Kiev-88
Arsenal · Kiev 88 mount · 6×6cm on 120 roll film in the standard magazine; 6×4.5cm with the optional magazine (Russian Wikipedia) · 1980
via machine translation — corrections welcomeKnown as “Hasselbladsky”, “Russelblad”
Also known as: Kiev 88 · Kiev-88 · Kiev88 · Kiew 88 · Kiew-88 · Kiev 88 TTL · Kiev-88 TTL · Kiev 88 Salyut · Arsenal Kiev 88 · Cambron Pro Six · Киев-88 · Киев 88 · Київ-88 · Киев-88 TTL
Variants & identification
| Variant | Mount | Years | Serial ranges | Production |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kiev-88 (waist-level finder) | Kiev 88 | 1980–2009 | #8705935 — 1987, a Kiev 88 with Volna-3 and waist-level finder sold by Kamerastore #8909193 — 1989, a Kiev 88 with the Volna-3 80mm f/2.8 sold by fk-secondhand.com | — |
| Kiev-88 TTL (with metering prism) | Kiev 88 | 1980–2009 | #8201411 and #8404117 — 1982 and 1984, both captioned Kiev-88 TTL by sovietcams, with the MC Volna-3 | — |
| Dealer rebuilds keeping the Kiev-88 mount (Hartblei, Arax, Kiev USA, Kiev Camera) | Kiev 88 | — | #9702694 — 1997, Lewis Collard's Hartblei rebuild, used with a Mir-26B 45mm | — |
- No production figure has been published for the Kiev-88; Russian Wikipedia gives more than 50,000 Salyuts and more than 30,000 Salyut-S but nothing for the Kiev-88.
- Cambron Pro Six: camera-wiki says Cambridge Camera Exchange of New York sold an unchanged Kiev-88 package under this name, and sovietcams that the camera 'can be found under CAMBRON name in USA'. No example or advertisement has been documented, so it is a note, not a variant.
- The end date is soft. oddcameras.com says regular production 'seems to have stopped in 2009', and English Wikipedia records the announcement in November 2009 that the Arsenal factory would close. Russian Wikipedia adds that after production stopped, AraxFoto assembled Kiev-88 and Kiev-88CM cameras in small numbers from leftover Arsenal parts and sold them under the Arax name.
- Mount letters. Russian Wikipedia names this mount 'байонет В' (Cyrillic В, Latin V) and its lenses Мир-26В, Волна-3В and so on; Western sellers, kievaholic.com ('Type B'), Matt Denton and Lewis Collard write it 'B', which is also the Latin form of the Cyrillic Б that means the Pentacon Six mount. Latin-engraved lenses read B themselves: oddcameras.com's 1995 standard lens is an Arsat 'B', and the Commons photograph shows a VEGA-12B on a KIEV 88. Russian Wikipedia's lens table for the В mount runs Zodiak-8, Mir-26, Mir-3, Mir-38, Industar-29, Volna-3, Vega-12, Vega-28, Kaleinar-3, Jupiter-36, Telear-5, Tair-33 and ZM-3, and its Salyut article says most of them were made only from 1978 on, the Mir-3 and Tair-33 being the only extra lenses available before that. camera-wiki says the Volna-3 was later sold as the Arsat B or Arsat C.
- Matt Denton (Matt's Classic Cameras) writes that lenses of the original Salyut have a different aperture coupling and do not interchange with the Salyut-S and later bodies unless that coupling is removed; Russian Wikipedia does not discuss this, and says only that with adapters the В-mount lenses can be used on most focal-plane cameras.
- Whether Hasselblad 1600F/1000F lenses work on a Kiev-88 is not settled: the thread and the 82.1mm register match (pentaconsix.com), English Wikipedia reports 'mixed reports on compatibility', and Lewis Collard declined to buy a Hasselblad lens to find out. camera-wiki says lenses do not interchange with the later Hasselblad 500 series.
- Kamerastore lists the speeds as 2s to 1/1000; every other source starts at 1/2.
