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Flock
line your Kiev60
Kiev 60 cameras are capable of taking photographs of amazing quality.
This is dependant on many factors of course and some people have more
success than others.
One of the common problems these cameras can have is internal flare.
Flare can be seen in a few different ways , but what we are dealing
with today is the washed out look some pictures have.
They totally lack good contrast and are very disappointing.
Good shooting practices can reduce this a fair bit , but some blame
must be fair and squarely placed on the design and construction of this
particular camera.
A flocking kit will go a LONG way to limit if not totally remove
problems from flare arising from within the camera body itself.
A simple way of understanding why we must black out the walls inside
the camera is by comparing it to a music recording studio.
In a recording studio the walls are often covered in foam to absorb
sound bouncing around the room.
The microphone will then only pick up pure sound from the singer and
not some echo or coloured sound from the room.
Just the same applies with the insides of the camera , we want the
walls to be dead like with regards to bouncing stray light around and
possibly getting to the negative.
With the Kiev 60 the makers made the interior sheet metal out of a semi
gloss ribbed aluminium.
Not the wisest choice so it must just have been a money versus quality
issue.
Now that users have access to high quality German lenses for this
camera , much higher performance is demanded from this dated design.
There are some companies out there that upgrade Kiev's and part of
their service is to flock line the insides of the body.
I have found that there are large variations in the quality of the
various flock materials out there and some commercially available kits
only provides a few pieces of material which really is not enough
coverage to do the job properly.
Here is a comparison between the flock we used at Kiev60SLR (left) and
some removed from
Hartblei modified cameras.(middle + right)
For a while Kiev60SLR produced a complete
flock kit for this camera and although it was quite successful doubts
over the materials long term resistance to fibre shedding has forced
this project to be temporarily suspended.
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