IN THE FIELD
This classic rangefinder camera offers an economical alternative to other, more famous, brands – but how good is it? John Gilbey takes a look
If you were growing up in the 1970s, rangefinder cameras from the Soviet Union were a popular route into photography. They were robust, cheap and had impressive optics if you got a good example – but reliability and quality control were very variable. Most of my friends had either a Zorki or a FED at some point, before graduating to a single lens reflex as we started earning more money. The Kiev 4A was less common and only appeared infrequently in the camera shop window. I didn’t own a Kiev at the time – as an impoverished teenager I settled for a FED 3L – but I always wondered about them, so when I saw one for sale for around £40 a few years ago I didn’t hesitate to snap it up.
The Kiev 4A has a complicated background story which covers quite a bit of post-war European history, but here is the short version. At the end of the Second World War the Contax camera factory, which had been a major player in Germany during the 1930s, ended up under the control of the Soviet Union. There are various names for what happened next, but the practical upshot was that the production line for the well-known Contax II and III rangefinder cameras was dismantled and moved – along with the remaining components and a number of key personnel – to Kiev in the Ukraine. Here, in the heart of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the plant was reassembled in the Arsenal factory and production restarted.
Over time, various incremental developments resulted in the Kiev 4A, which was sold well into the 1980s despite the basic design being over 50 years old at that point. This is a testament to the degree of innovation in the original Contax II design, which incorporated a number of features which made it really stand out when it first appeared.
Features and handling
If you are used to the current classes of digital camera and pick up a Kiev 4A today, you notice a few things immediately. First is the weight: the construction is nearly all of metal and the body with a standard 50mm f/2 lens weighs in at 700g. Secondly it feels compact, with a much narrower, shallower body than a single lens reflex. Then there is the design, which is clever, uncluttered and fits well into your hands – but has a few features which are now remarkable. The companion camera, the Kiev 4, added a non-coupled selenium cell exposure meter on the top plate of the camera body. To me this looks awkward, and I prefer the clean, slender lines of the 4A and the use of a handheld exposure meter. For improved handling the body is wrapped in black leatherette, which has survived much better than many of the moulded rubber grips which came after it.
