Hartblei 1006M Review
Well I've finally had some time to try this camera for a little
while and wanted to post my thoughts. First this was not ordered from
the hartblei.com website as there is some question as to who actually
owns that site. I found a guy on the delphi forums who knows the owner
of the "real" hartblei and he special ordered me this camera which took
them almost a year to deliver! I wanted a twist and click pentacon-6
mount body with black metal shutter curtains that would accept
hasselblad backs instead of kiev backs and had MLU/pre-release (1006M).
I figured the camera was designed for metal cutains and cloth curtains
while quieter might drag and cause banding. Also the owners of the
metal curtain cameras seem to have less shutter problems so that
sounded like the way to go. It also seemed that a LOT of the problems
with these stem from the backs so I wanted to be able to use blad
backs. I did order one kiev NT back modified to be blad compatable with
the camera. I also had them install a rollei bright screen instead of
the standard K88 screen.
My first outing with the camera
wasn't that great (big surprize huh?). First the WLF that comes with
the camera is useless. The magnifier is out of focus (10mm+ too high
from the screen) and is REALLY distorted. Also Hartblei didn't have the
focus screen adjusted right so every shot was out of focus. Also the
camera had the classic kiev-88 nutcracker "crunch" sound at the end of
each wind which isn't very confidence inspiring. Then at the end of the
roll the tape wound around one of the guide rollers and jamed the
camera/back where I couldn't get it to crank off to the end of the roll.
So I went home and did some
work. The prism is optically OK and decided to use it until I can fix
or replace the WLF. See this page on how I later
fixed the WLF. Also I didn't care for the rollei screen as I've
been
spoiled by using Maxwell screens and since
I had a spare, I replaced
the rollei screen with a Maxwell and used
the kiev back (it's hinged so
you can put a piece of GG on the film gate) to adjust the screen to the
film plane. Also ordered a 'blad A12 back from www.keh.com and checked that it
fit right, it did.
What a difference! With the
'blad back the camera winds really smooth with no weird noises at all.
The Maxwell screen is wonderful and the prism works fine. Nice frame
spacing, good shutter speeds and no shutter banding. It seems the
=main= problem with the K-88 is the kiev backs and buying a model that
accepts 'blad backs allows you to use =good= backs which makes the
camera operate smoothly. Also like any kiev the simple things like
screen adjustment etc must be checked as even the upgraders seem to
miss these details. The Hartblei P-6 mount is very nice and all my Carl
Zeiss Jena and Soviet Arsat lenses fit like they should.
On hind sight if I was ordering
this camera again, I'd skip the kiev NT modified back and the rollei
screen upgrade as well as the WLF. I suppose I can sell the
screen and the back -is- handy for checking screen adjustment and gives
me a spare darkslide. Plus I was able to see how crappy the kievs backs
are! <G> All in all I'm happy with what I ended up with and feel
like (from the other K-88's I've handled) this works like a camera is
supposed to. I'm going to hunt down another A12 back or two and and
this should be a nice camera kit.