How to tell them apart
- Flash shoe on the side = Kiev-88; no shoe and a САЛЮТ-С nameplate = Salyut-S (camera-wiki; sovietcams; Matt Denton). Sources differ on the Kiev 80: camera-wiki treats it as the Salyut-S, Matt Denton gives it the shoe
- Threaded mount with a lock button and bronze-coloured metal curtains = Kiev-88; a big locking lever at the mount and black cloth curtains = Kiev-88CM (kievaholic.com; oddcameras.com; Russian Wikipedia)
- Lenses for it are marked В (Cyrillic, Latin V), which sellers and Latin-engraved lenses write 'B': МС Волна-3В is sold as 'Volna-3B'. A Pentacon Six lens marked Б does not fit this mount (oddcameras.com)
- Finders interchange with Hasselblad finders; magazines do not (Russian Wikipedia; oddcameras.com)
Kiev-88 (waist-level finder):
- КИЕВ-88 or KIEV 88 nameplate on the front of the finder housing, on a body that looks like a Salyut-S
- A flash shoe on the side of the body, beside the PC socket (camera-wiki; sovietcams; oddcameras.com). Matt Denton says the Salyut-S has no shoe, only a PC socket with X/M sync, but credits the Kiev 80 with the shoe as well
- Coarse three-start threaded lens mount with a lock button on the body, the Hasselblad 1600F/1000F pattern; a big locking lever at the mount and black cloth curtains in the throat mean an 88CM instead (Russian Wikipedia; oddcameras.com; kievaholic.com)
- Bronze-coloured corrugated stainless-steel shutter curtains, visible with the lens off (kievaholic.com; Russian Wikipedia)
- Plain wind knob on the side, no crank (kievaholic.com)
- Early bodies: a sync contact with an X/M lead-time setting and no central (hot-shoe) contact, which later bodies have (Russian Wikipedia)
- Usually sold with the MC Volna-3 80mm f/2.8 (МС Волна-3В); a Vega-12 90mm also turns up, engraved VEGA-12B on the export body in the Commons photograph
Kiev-88 TTL (with metering prism):
- The same body sold as a kit with the TTL pentaprism: a large prism with a CdS cell and two LEDs in the finder for under, correct and over exposure (Russian Wikipedia)
- The meter is not coupled: the reading is set on the lens and the speed knob by hand (Russian Wikipedia)
- The prism is the only difference. A plain Kiev-88 with a TTL prism added is the same camera, and the prism fits the Salyut and Salyut-S too (sovietcams; Russian Wikipedia)
Dealer rebuilds keeping the Kiev-88 mount (Hartblei, Arax, Kiev USA, Kiev Camera):
- Still the threaded Kiev-88 lens mount with its release button, but with one or more dealer upgrades: mirror lock-up, a crank in place of the wind knob, a cloth shutter or a magazine mount for Hasselblad backs (kievaholic.com; camera-wiki)
- A rebuilder's name may or may not be on the body: no published description of a Kiev-88-mount rebuild's badging has been found, so ask the seller for the paperwork
- A rebuild with a Pentacon Six mount is not this variant: it belongs with the Kiev-88CM conversions (Brenner's B.i.G., Hartblei 1006C, Wiese's Pentasix)
- Kiev-88 (waist-level finder): The factory camera with the folding waist-level finder. Russian Wikipedia calls it a modernised Salyut-S with a new standard lens, an improved finder hood and a flash shoe on the body, and its Salyut article adds that the aperture drive was improved so that a lens can be changed with the shutter cocked as well as released; the MC Volna-3V became the standard lens. camera-wiki and sovietcams name the hot shoe as the visible difference. Russian Wikipedia gives the early bodies an X/M sync contact with adjustable lead time and no central contact, so on those the shoe carries no contact; it does not say when the change came, so the two are one variant here.
- Kiev-88 TTL (with metering prism): Sovietcams writes that a Kiev-88 "could be a TTL with the addition of the metered prism", and dates the TTL to "c.1984", but its own TTL examples include #8201411, which reads as 1982 on the year-prefix rule. Russian Wikipedia's infobox gives 1980–2009 and its bibliography cites a Sovetskoe Foto article titled "Киев-88 TTL" from 1980, so the kit appears to be as old as the camera. oddcameras.com describes the Kiev 88 TTL as a set of body, standard 80mm lens, two backs and the metered prism. Russian Wikipedia gives the prism four RTs-53 mercury-zinc cells (PX625 today) and mentions TTL prisms "of various designs"; oddcameras.com says its prism takes three SR/LR44 cells, which most prisms take directly while very old ones may need an adapter, and Lewis Collard writes that the prism on his 1997 body takes "3 4LR44 cells". Collard found his meter roughly right at EV 5 and about two stops out in bright daylight.
