New Gear: Kiev 88

Kiev-88 -1
Originally uploaded by runlevel0

As I already commented, I am planning to jump to medium format. I have already the soviet cameras I bought: A Moskva-5 bellow camera for 6x9 format, a Lomo and the Kiev-88 a kind of Soviet copy of the Hasselblads.

I have read that the builds of this camera are not reliable and that the sometimes leaks light. I have anyway bought a seal repair kit from eBay with a good bunch different sealing foam stripes, some of them are meant to replace the mirror cushion. This would maybe be also a good idea, as It’s said, that the impact of the mirror is so strong that it moves the image., perhaps a bit of cushioning could help...

Anyway, it looks great and I have already seen nice shots in Flickr taken with this cam. It will surely require a bit of work to set it up properly, but the possibilities are huge.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

On Style and setting targets

I have definitely to decide for a style.

U have already been touching most of the fields of photography, except portrait, which is something I still have to learn but for what I lack subjects.

I have a good hand with nature photography and I manage to get more or less appealing results with macro... But although nice, they seem to me to be all too mainstream, not in the sense that I don't like them or find the style "vulgar", but in the sense that they actually could have been shot by anybody

The fact is that I indeed have a style, the style shown in my earlier shot with low-tech cheap gear such as my Kodak C300 and my cam phone. I have recently been able to jump back and rescue this style that is the one I feel more natural with. I am talking about stuff like that I have in my
Cyberpunk set in Flickr.

My most recent work within this style has been using the Minolta XG-1(m) and the Pentax SR7. Now my target is to translate the subject of dense, dark and somehow futuristic urban and industrial scenery to the medium format. I am really looking forward to see what I can do with the Moskva-5 and intrigued about the possibilities of the Lubitel 166, which seems less promising. I still haven't received the Kiev 88, but I think that in case I get it this will be the ideal gear for the kind of style I want to cultivate.

Another target I have set to myself is to jump from Flickr to Photo.net. I know I still lack professionalism, not that all the fellows at Photo.net are super-pros or that there are no place for a semi-ignorant dilettante like me, but I want to begin my portfolio with pictures made with a good technique and in a similar style that defines what I want to express, at least until I get tired of it.