Introduction and first problem

Dear USSR, after having being for a long time a lurker, I decided to register and join the community.

I'm Wulfthar, I'm currently working in the UK and I'm a cameraholic...of course I'm a great fan of Soviet cameras, particularly rangefinders, but at the moment I'm starting to explore the world of SLR.

At the moment I have two Zenit 19s (nice cameras!),a Zenit 12XS and a Kiev 17, a camera that I was looking for for a long, long time.

It arrived last week and I still have to develop the roll I shot with it but as soon as it had arrived I noticed something I hadn't really paid attention during the auction on evilbay:

http://i41.tinypic.com/sw7bf9.jpg

The camera doesn't have the strap eyelit at the left and worse the lens lever is missing! After cutting my finger I was capable to disassemble the Helios 81N ( I had already bought one of the last Granit 11 produced by Arsenal under the Arsat name) and see the camer from inside...but it is really painful!

Anybody know where to find these two bits? Besides that when I place the camera vertically with the right side on the top the shutter doesn't want to fire for unknown reason....but with the left side up it works![?]

I ask council to you Wise People of the USSRphoto board.

Hi Alex, welcome to the forum! For the parts I would check with some big sellers like fedka.com, alex-photo on eBay or Oleg Khalyavin(http://www.okvintagecamera.com/), Yuri Davydenko in Ukraine (http://www.dvdtechnik.com/) .. they may have some laying around.. I checked my stash I only have medium format or rangfinder Kiev parts unfortunately when it comes to Arsenal..

Cheers,
Vlad.

Vlad can you tell me why is this camera so rare?

I feel it's very well built but not particularly sophisticated with no lightmeter etc...I would like to get a Kiev 20 also but the prices are prohibitive!

Alex, I don't think it's rare, you can buy it pretty easily... It's just much heavier than the other models and more solid since it has more metal parts than the later Kiev SLRs...

On ebay there are hundreds of Kiev 19s but yo see a 17 once on a while...and for the 20 they want a lot of money.