- Dealer rebuilds keeping the Kiev-88 mount (Hartblei, Arax, Kiev USA, Kiev Camera): By the 1990s several firms were buying Kiev-88s and reworking them to cure the factory's quality-control problems: camera-wiki names Arax, Hartblei, Brenner, Wiese Fototechnik and Kiev USA, and kievaholic.com (2001) Kiev Camera, Kiev USA and Hartblei, with mirror lock-up, cloth shutters, crank advance, Pentacon Six mounts, Hasselblad-back compatibility and multicoated lenses among the options. Lewis Collard's camera is a Hartblei rebuild that still takes Kiev-88 lenses and, in his words, "actually works most of the time". Most rebuilders also offered the Pentacon Six conversion, and those bodies are on the Kiev-88CM page.
Serial-range notes
- The first two digits
- The usual Arsenal rule holds: the first two digits are the year, so #8705935 is a 1987 body and #9702694 a 1997 one (Lewis Collard reads his that way). oddcameras.com reports that "some say" the year prefix was dropped in 2000, though its author is not sure, and shows a Kiev-88CM numbered 1515; no Kiev-88 with a post-2000 serial has been documented to test it.
Specifications
- Format
- 6×6cm on 120 roll film in the standard magazine; 6×4.5cm with the optional magazine (Russian Wikipedia) · 12 on 120 with the 6×6 magazine, 16 with the 6×4.5 magazine; Russian Wikipedia says 220 magazines in both sizes were also developed exposures
- Finder (waist-level)
- folding hood with magnifier, interchangeable (standard on the Kiev-88)
- Finder (eye-level)
- TTL pentaprism with an uncoupled CdS meter, interchangeable (the Kiev-88 TTL kit)
- Shutter
- horizontal-travel focal plane with corrugated stainless-steel curtains, mechanical (Russian Wikipedia); no battery needed except for the prism meter · 1/2–1/1000, B (Russian Wikipedia; sovietcams) · flash sync X at 1/30 and slower; hot shoe and PC contact (Russian Wikipedia; camera-wiki) · no self-timer
- Film advance
- wind knob on the body side, which cocks the shutter and mirror and also carries the speed setting (pull out and turn); the magazine counts frames and shows when the shutter is cocked (Russian Wikipedia; oddcameras.com). Speeds must be changed only with the shutter cocked (Russian Wikipedia; oddcameras.com)
- Back
- interchangeable 120 magazines with metal dark slide, removable at any frame; the back releases only with the dark slide in (oddcameras.com). Not compatible with Hasselblad magazines without modification (Russian Wikipedia); Russian Wikipedia's Salyut article says Kiev-88 accessories, the 6×4.5 magazine included, fit the Salyut and Salyut-S
- Meter
- none in the body; uncoupled CdS meter in the TTL prism
- Motor drive
- Not compatible
- Weight
- 631 g
- Dimensions
- 112 × 92 × 77, body only (Kamerastore). weight_g is a 1992 body without finder, magazine or lens as weighed by oddcameras.com; Kamerastore gives 704g body only, and Russian Wikipedia 2,270g with the standard lens and the TTL prism mm
- Country
- Ukraine
- Original price
- 918 roubles for the Kiev-88 TTL kit, the price in 1989 (Russian Wikipedia); sovietcams gives an "original price" of 919 roubles without a date. No price for the waist-level kit or any export price has been published in the sources here
- Accessories
- Waist-level finder with magnifier; TTL metering prism · 6×6 and 6×4.5 120 magazines; 220 magazines (Russian Wikipedia) · Lenses in the Kiev-88 (В) mount from the 30mm Zodiak-8 fisheye to the 300mm Tair-33. Russian Wikipedia's Salyut lens table also lists a 600mm ЗМ-3В mirror lens, but no Kiev-88-mount example has been documented (TRA and Araxfoto know only the Pentacon Six ZM-3B), so a Kiev-88 takes the ZM-3 only after conversion to the Pentacon Six mount
Fresnel screen with split-image wedges and a central matte circle; field of view 53 × 53mm (Russian Wikipedia). Lewis Collard found the finder dim and the microprism almost no help even at f/2.8.
Range 1.6 to 13,000 cd/m², 16–500 GOST, two LEDs (Russian Wikipedia). Russian Wikipedia's Salyut article says the finder mount follows the Hasselblad standard, so Hasselblad finders fit, and oddcameras.com, camera-wiki and kievaholic.com say the same; the magazines do not interchange (Russian Wikipedia; kievaholic.com).
