Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Kiev III

Arsenal · Contax RF mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film, removable back · 1952

Also known as: Kiev 3 · Киев III · Kiev 3A

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Kiev III Contax RF 1952–1955 A51799–A555863 — the A-prefix Kiev III bodies collected on USSRPhoto, the two digits after the letter giving the year
B540221–B545494 — the B-prefix Kiev III, every recorded example reading 1954 		No figure published
Kiev 3A Contax RF 1955–1958 — No figure published
  1. No Arsenal serial table has ever been published. Every list of Kiev serials in circulation is a collector-compiled survey — USSRPhoto's A- and B-prefix lists are compiled from members' cameras, dealer stock and eBay sightings — and a USSRPhoto contributor's summary of the 1951–57 period is that the factory archives are not publicly accessible.
  2. Start date: this entry gives 1952. USSRPhoto and Sovietcams both give 1948–1958, USSRPhoto adding that cameras made before 1950 were assembled from Contax parts at Jena, that Arsenal sources put the first Kyiv-built cameras in 1950 as a small run, and that production did not begin in serious form until 1952. A USSRPhoto contributor puts the early output at perhaps two or three cameras in 1947, a very few in 1948 and some tens in 1949. The two dates are not in conflict so much as answering different questions — first camera, or real production.
  3. Quantity: Sovietcams gives ±120,000 units for the Kiev III and ±150,000 for the Kiev IIIA; USSRPhoto reproduces the Kiev III figure and marks it unconfirmed.
  4. Kiev 3A dating, four ways: this entry gives 1955–1958; USSRPhoto's catalogue gives 1955–1959 and notes that 1959 cameras used the Kiev 4 type case; Sovietcams gives 1956–1959; Peter Hennig has a small pre-production run of flash-synchronised cameras in 1954 and the official introduction of flash sync, as Kiev 2A and Kiev 3A together, in the middle of 1956.
  5. The meter is specified here as 8–500 GOST, and most bodies in the 1954 B-prefix list are annotated GOST, but at least one of them (B540803) is recorded with a DIN meter.
  6. Corroborated, and the badge cleared. No substantive claim here now rests on a single source. The year-prefix serial rule is stated by CameraQuest, again by camera-wiki, and again by Aly's Vintage Camera Alley, which dates a body from the 68 on its shoe. The 1948–1958 span and the account of pre-1950 assembly from Contax parts are given by USSRPhoto and Sovietcams together. The ±120,000 figure is Sovietcams', reproduced and marked unconfirmed by USSRPhoto. The 3A dating is set out four ways above, from USSRPhoto, Sovietcams and Peter Hennig. What is still missing is a factory document, and the first note above says so.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • The meter housing, which is the only external difference from a Kiev II
  • 90mm rangefinder base

Kiev III:

  • Selenium meter housing on the top plate

Kiev 3A:

  • Flash synchronisation added, as on the Kiev 2A

Serial-range notes

the exception the rule hides
The year-prefix convention is Arsenal's from 1947 and the lens plants' from 1949 — it is not Soviet-wide and it is not KMZ-wide. KMZ's own Zorki bodies of 1948–54 run in a single sequence with no year prefix, so the rule fails there silently and plausibly: a 1951 Zorki 55325 reads as 1955, a 1953 254580 reads as 1925.
The first two digits
The rule for an Arsenal Kiev: the first two digits of the serial are the year of manufacture, and the number is engraved on the accessory shoe. 490106 is 1949; 5825582 is 1958. The digit count grows with output — five digits in 1947, six from 1948, seven by the later 1950s — so only the leading pair can be read, never the length. CameraQuest states the rule for Kiev bodies and Kiev-mount lenses alike, and camera-wiki dates a body from "63 27943" the same way.
A51799–A555863
The A-prefix Kiev III bodies collected on USSRPhoto. The letter does not disturb the rule: the two digits after it are the year, so the recorded examples run A51 through A55 — 1951 to 1955. USSRPhoto heads the list "A series prefix 1951/53" even though its own entries reach A555863, and the discrepancy is unresolved on the page.
B540221–B545494
The B-prefix Kiev III, headed on USSRPhoto as 1954 and borne out by the numbers: every one of the thirty-odd recorded examples reads B54. Both meter scales occur inside the block — most are annotated GOST, but B540803 is logged with a DIN meter — so the scale is not a dating marker within this run.
50072
Logged on USSRPhoto as a Kiev III from the first Arsenal production run, against that page's account that cameras before 1950 were assembled from Contax parts at Jena and the first Kyiv-built cameras came in 1950.
5825582, 5829479
Two 1958 cameras catalogued on USSRPhoto as a Kiev III/Kiev 4 crossover — a Kiev 4 built on a Kiev III body, identified as such because the Kiev III and Kiev 4 backs are not interchangeable. The contributor reports seeing two in five years in Kyiv.
470019, 48096, 480194, A480075, 490030–490216
Kiev III bodies from before the 1952 start date this entry gives, collected in USSRPhoto's early-Kiev serial survey: 470019 is logged there as a Jena-built Contax III, and A480075 shows the letter prefix already in use in 1948.
No number anywhere
Some of the earliest cameras were never numbered. Peter Hennig records roughly 2,000 Contax cameras built at the Zeiss Jena factory in 1947 — Contax II, some Contax III, and some wearing the KIEV name — plus an unknown further number assembled unofficially from smuggled parts and left numberless. USSRPhoto describes two surviving Dresden-parts cameras, one with no serial at all and one carrying an Arsenal serial reading 1953 that was engraved when a forgotten crate was found and sold, so on that batch the serial dates the engraving rather than the assembly.
The rule is Arsenal's, not the Soviet Union's
It does not carry across to the other plants. Oscar Fricke's Zorki table places a change in KMZ's serial numbering method between 605411 and 5503595: before it the numbers run sequentially from 00070, after it they read year-first (5569998, 56042413). A Zorki or a FED is dated from a published table; an Arsenal Kiev is dated from the number itself.

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film, removable back
Finder
Combined viewfinder and coupled rangefinder
Base length
90 mm
Shutter
vertical-travel metal slat · B, 1 – 1/1250
Meter
Uncoupled selenium cell, 8–500 GOST
Country
Ukraine

What reviewers say

History

The Kiev III is the metered version, standing to the Kiev II exactly as the Contax III stood to the Contax II: the same camera with an uncoupled selenium cell on the top plate. The meter reads in GOST, the Soviet film-speed standard, over a range equivalent to 8–500 ASA.

Like every selenium meter of the period it is now usually dead or reading low, and there is nothing to replace the cell with. The camera underneath works regardless — the meter was never coupled to anything.

The 3A of 1955 adds flash sync. In 1958 the line was renumbered and this camera became the Kiev 4, under which name it ran for another twenty-nine years.

Expand Collapse

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

Kiev III
Kiev III with the meter housing — Runner1616, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $340 across 5 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-06 (middle half $130–$400). First day tracked.

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

eBay links are affiliate links. If you buy through one, Glass Bodies earns a small commission from eBay at no cost to you. It does not change which listings appear, their prices or their order — those come from the search and the sort described above.

Listings updated 2026-09-05. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Contax III · Kiev II · Kiev 4

Sources (15)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this camera, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.