Ideas for Interview Questions

Hi all!

I will soon have an opportunity to interview a former Soviet photo-journalist (he probably worked as one in 60s or 70s). I would like to pick his brains about the cameras used, preferred, sought after, tricks and tips. I would like to get some ideas from you for questions to ask him. I will of course post the results of the interview. This is to be purely discussion of photographic equipment from his point of view and not of photo-journalism itself.

So post questions to ask him and whatever comes to your mind.

Thanks!
Vlad.

-Naturally those about cameras and ranking: Almaz, Zenit (which) and Kiev?

-Exp meters: why so many CCCP-cameras have none (eg A103) or kept poor selenium ones?

-Film: From DDR or where, how well was it available, what quality? And batteries?

Smena rules

Hi Vlad,

This interview could be an opportunity to ask what these "A" and "b" letters before the s/n of Kievs mean?

Best regards,
Michel.

Thank you guys, although Michel, I think what's you're asking he not going to know, he is not a collector and I don't think he's associated to any manufacturer to any way, he just was a photojournalist, so the most we can probably find out is the usage trends of certain cameras and optics in his field, which will provide certain historical background for us on the demand or non-demand of certain produced pro-level equipment at the time of manufacture.. which may explain some of the manufacturing decisions on some factories....

VLad

Anything he says would be very interesting - what he personally shot with, was it Soviet or foreign, what did other use? What were the prices then? What was available in stores and what was hard to find?

Talking to professionals is always very enlightening, since they see and judge their tools (and our toys) from a different point of view.

Interesting to know what was his first camera? And what he think is best Soviet foto camera. I would be surprised if he was using soviet cameras for his work, but any way what whould he choose?

May I predict an answers? ;)

Q: ...what was his first camera?
A: Smena

Q: ...ranking: Almaz, Zenit (which) and Kiev? ...what was best Soviet foto camera?
A: Praktica

Q: ...why so many CCCP-cameras have none or kept poor selenium ones?
A: Because in the USSR there were a very poor electronics.

Q: Film: From DDR or where...?
A: A Kodak film was a dream...

;)

Zoom, Hahaha... well I can tell you one thing about Praktica - I've had a conversation recently with a professional licensed photographer from USSR who worked in 1980s, here what he told me in short:

When asked about Praktica, he told me the following: Soviet-made film was so tough and thick that after heavy use the plastic sprockets on the Praktica cameras would wear down, so it was never considered a professional camera for heavy use, but they did use a lot of Zenit E cameras with German lenses, Zenits because they had all metal sprockets. Helios lens, he said, were for playing around and not for pro shoots... (go figure, I always regarded Helios-44 to be excellent...)

That photographer would also do a lot of kindergarten and school pictures,and for that he used a Saluyt camera with a waist finder. Those cameras enjoyed a reputation of being a good high-quality pieces..


Vlad

In the early 70ies I had to choose between Zenit and Praktica here in "free Finland", and as you know I chose Zenit. In my opinion it was better in the priceclass, the more expensive Practicas were not a choice against Japanese cameras.

Smena rules

quote:

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Originally posted by Michel

Hi Vlad,

This interview could be an opportunity to ask what these "A" and "b" letters before the s/n of Kievs mean?

Best regards,
Michel.

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And perhaps the price of a Leica M3 or Contax IIa?

Zhang

What processing was done, Home or commercial , if he knows what brand of chemicals used. What level of control or censorship existed then upon photography and photographers. don

ZORKIE'S Survive

Well Don, I can answer those, since I did do some photography in former USSR.. the chemicals were either bought pre-made (some generic Soviet brand) or a lot of people would just mix them themselves by components. Most of the processing was done at home, some photo stores would do it but it was quite expensive, I remember my father would only drop off color slides for processing there, but black and white we would do together at home.

I will ask about censorship, that's an interesting topic, even though I'm mostly interested in equipment used I guess, rather then actual photo-journalism aspect itself...

Vlad.

Zhang,

Leica M3 and Contax IIa were never sold in USSR as far as I know... only if someone brought it with them from outside the country and sold them.. there was no official pricing for these cameras.

I will be conducting an interview with this person on Monday, so I will post my results as soon as I organize them in written form.
Thanks for all your suggestions!

Vlad.

Hello everybody,

During my time working in the FSU, mainly in Uzbekistan, I was lucky enough to have a couple of good friends who were professional photographers.
As far as 35mm photogaphy was concerned they both reckoned that the Kiev IV was the best and most reliable camera for professional use.
In fact I have in my collection a very, very, brassy and well used Kiev IV that seems to have a character of it's own. The leatherette covering has been worn shiny where in contact with hands. This camera shows obvious signs that it has taken many thousands of photo's, but still works perfectly.
For some reason this camera even though so worn and well used feels so good in the hands, and the sound of the shutter is like music.
Do I sound like a fool, or does anybody else understand what I mean?

