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Comment by iSnow | Hacker News Reader

I used to own the infamous Kiev 88 TTL with a range of lenses, and while I loved the knock-off design and heft, the build quality was disastrous. The film cassettes leaked light which ruined some films, the transport would jam, and the shutter as well.

I've never been too fond of the softness of the 35mm's, the 120 photos were just that much better. But then digital happened and both lenses and sensors outgrew anything analog.

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Agreed, the Kiev 88 isn't reliable. A number of years back I ordered a Hartblei - they take new Kiev 88s and fix the obvious shortcomings, before applying any modifications you require.

My Hartblei is configured for Hasselblad backs and hoods, and takes Pentacon six lenses.

I use this with an Arsat 35mm fisheye lens as the hasselblad equivalent is very expensive by comparison. The result is a strange mixture of multiple parts, but it's kind of fun!

The pentaprism finder, though, was an absolute bargoon, and there were probably more Kiev prisms on Hasselblads than there were on Kievs in my day. You could buy an awful lot of film with the literally hundreds of dollars you'd save over what 'Blad wanted for theirs. The only wedding photographers I knew who didn't have the Kiev finder were waist-level purists (who'd probably forgotten how to pan unflipped by that point).

> But then digital happened and both lenses and sensors outgrew anything analog.

maybe if you can afford an 80MP digital back with MF lenses? i still prefer 35mm compared to full-frame sensors but i'm more after latitude and colour rendition than sharpness.

God, I'd love to have a digital back for a medium format camera. But those are incredibly expensive, there's no way I can justify that.

if you live 35mm film you'll love medium format. It's much more forgiving due to less enlargement when printing, the trade off is that the equipment is large (although some of the fuji rangefinders aren't that much bigger than modern 35mm SLRs).

i work with MF too. im just saying the argument of "digital came and made analog irrelevant" doesn't really apply for me where I personally prefer 35mm over digital, let alone MF where you have "megapixels for days"

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