Hastily Purchased Kiev 88, the Hasselblad Knockoff

I’ve always been a sucker for something interesting. Add a little foreign mystique and we have a real winner. What are we talking about? The one and only 1600F Hasselblad? Close, but not quite. Even better (not really), a rare Kiev 88. A real legitimate Russian knockoff of the Hasselblad 1600. 

This little gem of a camera that caught my eye at the Photographica show, which is a giant photo swap meet, hosted by The Photographic Historical Society of New England (PHSNH), was perhaps purchased in a bit of haste and maybe with a little pressure from some other potential buyers at the swap table that were expressing interest. I couldn't help myself–I jumped at it. $200 ain't nuthin, but it’s cheap for even a fake Hasselblad. Besides, there was no way I was going to let those other camera nerds beat me to this! I did have a little hesitation: it wasn't perfect by any means. The focal plane shutter (the only shutter, unlike the ‘Blads leaf shutter in the lens) was a bit lazy at the slower shutter speeds. And for light leaks? I had no idea what the shape of the light gaskets were in. 

Photo of me in Midtown NYC. Taken by Susan Cook.

Fast forward a week later and here I was in Midtown Manhattan attending the AIPAD show.  For what was going to be a long-ish weekend in NYC, I decided to throw caution to the wind and put a few rolls through this thing. 

B&H was closed due to one of the many jewish holidays.  I realized this, of course, after a long walk across town, so I headed over to 42nd Street Camera, which was actually on 32nd street and grabbed 5 rolls of film: 3 rolls of Ilford FP4 and 2 of HP5. Might as well ruin a bunch of film if you’re feeling like ruining film. 

After a little brush up “how to” video on youtube, the camera was loaded and ready.  What's that, you say? I should know how to load one of these? Cut me some slack…It’s been a few years (about 20) since the last time I had to load a film back. 

Three days of tooling around the city and all 5 rolls were spent. Got into the darkroom to develop these right when I got back and low and behold they were perfect! 

Well…Not so much…. Terrible light leak from where the dark slide goes in. Not all was lost but some frames were definitely gone. Minus the massive light leak on some of the frames, the images overall looked pretty good. My takeaways are, I need to use a faster shutter speed for a larger handheld camera and I love a waist level viewfinder. It makes for discreet street photos. I am by no means a street photographer. I will leave that to all the Gary Winogrand wannabes. But I think I made some ok photos. 

Was there any buyer’s remorse? No way. I had a blast shooting this thing in all its simplicity. Just need to import a new film back from the Ukraine and we are good to go!

Well this was an intense experience.

Totality!

About twenty minutes to go!

Yesterday was the event of the year, for the east coast and some of the middle parts anyway. A total solar eclipse! I had only ever seen partial eclipses and the last one was when I was a young kid and it was a bit cloudy so all it did was get a bit dark. This time was the real deal.  Bluebird skies predicted, the totality in the afternoon, and somewhat close to home. Just a quick jaunt up close to the Canadian border. Easy 2.5 hour drive. 

4 am wakeup and on the road by 5 made for light traffic. Newport, VT was the destination, just at the bottom of the large Lake Memphremagog. Got there right at 7:30 as predicted. It was still a bit sleepy in town but that would change quickly. The parking lot that we chose to make our home for the next 10 hours was a local grocery store with ample parking and good views of the sky. It quickly started to fill up. Cars jockeying for position, trying to decide what was the best way to face. Tents and hammock chairs getting erected, a guy selling cans of coke for $2 (I didn't understand the logic of this because we were in a grocery store parking lot, after all) and “eclipse rocks” for a buck, rocks that he tumbled personally “up until the day of the eclipse,  and guys in animal suits who drove from Maryland just for this. I think they were Furries…if you don't know, look it up. People with cameras and long lenses setting up hours before the event…needless to say, it was getting wild. 

For my wife and me, our setup was simple: old lawn chairs from the 80’s, the ones with the multi-colored weaved webbing (you know the ones), and a cooler with some food and my camp stove to make some coffee for later. Old school stove top percolator. The best. 

Workin Hard, Makin Magic

Yup! I bought an eclipse rock!

For camera gear I went a little light. I brought out the stuff I shoot with for commercial work. No analog for this one. Nikon Z7 ii and a 70-200 f/2.8. Longest lens I own. Thanks to my late father who also was also a bit of a photo nut, I had one of those mylar looking filters used to photograph the sun. It worked perfectly. I tethered to my laptop using Capture One software which made on the fly adjustments incredibly easy. And even easier when totality happened. I was able to control the shutter blind by repeatedly hitting Command K. After all, the enjoyment is actually watching the eclipse and not looking at it via a computer screen. 

Leaving totality.

It was around 2:30 when the eclipse started, 3:30 totality, and 4:30 finish. It was long lead up to the main event. I made way too many pictures, perhaps out of bored anticipation until we all knew it was getting close by the waning of the light. What was a sunny day turned into a surreal, desaturated twilight. Then just a sliver left, and Boom! It was nighttime in an instant. Except for this now black hole in the sky surrounded by white fire. What we saw was what amounted to the shortest and without a doubt the most intense, beautiful, and unbelievable three minutes of my life. Then just like that, sunshine. It was over. The dark-ish twilight faded back to full sun and except for us and a few other photographers holding out for the full cycle, everybody started packing up to head out. Two hundred thousand people headed off to clog the inadequate Northern Kingdom highway system for the next 8 hours.