Kiev could care less, has been altered to a fictitious name, with an emblem, giving it a quasi Swiss Knife cross stamp. It's called Greeking the prop, to get rid of the brand name. Someone went to a lot of trouble.
The Kiev is absolutely stunning Zen , the shutter got me !
I think that Kodak must have thought that all their birthdays had come at once when they designed the disc system and realised that they could sell a full priced complete film by just using the area of film which was the same as one frame of a 120 film ,and sell it for more than the entire length of a 12 exposure 120 film.
We had one of the Kodak disc cameras. The image quality was horrible because of the tiny film size. I wish I could still find it so I could add it to the camera collection in my office.
They look cool on display for sure!
I had no idea there was a 110 rangefinder. Definitely need to check that out. Thanks for the informative and entertaining video!
My copy of the LTM Jupitrer 8 has also purpurly coatings. With that being said, it's the version from 1978...
Not only is only one of the cameras shooting an obsolete format (disc) but I nearly fell over when you included the Canon 110ED. News to me that it is unusable. It is an excellent aperture priority rangefinder that I love and use. I love the f2 lens. A very underrated camera that seems to get a bad rap from some due to the instamatic bar shape, but it has a much better lens than any of the lenses for the Pentax 110 Auto, and while not quite so perfectly sharp as the Rollei A110, a far more durable camera than the Rollei.
I think the Canon 110 camera takes those disposable quadruple flash cubes. The Kodak ones were called Magicube but I don't know if they are compatible.
Pentax even made a 110 SLR system.
They did - I used to have the Mk1 version.
I like the shutter speed control system used by the Purma Special. If I were designing such a thing, I might make holding the camera upside down engage bulb mode, just to be cheeky... 😁
Seems like the right thing with a Purma!
Very interesting seeing these unusual cameras. Thanks for showing them. I remember all the commercials in the 80's that used to air at Christmas time advertising the disc cameras. Back then both of my sisters had 110 cameras, I remember the drop in cartridges they would use for the film.
They were cool little cameras, enjoyed by many back in the day!
The APS system a few years later was the last gasp by Kodak who were already aware of the possibility of digital. The Canon is a beautiful 110 as is the Rollei if you can find one and Minolta did a fabulous waterproofed camera in yellow. All dead but all fun.
Any chance of vidoes of vintage or rare lenses again?
Sure, there will be more soon! Did you see the video on 58mm lenses from last week?
As someone who worked in photo labs in the 90s, I cannot begin to fully express my hatred for the 110 format. They were a pain to process and without fail produced absolutely horrible images, leading to us having to attempt to explain that a terrible plastic lens exposing a tiny little negative will never, ever, produce good images. Apparently I'm still scarred by those damn things. 🤣
It sounds like you need some 35mm therapy!
@@zenography7923 35mm and 120... it helps 🤣
Hi I’ve been getting obsessed with old cameras that use different film sizes I’ve cut 120 to 127 and used 35mm in 127 cameras all work great
I’ve 2 perma’s one bakerlite and one all metal both working well
Now just converted 126 cartridge to 35mm with great success nice not to let these old cameras become table lamps
The disc was like a Viewmaster slide.
There is/was a film format between "110" and "135" (24 x 36) that produced quite good quality images, it's the "126" from the 1970s. It was film cartridges (26 x 26) for the Kodak Instamatic and Agfa Instamatic cameras. It was very popular in the 70s and early 80s and comparable to the popularity of smartphone cameras of today. It hasn't survived either - although the films can still be bought and developed.
I remember the boxy 126 cameras - they were everywhere not so long ago!
Talking about buying useless cameras, I have an Olympus APS and a Canon APS camera. I can't use them because they both use the Advantix cartridge film system which became defunct years ago. They have interchangeable lens mounts, I can fit EF lenses onto the Canon, the Olympus came with a set of lenses, useless they may be, but they are beautifully engineered, esp the Canon. Great video again.
