Re: Kiev 60 and 30mm lens

["Joseph O'Neil" <joneil@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 22:29 23/04/99 EDT, you wrote:
>Typically the Kiev lenses are sharp, sturdy but prone to flare.  This can be 
>especially problematic with the fish eye because it will find the sun
often.  
>The careful shooter that is aware of the Kive shortcomings can create images 
>on par with anything out there.  If the camera breaks, it's probably not 
>worth fixing.  A new Kiev 60 body is probably less than a repair on almost 
>any other camera. 

	There is a company called Kiev USA (never dealt with them), who take Kiev
cameras, rebuild them, then sell them for a higher price.
	This might not be a bad idea.  Overall my expereince with Russian optics -
cameras, telescopes, bincoulars, etc, is that optically they are
incredible, excelletn, just fantastic, but mechanically they can be pure
junk.  Imgaine taking Zeiss or Leica made optics and stuffing them in the
cheapest department store housings you cna find - to me, that's Russian
optics.
	I had opportunity to buy a good medium format system once by a former East
German company - excellent lens, but the film advance crank needed
attention, and that would have made the whole outfit too expensive by the
time repairs (if they could be done) were paid for.
	That Kiev USA company has a web site (lost the URL), and they might be
worth looking up.
joe

http://www.multiboard.com/~joneil
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