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| Kiev 10 by siimvahur |
The Kiev-10 (Cyrillic: Киев-10 Автомат or автомат) was manufactured in the Arsenal factory- possibly from 1965 to 1974, and is perhaps one of the strangest and most innovative cameras to come from the Soviet Union. It is a large, heavy 35mm SLR with a light meter, the first Soviet automatic exposure system, the focusing screen having microcrystals for focusing (which did not appear on Zenits until the '80s), and a line of excellent lenses in its own bayonet mount shared with the Kiev 11 and Kiev 15 TEE.
The camera has a very prominent selenium meter window above the lens, on the front of the prism housing. There is no battery needed for operation. TTL metering had to wait for the Kiev 15.
The Kiev 10 used a metallic fan shutter at the focal plane. It offered shutter speeds from 1/2 to 1/1000s, and X-sync at 1/60s. The top plate is relatively uncluttered, with a combined shutter- and film-speed (DIN/GOST) dial on the users left, and on the right, just a exposure counter in a small window[1]. Some have a plain accessory shoe fitted above the prism. The large rectangular plastic shutter release hangs off the front, beside the prism, and the rewind crank folds flat into the base.
The automatic mode behaves as a shutter priority mode (S). User selects the shutter speed and camera automaticly selects aperture value which is also showed in the viewfinder. If the sceene is to dark for the lightmeter, red indicator shows reduced measurement range. In case the appropriate exposure can't be reached with available aperture values, the shutter is blocked and manual mode should be selected.
The Kiev 11 was a development of the 10, moving the light-meter cell from the front of the prism to the (users) left of the front.
Links 
Edit
- Alfred Klomp's Kiev 10 page
- BPW Limited's Soviet Camera Page includes the Kiev 10
- English translation of User Manual by Irina Martynenko
- The photohistory.ru site's Kiev 10 page includes many pictures of the Kiev-10, some of the Kiev 11 (on the 10 page) and some of the Kiev-15, with text in Russian
- Kiev 10 on sovietcams.com
- Kiev 10 on JM Burtscher Sovietcamera French website
- ↑ See photos on Sovietcams.com