Where sources disagree
- First
- 1980 — Russian Wikipedia's infobox, and the 1980 Sovetskoe Foto article titled 'Киев-88 TTL' in its bibliography
- c.1984 — sovietcams, whose own TTL example #8201411 reads as 1982
Better supported: 1980
- Original price
- 918 roubles in 1989 — Russian Wikipedia
- 919 roubles — sovietcams, undated
Better supported: 918 roubles in 1989
- Weight (grams)
- 631g body only — oddcameras.com, weighing a 1992 body
- 704g body only — Kamerastore listing
- 2,270g with the standard lens and TTL prism — Russian Wikipedia
The two body-only figures may count different parts (the film-magazine coupling, the mount cap); neither says.
- Eye-level (prism batteries)
- four RTs-53 mercury-zinc cells or D-0.06 NiCd cells, PX625 today — Russian Wikipedia
- three SR/LR44 cells, very old prisms perhaps needing an adapter — oddcameras.com
- '3 4LR44 cells' — Lewis Collard, on the prism of his 1997 body
Russian Wikipedia mentions TTL prisms of various designs, so probably more than one generation; no source dates the change.
What reviewers say
- Lewis Collard (blog) — A 1997 Hartblei-rebuilt Kiev 88 bought with three lenses and two backs for £150 in 2010: heavy, awkward, a dim finder, unreliable slow speeds, 1/30 sync and a TTL prism up to two stops out in daylight, but a tough shutter curtain and one of the cheapest ways into medium format. Buy a Hartblei or Arax rebuild if you want to depend on it.
- oddcameras.com (blog) — An owner's guide built on a 1992 body, whose author cannot confirm the bad reputation: failures usually come from poor maintenance and operating errors, above all changing speed with the shutter uncocked, the lenses give superb results and full sets are often a bargain. Weighs each part of the outfit.
History
The Kiev-88 is the last of the Salyut line: a 6×6 single-lens reflex made by Arsenal in Kyiv from 1980 until regular production seems to have stopped in 2009, the year the closure of the Arsenal factory was announced. Like the Salyut of 1957 and the Salyut-S of 1972, it follows the pattern of the Hasselblad 1600F and 1000F. It has a horizontal metal focal-plane shutter, finders that come off, interchangeable 120 magazines and the Swedish cameras’ coarse three-start thread-and-bayonet lens mount at the same 82.1mm register. Russian Wikipedia describes it as the Salyut-S with minimal changes. The aperture drive was improved so that a lens can be changed with the shutter cocked, the finder hood was improved, a flash shoe was added, and the multicoated Volna-3 80mm f/2.8 became the standard lens. Hasselblad finders fit, but Hasselblad lenses and magazines are a different matter: the magazines do not fit without modification, and for the lenses English Wikipedia speaks only of mixed reports.
The shutter has curtains of corrugated stainless-steel foil and runs 1/2 to 1/1000 and B, with flash at 1/30 and slower. It is entirely mechanical; only the meter prism takes cells. There is no self-timer and no meter in the body. Magazines come in 6×6 and 6×4.5, and Russian Wikipedia says 220 versions were developed. They come off at any frame, but only with the dark slide in. The camera was sold with a waist-level finder or, as the Kiev-88 TTL, with a pentaprism containing an uncoupled CdS meter that shows two LEDs. Russian Wikipedia dates the TTL kit to 1980 and cites a Sovetskoe Foto article of that year. Sovietcams says “c.1984”, though its own TTL example, #8201411, is a 1982 body. In 1989 the TTL kit cost 918 roubles, by Russian Wikipedia’s figure; sovietcams gives 919. The prism is the only difference, so any Kiev-88 with a prism added is a TTL, and the same prism fits the Salyut-S.
No source describes factory versions beyond that, apart from the Pentacon Six-mount Kiev-88CM. Russian Wikipedia says only that the early bodies had an X/M sync contact with adjustable lead time and no central contact. The rest of the variety came from outside the factory. By the 1990s Hartblei, Arax, Brenner, Wiese, Kiev USA, Kiev Camera and others were buying Kiev-88s and reworking them, adding mirror lock-up, cranks, cloth shutters and Hasselblad-back mounts. Most of them also offered a Pentacon Six mount, long before the factory did. A rebuild that still has the threaded mount takes Kiev-88 lenses and belongs here. A body with a Pentacon Six mount, whether a dealer conversion or Arsenal’s own Kiev-88CM (1999 according to kievaholic.com and oddcameras.com, “from the 1990s” in Russian Wikipedia), takes different lenses and is on its own page. After Arsenal stopped, Russian Wikipedia says, Arax assembled small numbers of Kiev-88s from leftover factory parts under its own name. In the United States, camera-wiki and sovietcams say the Kiev-88 was also sold as the Cambron Pro Six, but no example of that badge has been documented.