Jim,

I know exactly what you mean! I can probably say for all collectors here, that we all do , otherwise we would not be so obsessed about collecting all these wonderful pieces.. Would be interesting if you conduct a formal type of interview with these people and post those as articles in Member Article and Blogs section.. I'm sure background information about any of the equipment and how it was used, how long, what cameras were used for what purposes etc would be very beneficial for our knowledge pool and for any kind of future research.


Vlad

Well... I had quite an interesting and short conversation with this aforementioned photo-journalist.. in some ways quite disappointing:

He was a freelance photo-correspondent in Kiev in 1970s, often working with teams of photographers. For example, they would be sent on assignments by major newspapers and magazines to factories and farms to take photographs of either the management (color portraits) or machinery and premises (usually black and white).

When I asked him what equipment had he used - he said Leica (pre-rangefinder model), which he had acquired from a WWII veteran who brought it from Germany and a MF RolleiFlex. When asked, have you ever used Soviet equipment, he started laughing and said "What, for work?! Are you serious?". Then he stated that he never used a Soviet equipment for professional job since it was very unreliable and would fail at critical moments. He said he tried using the Salyut but quickly switched back to his Rolliflex after he found the camera very quirky and unpredictable.

Also mentioned he knew some people from Arsenal factory that worked on Salyut, and that they would basically copy German cameras and did it badly. Unfortunately he did not remember any other information in regards to Arsenal.

None of his colleagues would use Soviet equipment in their line of work. One time, he said, his Leica fell into water, so he had a Smena 1 with his that he dusted off as a back-up and finished shooting with that. But other than that instance, the Soviet equipment was never utilized. He went on to open a photo-studio later on but kept on using the same 2 German cameras.

Regarding the film used: for black and white they would use Soviet film called Shostka (maybe some of you heard of it), and for color, he would ask people that would go to Moscow to acquire Kodak film for him. His first camera was that same RolleiFlex.

In stores he said the Soviet cameras were freely available at the time, and only amateurs would buy it. These cameras cost a lot at the time and he said for such high price you would get very unreliable pieces. He did not remember much in terms of more exact prices, he said it was very long time ago.

So, sorry gentlemen, unfortunately this person had not had a lot of experiences with Soviet manufactured equipment and maintained a very negative impression about it. I will keep on looking for more candidates for another interview. Zoom was very close in his own answers to this gentleman

Vlad

Vlad do not be surprised or disappointed about this interview. Most if not all photographers in former USSR have same opinion about made in USSR cameras, film, photo-chemicals . I wasn’t a photographer, and I had same impression back then. Now I know how all this true, but bases for these roomers are solid.
Shostka was film and photo paper and chemical factory in Ukraine. But I do not recall that it made any superior or more desirable film then others(Svema or Tasma). But I can be wrong.

Okynek,

I'm not surprised or disappointed about the fact that he did not use the Soviet equipment, I'm more disappointed that he was so out of loop about it...

Vlad.

quote:

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Originally posted by Vlad

Regarding the film used: for black and white they would use Soviet film called Shostka (maybe some of you heard of it)...

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Shostka is the town with a big chemical and film plant (now closed). You know it brand: SVEMA.

Vlad, you could do better interviewing Zoom, or me:-)

Most 'party' (Communist Party that is), or official photographers used foreign equipment. Some of them traveled abroad and bought it there, some got their cameras through other channels. This was the top tier of photographers, those who got published in magazines, newspapers, etc.

But "second" tier photographers (street work, local newspapers, weddings, etc) did use Soviet cameras, not by choice, but this is what they could get. Medium format was a pro choice, and Moskva and Salyut were two top models - this is something I witnessed myself.
Kiev rangefinders were the most common 35mm cameras.
I actually belonged to this second (more like third) tier, and used Zenit-E most of the time. It worked, but if I was shooting alone, I always needed a second body, since Zenit could break without warning at any moment). Since I could not afford having it, I would borrow it from other.

The film: There were two common film brands - Svema (Shostka, Ukraine), and Tasma (Kazan, Russia). We preferred Svema - it was a very good film, especially slow one, GOST 32 and 65 (about the same in ISO).
Soviet-made color film was bad, we tried to find ORWO (East German), which was OK, and their slide film quite good.

<<In stores he said the Soviet cameras were freely available at the time, and only amateurs would buy it. These cameras cost a lot at the time and he said for such high price you would get very unreliable pieces. >>

I want to elaborate here. yes, some cameras were freely available, but either outrageusly complex and expensive (Kiev-15) or crap, like Shkol'nik or Smena.
Anything in between, that people actually wanted - good inexpensive cameras like Zenit-E, FED-5 - were almost impossible to find.

Speaking about interviews - this one is with me:-). Some 10 years ago.
http://home.cfl.rr.com/lenswerks/new_page_91.htm