Kiev-15

Variants & identification

1. Price: 360 roubles is quoted by ru.wikipedia without a source (the article flags it) and by a reader on Mike Eckman's page, who gives 290 roubles for the Kiev-10 and cites Wikipedia and his own research, so the two are not independent. None of the sources cites a period price list, so no structured price is given. Eckman's own figure of about 170 roubles is a guess for the Kiev-10, not a record.
2. Adapters: Arisov and ru.wikipedia say the camera came with an adapter for M39×1 Zenit-thread lenses (used with a preset ring, no automation) and that M42 would not fit through the bayonet. An extension ring that passes the aperture drive was also supplied. Serialforeigner writes that an adapter takes M42 lenses; that is against both Russian sources.
3. Lenses in the mount: the Mir-20 Automat 3.5/20, Mir-1 Automat 2.8/37, Helios-81 Automat 2/53, Jupiter-9 Automat 2/85 and Jupiter-11 Automat 4/135, which Eckman and Osborne call the whole range; the Era-6 Automat 1.5/50 kit lens (Abramov; ru.wikipedia); and the Granit-11 80–200 zoom with an interchangeable Automat rear (Arisov; ru.wikipedia; a reader on Eckman's page). The Helios-65 Automat was the early Kiev-10's standard lens (ru.wikipedia; Osborne calls it an earlier version of the 50mm). ru.wikipedia lists a Rubin-2 Automat 45–80mm f/3.5 and the same reader on Eckman's page a 45–75mm f/3.5 zoom and a Zenitar 50mm f/1.9 Automat, all rare. The lenses have no aperture ring and cannot be used on other cameras without rebuilding.
4. Not exported, according to English Wikipedia; Eckman found no evidence that the TTL was sold abroad. ru.wikipedia says, without a source, that sales peaked in 1978.
5. No review gives a production figure for the TTL alone, and no dated first or last body has been published.

• Kiev-15 TEE: The standard Kiev-15. Its meter has two ranges. Arisov (fotoussr.ru) describes two CdS photoresistors, the second switched in for low light by lifting the centre knob of the speed dial at 1/60 and turning its red dot from the large yellow circle to the small one; a reader of Eckman's review describes it instead as two sensitive photoresistors under a perforated mask that levers move away in low light. Abramov says only that the automation had two ranges. Supplied with the Helios-81 Automat 2/53 (marked 2/50 by Abramov) or the Era-6 Automat 1.5/50.
• Kiev-15 TTL: Abramov dates it to 1980 only and says it had single-range automation and differed from the TEE in some small details. Eckman and Arisov say it had a single CdS cell; a reader on Eckman's page says the mask system was dropped and the photoresistors replaced with less sensitive ones. All three agree the low-light switching went. camera-wiki calls the TTL apparently identical apart from the marking and English Wikipedia calls the two identical; Eckman, who owns a TTL, says the claim that they differ only in name is untrue.

Specifications

Format

24×36mm on 135 film

Finder

fixed pentaprism; Fresnel screen with a microprism centre and matte collar · 87% coverage

Shutter

metal-bladed fan-type focal-plane shutter, copper-coloured lamellae swinging about a pivot at the bottom of the gate, with a balancing device to damp vibration (Abramov; Arisov; ru.wikipedia; Eckman). Used only in the Kiev-10 and Kiev-15 (Kosmo Foto, Eckman) · 1/2s – 1/1000, B · flash sync X, 1/60 and slower; hot shoe on the prism and a PC socket low on the front beside the mount (Abramov; Arisov; ru.wikipedia) · no self-timer

Film advance

single-stroke lever on the top plate; automatic resetting frame counter; a spinning indicator beside the eyepiece shows the film is moving (Abramov; Eckman)

Back

hinged; opened by a sliding catch on the base plate. The rewind crank also sits on the base and drives the fork at the top of the gate through a linkage (Arisov; Eckman)

Meter

Through the lens, CdS, battery-powered, with shutter-priority automatic exposure. The aperture is set from the body: a wheel on the front, beside the mount on the photographer's left, engraved on its face and edge, carries the stops and an 'A' for automatic. On release the camera closes the lens to the metered aperture (or the one set on the wheel) through a lever in the mount. The lens's maximum aperture has to be dialled in on a ring inside the speed dial, although the mount also passes it to the finder flag. Film speed 16–500 GOST. One RC-53 mercury cell (PX625 size) or a D-0.06 NiCd cell, under a coin-slot cover on the base (Abramov; Arisov; Eckman). Battery test: meter off, 1/60 on a TEE (1/30 on a TTL), f/2 and 32 GOST set, press the button by the speed dial and the needle should go to f/5.6, the dot between 4 and 8 (Arisov; Eckman).

Designed by

Alexander Gelgar — designed the fan-bladed metal shutter of the Kiev-10, carried over to the Kiev-15 (Kosmo Foto) · I. Batyuta — co-designer of the same shutter (Kosmo Foto)

Weight

1250 g

Dimensions

100 × 105 × 160 (Abramov), not saying whether with lens mm

Country

Ukraine (Ukrainian SSR)

Accessories

M39×1 (Zenit thread) adapter, supplied in the kit (Arisov; ru.wikipedia) · Extension ring passing the aperture drive (Arisov; ru.wikipedia) · Lenses came in clear plastic bubble cases whose bases serve as rear caps; no rear caps were made (Osborne)

The finder field is 22×34mm (Abramov), 86.5% of the frame by Arisov's reckoning, 87% in ru.wikipedia. A needle on an aperture scale at the right of the field shows the aperture the automation will set, or recommends one in manual. Two tinted flags cut off the scale: the upper one takes the lens's maximum aperture through the mount, the lower one the smallest usable stop, and with the needle outside them the release locks in automatic (Arisov; Eckman). Eckman found the screen dim at the corners and hard to focus in poor light.

Figures we worked out rather than found: The 1979 date of the Helios-81 Automat #792935 and the 1973 date of body 7304138 on the Commons camera are read from Arsenal's year-first serial convention, not stated by the photographer.

What reviewers say

• Mike Eckman (blog) — A 1980 TTL with the Helios-81 Automat: he admires the solid mount, the smooth lens and a fan shutter that gave good exposures shot by Sunny 16, but found the meter too convoluted to trust, the screen dim and the film transport troublesome on both rolls, the lever shredding perforations. Scored 7.0 with a bonus point for having no equal; a collector's piece better kept on a shelf.
• Christopher J Osborne (blog) — Covers the Kiev-10 and 15 together and prefers the 10: the 15 is heavier at 1107 g, its unlabelled coloured dots are hard to decipher without a manual, and his meter is dead from a corroded battery compartment, which he says is typical. The aperture wheel is easier to reach than on the 10, and the camera otherwise works.
• I. Arisov, Fototekhnika SSSR (blog) — A detailed walk-through of the TEE's controls, metering ranges and battery test. He rates the finder highly, likes the semi-automatic aperture-priority trick with the speed dial and the boxed M39 adapter, and calls the Automat system a prestige dead end that Arsenal still supported properly for over twenty years. via machine translation — corrections welcome
• Iain Compton, Serialforeigner (blog) — A 1980 TTL: big and heavy like the Kiev-10 and less space-age in its detailing, with a hot shoe and the aperture wheel moved to the other side of the mount. The Helios-81 is soft wide open and sharp to the edges only at about f/8, and the lens range is small, ending at 135mm.

History

This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Photographs

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