The Alphabet Game

Rsquared · September 8, 2012

Ok I'll try and make this less ambiguous........D = Dogs.

Kan Win · September 11, 2012

E= Evening in Kan

Win

FracturedRabbit · September 11, 2012

F is for Flying, at Amara Watersports near Jomtien last week

Kan Win · September 18, 2012

The Gates of Kanchanaburi

katana · September 18, 2012

H is for a hairy spider.

draggons · September 21, 2012

Ice.

paggamb · September 21, 2012

J = Joe Jirayus

Taken from Nuvo Concert at Larn Beer Onnut. He is a popular celeb and Thailand's Got Talent 2012 judge. Beside him is Kong Saharat, even more famous than Joe.

FracturedRabbit · September 21, 2012

K is for Kiev

Zeiss introduced the Contax 2 rangefinder in 1936 and it was considered to be a superior product to the Leica of the time, featuring among other things a metal shutter curtain rather than cloth, faster available shutter speeds and a better rangefinder mechanism. For a while, the Contax 2 was the professional camera to own; then the war arrived.

The Contax factory in Dresden was bombed during the war, and after the war the factory fell under Russian ownership. The Russians initially set up three trial production lines in Jena, East Germany, before moving all production to Kiev in Russia, at which point the name was changed from Contax to Kiev; although the cameras looked the same apart from the nameplate and early Kievs used many Contax parts. Production started in 1950 and went on through to the 1980s with various minor changes in design. The earliest production is the best built, overseen by original Contax employees. Over the years, quality declined as production targets increased.

The camera in the photo was made in 1950, the first year of official production. I also have a 1960 and 1970 model; but the 1950 operates the smoothest and still takes good pictures at 62 years old!

The Russians also took over the Zeiss lens factory in Jena and moved the remaining glass stock to the KMZ works near Moscow. For a couple of years this glass was built into a lens with the same design as the Zeiss Sonnar 50mm F2 and called the Zorky ZK, which is the 1950 lens shown in this photo. Later on the lens became known as the Jupiter 8 and used Russian glass.

The turret on the top offers differing views depending on what lens you are using, although you still need to look through the rangefinder on the camera body to acquire focus.

Also shown some detail of the shutter mechanism (I bought some scrap bodies just so I could take them to pieces, and then photograph them of course!). The internals are bewildering tangle of gears and levers; very different from the cameras of today!

The Kiev is so different to shoot with compared to a modern camera, and somehow all the more relaxing and enjoyable because of that. Later models can be found for around $50 on eBay, although you will pay more for an early production model like this one.