Hocking Hills March 2025 - Curse of the Kiev 88

Mar 17

Canon QL19, Voigtlander Bessa 1, and Kiev 88 all prepped and ready to go hiking.

If you are an avid reader of my blogs you’ll know that I make a few trips a year into the Hocking Hills region, located near the town of Logan, Ohio. It’s a magical place, full of hollows, valleys, Hemlocks, and some of the most interesting rock formations and features found anywhere. Spending time in Hocking Hills makes me feel like I am somewhere else far away. Our March trip this year was blessed by some AMAZING weather, with temps in the mornings around 40F and highs in the 70F to 75F range. If I had to complain about something it was the fact that there wasn’t a cloud in the sky until the last day we were there. I know, I know. What can I say, I’m a photographer.

For this trip I wanted to bring some minimal gear, and more importantly, gear that didn’t weigh me down or cause me to spend too much time taking photos. This trip was going to be more about hiking, spending time together, and just enjoying the weather. So for this trip I brought my QL19 as a lightweight 35mm option for carrying while hiking big distances. I also brought my folding Voigtlander Bessa 1 for lightweight and huge 6x9 medium format negatives. And last but not least, I packed the Kiev 88 with a 45mm f/3.5 lens for some wider shots in 6x6 medium format. That’s it. Well, there was also some film and a light meter in my pack.

All 3 cameras have worked reliably for me in the recent past, so I had high confidence in my choices.

Boy, was I wrong.

Well, the Bessa and the QL19 performed great. They did not let me down. But the Kiev? Well, it developed an issue that I was not aware of, and didn’t realize it until after getting home and developing the film that I shot over the course of the week. Something has gone wrong with the timing inside of the Kiev, where it opens the rear shutter and then stops down the lens, instead of doing both at the same time. It may not sound like a big deal, but at fast shutter speeds like 1/125th and faster, the shutter was open and nearly closed by the time the lens stopped down to f/16 or whatever I had it set to. What resulted were images that were mostly overexposed and also not sharp. You see, most of the time I was zone focusing to get most of what I wanted in focus, but what resulted was just a small sliver of focus somewhere in the image. This resulted in nearly 5 rolls of bad images, with only a few salvageable ones.

Below is an example of one of the bad images. I had the camera set at f/16 and 1/125th, with the focus set so that everything between about 0.6 meters and Infinity should be in focus. But because the lens didn’t stop down fast enough, what was in focus was a small sliver at about 1 meter. Yes it was also over-exposed a few stops, but the Portra 800 handled that well. Too bad the film couldn’t do anything to make the focus better though!

Well you live and learn I guess. I thought I had prepared well and done everything correctly, but obviously more than a few rolls through the Kiev 88 were needed to ensure a worry free trip. I checked the other two lenses I have for it and the 30mm stops down fine, and the 80mm has to be manually stopped down anyway. So while I was close to throwing the Kiev in the bin yesterday, I’ll stick with it a bit more. But it sure did make me wish I had brought one of my Hasselblads instead.

Thankfully, images from the other two cameras turned out great.

The Canonet QL19 is just a joy to shoot with, and requires little-to-no thinking when hiking and seeing something that I want to capture. Paired with 400 speed film, the QL19 made for an almost perfect hiking in the woods camera. Below are some images shot on Portra 400 and Ultramax 400 films. Click on the first image to enlarge and scroll through.

On the last day there we hiked the Benua Trail at Clear Creek to the remains of the old Green Mansion. The Bessa weighed almost nothing in my pack and was fun and easy to shoot with when we were at the mansion ruins. Combined with some Kodak Gold 200 it made some great, sharp, big negatives. Zone focusing is easy with the Bessa, and the reward is that it nails it almost every time. Click on the first image below to enlarge and scroll through.