Going Wide – Kiev 88 with the Zodiac 30mm f/3.5 Lens
The monster-sized Zodiac 30mm f/3.5 lens, which is the equivalent of an 18mm lens on 35mm or “full frame” cameras.
Earlier this year I purchased the Zodiac 30mm medium format lens because I liked what Ari Jaski did with it in several of his videos. This in turn led me to purchase a Kiev 88 to shoot it with. That led me down the rabbit hole of Kiev ownership - and experiencing both joy and heartache.
My “working” Kiev 88 experienced a problem when I took it to Hocking Hills in March of this year, and after that I shelved it for a while. I dusted it off last weekend and figured out that the problem was the arm that moves backwards to set the lens at the proper aperture during the firing process wasn’t moving fast enough. I took it apart, cleaned it, lubed it, and re-installed it. After test-firing it several times I felt that I had fixed the problem.
So now I had no excuse not to FINALLY test out that wide, big, beautiful Zodiac 30mm lens.
I loaded the Kiev with Kodak Gold 200 film and headed out on a very grey and misty day and shot several subjects in downtown Dayton, Ohio.
One thing I noticed right away is that composing on a grey day with the combination of the f/3.5 lens and somewhat dim Kiev focus screen that it was hard to tell if things were in focus. I ended up shooting most of the shots at f/8 and 1/125 and just zone focused with the scale on the lens. At that setting, everything from about 3 feet to Infinity is in focus, so its really just all about composing.
It’s been a long while since I’ve shot with such wide lens. 30mm on 6x6 medium format works out to about the equivalent of 18mm on 35mm/full frame. It’s definitely not rectilinear, as it tends to bend everything inwards, especially when shooting upwards at a subject. While wasn’t marketed as a fisheye lens, to me it really performs like a fisheye.
Below are some images from the roll. Click on the first image to expand and scroll through.
Here are my thoughts.
First - I’m stoked that I successfully fixed the Kiev and that these images turned out well. Fingers crossed that’s the last thing I’ll have to fix on it for a good while.
Second - The lens is SHARP. From the shot with the Abraham Lincoln statue, here is a 100% zoom into the scene to read the plaque. It looks great (other than the distortion of course).
Third – Man, this thing bends both space and time! Everything is just curving inwards, almost as if it is sucking it in like a black hole.
Whew - what was I thinking? There’s not enough adjustment in Lightroom or Photoshop to bring this one back. You live and learn I guess.
Truth be told, by the time I got to the last few shots on the roll I was already tiring of the wideness and distortion. There was a phase during my early photography growth period where I shot EVERYTHING with a fisheye lens and thought it was just so cool. Heck I even shot most of the images during a trip in Germany with an 8mm – 16mm lens stuck on my D7000. I look back on those images now and regret that all of the cathedrals look like they are going to fall over onto me.
So is it a gimmick? Maybe. Especially if you make the mistake of shooting every shot on a roll with it. But having it in your bag for those one or two shots where it can help look at a subject in a different way or maybe add some uniqueness to the perspective. This is where I think the real value lies with this lens.
Is it a good, cheaper alternative to the Hasselblad SWC with its native 38mm lens? No, not by a longshot. If you want beautiful, wide images with straight verticals, the SWC is the way to go. At first, I thought the actual ground glass of the Kiev might make it better for checking critical sharpness versus the detached viewfinder of the SWC, but ultimately I was just zone focusing anyway with the Kiev which gives it no benefit over the SWC.
It is, however, a fun lens to play with and use sparingly. I think its worth keeping in the bag if I am taking the Kiev out to shoot.
Let’s just hope it doesn’t let me down again.
As always, thanks for reading.
Jeremy