I've sometimes wondered if those cartridges could be refilled - might be an interesting experiment!
@@zenography7923 well not sure if that's possible, who makes the film, no idea, probably nobody, shame eh. Still they're great looking machines, and in my humble opinion, need to be preserved.
Hi. Thanks for the video. I collect cameras and have recently purchased a Dixon 5000 Telephoto disc camera. I obtained some film, and as Patrick McCeag, wrote the images were poor to say the least. However, I believe partly due to the degradation of the film due age. Keep up the good work.
Well done for shooting the disc camera, quite a heroic effort!
I did once find a post on how to mount your own film onto a disc to take pics with, but it was very complex. I did buy some old stock but never exposed it. I understand some of the problems with these and with the equally short-lived film APS-C format was that processors would not install the enlargers formulated for the new small formats and quality of prints was below optimum. Analogue Wonderland are selling 127 but it is about £14 per roll. Cutting down 120 at home is a much cheaper option but is very fiddly, especially if you replace the backing paper as well.
I know what you mean. These two are best kept for the shelf I think!
Hello Nigel, many thanks for this interesting topic! A classmate of mine had a disc camera back in 1985. A few years ago I purchased a Minolta 110 and the image quality was astounding. My Agfa Tele Pocket from 1982 was much worse in that respect. I didn't know that there was a rangefinder among the 110 pocket cameras! By the way: Recently I purchased a Minolta XD (aka XD-7 in Europe) from a Japanse dealer. Do you know this camera? It's fantastic! in my opinion one of the best. Best wishes Ralf
not sure why, but i tend to like my cameras metal. though those strange looking plastic cameras are always a head turner for me :)
I've still got a (Boots branded) 110 camera in my loft somewhere… I need to dig it out. I loved the form factor and a operation
Small and pocketable and very cool looking too!
I was given my first 'slr' camera and it was a Minolta 110 with a 2x zoom lens. I loved it, but soon decided that 110 film was a joke and moved up to 35mm. But for a 110 film camera it was a seriously nice camera. Shame.
The sad thing for 110 and disc owners was that there was a real problem with enlarging. Anything over the 6x4 or 3.5 print was grainy as a beach. From memory (dodgy) the films were faster 400ASA/ISO
The 110 SLRs were nice, but limited by that small film, as you say!
My favourite series:) I love your British accent:)
Thanks man, glad you're enjoying the videos!
My first 2 proper cameras were a zenit em and that Kiev , remember being told how worthless they were, I still have them of course.
I like the Kiev bayonet mount ,and how it affects lens prices , the adapters look pretty good on a Sony .
I have a disk camera also and last time I checked a year or so Beck. The non removable battery was still good.
That battery has certainly done well! The Kiev bayonet lenses are quite a bit cheaper - I think because of the expense of the adaptors. Makes sense if you buy enough lenses though!
I'm baffled as to why my comment saying that I tried and failed to buy a Purma has disappeared. I can't imagine it was at all offensive to anybody.
I really don’t know, I certainly didn’t remove it! Sorry to hear that.
@@zenography7923 I didn't think for a minute that you had. Sorry if it seemed that way. I am sure it was UA-cam. I've had the odd comment disappear before, but usually there's some plausible if ridiculous reason I can imagine for a bot to remove it. This was just saying that I was going to buy one of these cameras but the item was withdrawn but I still want one. Baffling.
i had the kodak disc 4000 with Lens: 1:2.8/12.5 mm. cost 66 uhmerikan dollars which was pricey back in the 80's.
i also had the canon 110 ED. i bought the close up lens for it too with parallax correction. sweet photos on kodachrome 64. it had an electronic shutter but without a battery it would trip at 1/125.