Lenses for this mount carry a Cyrillic В, a Latin V: МС Волна-3В, Мир-26В. Western sellers almost always write it as “B”, kievaholic.com called the mount “Type B”, and Latin-engraved lenses for it read B as well, such as the Arsat “B” 80mm and the VEGA-12B. That is also how the Cyrillic Б of the Pentacon Six mount is written, so “Mir-26B” in a listing can be either. Look at the mount, not the letter: a coarse thread means it fits this camera. Late Arsat lenses use a C for the Pentacon Six mount. Russian Wikipedia says that most lenses for the mount appeared only from 1978, and that before then the Mir-3 65mm and Tair-33 300mm were the only extra lenses available. The 30mm Zodiak-8, the Mir-26 45mm, the Mir-38 65mm, the Vega-28 120mm, the Kaleinar-3 150mm, the Jupiter-36 and Telear-5 250mm and the ZM-3 600mm mirror therefore all arrived for the Kiev-88 or just before it. Matt Denton warns that lenses of the original Salyut have a different aperture coupling and do not interchange unless that coupling is removed.
Factory quality was uneven: camera-wiki, kievaholic.com and English Wikipedia all say quality control was poor and varied from camera to camera. oddcameras.com dissents, finding the cameras robust and blaming most failures on poor maintenance and on one mistake in particular: changing the shutter speed with the shutter uncocked ruins the camera. Wind first, then set the speed. Lewis Collard, whose 1997 body is a Hartblei rebuild, found the slow speeds unreliable, the finder dim, East European lenses soft wide open and the prism up to two stops out in daylight, and he advises buying a Hartblei or Arax rebuild if you want something to depend on. When buying, check the magazines for light leaks and frame spacing, look at the bronze-coloured curtains with the lens off for dents, and test the prism on fresh cells against a handheld meter. The first two digits of the serial give the year. No production figure has been published.
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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Live listings
Asking price, DKK: a median of DKK 600 across 11 fixed-price listings on 2026-11-10 (middle half DKK 500–DKK 900). Tracked since 2026-11-09, 2 days: unchanged from DKK 600.
By day
| Date | Median | Middle half | Listings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-11-10 | DKK 600 | DKK 500–DKK 900 | 11 |
| 2026-11-09 | DKK 600 | DKK 500–DKK 900 | 11 |
Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.
- Kiev88-FG-U Kiev88-GFX SHOTEN
- Kiev 88 Film Back
- Kiev 88 Film Back
- Kiev 88 Film Back
- Kiev 88 Film Back
- Kiev 88 Film Back
- Kiev 88 Film Back
- Kiev 88 Film Back
- KIEV 88 TTL Prism (fits Hasselblad)
- KIEV 88 TTL Prism (fits Hasselblad)
- Kiev 88 TTL/Spot Prism (fits Hasselblad)
- KIEV 88 TTL Prism (fits Hasselblad
- Kiev 88 Medium Format 6x6 SLR MC Volna-3 80mm f2.8 Lens 120 Back WLF [EXC]
- SHOTEN UMSシリーズ Kiev88-NZ-U (キエフ88マウントレンズ → ニコンZマウント変換) マウントアダプター
- SHOTEN UMSシリーズ Kiev88-CR-U (キエフ88マウントレンズ → キヤノンRFマウント変換) マウントアダプター
- SHOTEN UMSシリーズ マウントアダプター Kiev88-m43-U (キエフ88マウントレンズ → マイクロフォーサーズマウント変換)
- SHOTEN UMSシリーズ Kiev88-LSL-U (キエフ88マウントレンズ → Lマウント変換) マウントアダプター
- SHOTEN UMSシリーズ Kiev88-FG-U (キエフ88マウントレンズ → 富士フイルムGFX Gマウント変換) マウントアダプター
- SHOTEN UMSシリーズ Kiev88-SE-U (キエフ88マウントレンズ → ソニーEマウント変換) マウントアダプター
- SHOTEN UMSシリーズ Kiev88-LM-U (キエフ88マウントレンズ → ライカMマウント変換) マウントアダプター
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Listings updated 2026-11-09. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.