Kiev 60

The Kiev 60 is a Ukrainian made 6x6 120 film SLR, which is known for Arsenal's interesting approach to quality control. Due to it's shoddy QC there are several companies that refinish them, Arax and Hartblei are two of these companies, it is probably a better idea to buy from one of these companies, but they do charge a premium price for this "upgrading" process, I never bought mine through any of those companies, instead I bought a Kiev 60 that had a handgrip attached from a store in holland through a friend, the addition of the handgrip showed that the owner trusted it to survive, so I took a chance on it.(I saved about $200)

I've used a few rolls of film and the film advance has been creative (not quite correct). Normally it does advance the film correctly, but when I was using a roll of fomapan 400 it jammed and caused a panorama like image out of three images, the source of this appears to have been me loading the film incorrectly. The previous roll had been loaded by a friend of mine in Holland so I didn't know how slightly more awkward than most it was to load.

It's a very heavy camera, just under the 2kg mark, its made in traditional soviet style, lots of metal and shoddy electronics, mine came with a TTL finder, sadly the electronics in the finder don't work, so in the future I am planning to buy a replacement from a reputable seller (Arax), aside from the interchangeable finders the specifications are fairly normal, shutter speeds from 1/2nd up to 1/1000th and B. the lenses are mounted with a basic breechlock style mount where a ring on the body turns to lock the lens to the body.

 There's an extensive range of lenses from the mad 30mm which is a fisheye lens (180 degree field of view) to a telephoto lens around the 250mm area, at the moment I have the kit lens a Volna 3 (80mm f/2.8) which is a nice sharp lens with good colours and contrast. Aside from the USSR made lenses you can also buy the excellent German lenses made for the Pentacon 6 and the Exakta 66 (Carl Zeiss and Schnieder). All the ussr made lenses are under 150 euros each (except the 30mm which is around 250 euros)

There is a comprehensive selection of accessories and lenses, all for reasonable prices, especially when compared to other medium format systems.

Overall I would recommend a Kiev 60 to nearly anyone that wants a medium format SLR, as even if you buy an upgraded Kiev you will still have plenty of money left over to buy lenses (well compared to a Pentax 67 system).