Gosh, that disc camera really was expensive!
i absolutely hate the brass roller shutters in the Kievs, every single one of those i've owned the shutter has failed either by jamming or only partially closing during its operation leaving part of the frame black from over exposure. Here in the what if drawer is a collection of kiev lenses in contax bayonet which consist of 35mm, 50mm. 85mm and 135mm that will never get used
I've never had a Kiev shutter fail, but I've heard they can be unreliable. The Leica system was more reliable I think because it was somewhat simpler.
The Kiev isn't just a copy of the Contax, it's a Contax in all but name. The Contax factory in Dresden was taken by the Soviets as war reparations and the machinery and many of the people relocated to Kiev where, from 1947, they continued to make the same Contax cameras but badged under the Kiev brand. Kiev cameras were considered much better quality than their Zorki or FED counterparts (certainly cameras built before the mid 1970s) and remained in production until 1986.
They have a watch-like quality that the Zorkis and Feds lack - beautiful machines indeed!
I was surprised to see the Kiev's shutter. I thought all Kievs and later Contaxes had a conventional cloth shutter because that type was unreliable. Wrong as usual 😲🙂 Does the meter work?
It works a bit - it moves slightly when light falls on it, but I don't think it's accurate.
I have an APS camera Advanced Photographic System a fully automatic camera mine is an Advanced 2000 branded 'Boots' the system had some unusual feature the film is always in the cassette even after it had been developed with indicators to show if it was un-exposes partially exposed or developed it also had a choice of 3 formats the photos I have are all panorama giving a 4x11 inch print you could have a mix of all 3 on a film. Films were available up to 40 exposures
There were some very nice aps-c system cameras, sadly it seems they've had their day!
The viewfinder at the back of the Kiev looks tiny.
It's not as big as the Zorki 4, but smaller than the Fed 4. It's certainly usable, but no framelines or parallax correction.
An another creamy crispy video 👏📸🎉
👍
The Purma Special - a camera for the left handed?
It would seem so!
I got a LF camera Horseman LX and lenses that I never used. I replace it with a HB 503 CW with 2 lenses Also I got a Mamiya 7ii system with lenses and a Fuji GW 690III. I still have the analogue MF cameras but the cost of film and development is to high so I seldom use them. Got all the cameras used but still the cost was high
Medium format gear can be quite expensive, bw film can be pretty cost effective though, if you develop at home.
@@zenography7923 Thank for your feedback. Living in a one room flat. I cannot develop film at home due to the toxic fix? I use to do BW allot in school. I still have a Nikon LS9000 scanner. I love the Fuji GW690 camera. I will take some more BW picture. I convert to BW when using the Digital cameras. Still need a 50mm to HB but will finish upgrading to D850 first
Can't say the Kiev is really all that rare... easily purchased from Ukraine. However, yours seems to have a working shutter, which does up it on the rare scale. I have one without the meter and it really is a nice old camera. I bought it out of Ukraine just after the current events started, sold to me as rebuilt, which seems correct.
Not particularly rare I agree, but most are later Kiev 4 and 4a models, the 3 shown here is not so common. They do look better without the meter but there's something very mechanical looking about the meter equipped models - somehow compelling!
@@zenography7923 yes, agreed, older are better before they wore out the German machinery and German engineering staff. 70s and 80s production was very Soviet quality.... Err... Quantity, I mean.
It makes no sense to me why there's no 220 rolls. It would be such a great deal compared with 35, given how easy it is to get great looking shots, at least in my experience.
120 is the same format as 220. The 220 films were simply longer for twice the number of photos. however, some medium format cameras could not use 220 films, 120 always works. That is probably why the 220 disappeared.
Canon has... ED. ROFLMAO!!!! sorry... sooo sorry. I couldn't resist.
Nice
Thanks!
I like your hats
Thanks!
The Kiev is far from unuseable
Unusual or unusable???
Both!
Aper pro to nothing just found on e bay a black Leica iiig with f2.8 5cm Elmar
with brassing and patina one of few made for the Swedish army.... bargain price €65,000 euros...