The Kiev-5 is a very special camera made by the Arsenal plant in Kiev. It was a bold attempt to improve the classic Contax design, which was copied in the Kiev models since 1948. First Kiev-5s appeared in the mid 60's, the production started in 1967 and lasted till 1973. I do not have exact production numbers for the Kiev-5, but do know that this camera is very uncommon, many would call it rare.

The Kiev-5 is a substantial camera, large, heavy and well made. It looks like a regular Kiev rangefinder with a superstructure. The shutter and the body of the camera are indeed taken from a Kiev-4 of the same vintage. But the rest (the new top part) is very different.

The lensmount was changed, only external bayonet was left. This required a normal lens with an external bayonet (all 50 mm lenses in Contax/Kiev mount had internal bayonet). A new flavor of the Jupiter-8 was designed - the Jupiter-8 NB (NB is for External Bayonet in Russian). The lens is the same as the Jupiter-8M optically, but it looks very different. The aperture dial is now at the base of the lens. A lens shade is a part of the lens barrel.

The new rangefinder is probably the most significant and complex system of the Kiev-5. Its base is smaller than in Contax, but it is still very accurate. The image in the viewfinder is very bright and large (looks almost like the VF of the Leica M-series). There is an illuminated brightline frame for 50 mm lens inside the viewfinder. It seems that the outside borders of the viewfinder frame correspond to a 35 mm lens. The brightline frame is parallax corrected, it moves when the lens is focused.

The film advance can now be done in two ways. You can turn the winding knob as usual, or you can use the crank lever for faster action (see image).

The frame counter is combined with the meter needle in the same window. It resets to "0" when the back door is removed.

The rewind crank is on the left side of the superstructure, I guess the sophisticated rangefinder design forced it there.(fedka.com)

The fifth picture shows an earlier verion of the Kiev-5 with the flash socket below the meter and a Kiev-4 type self-timer lever. David Tomlinson.

Known serial numbers:

0000100 Andrey Semenenko

6800011 DVD Technic