Kiev 30

The Kiev 30 is a subminiature camera made by the Arsenal factory in Kiev. It takes 16 mm film and gives 14 x 21 mm frames. The record on this model is thin - nearly everything known traces to a single Russian-language source - but the essentials are solid.

The lens is a four-element, three-group design with a 23 mm focal length and a relative aperture of 1:3.5, stopping down to 1:16. The shutter is a focal-plane type, manually cocked, with speeds from 1/2 to 1/500 second. Focusing appears to be fixed, and the viewfinder is a simple optical type. The body is described as compact and lightweight, which is the whole point of a camera in this class.

Production years, original price, dimensions, weight and collector market data are all unrecorded in the available materials. No period reviews of the Kiev 30 surfaced in the usual audio and photography press. High Fidelity (February 1976, p.83) and HiFI-Stereo (February 1959, p.38) carried adjacent coverage in those issues, but nothing on this camera specifically. If you own one and know more, the archive would welcome the correction.

Known specs:

- 16 mm film, 14 x 21 mm frames

- 23 mm f/3.5 four-element, three-group lens; stops to f/16

- Focal-plane shutter, manually cocked, 1/2 - 1/500 sec

- Optical viewfinder, fixed focus