The Kiev 60 has a reputation that is mostly unfair. It gets dismissed as a cheap Soviet copy of the Pentacon Six, which is wrong on both counts. The two cameras share a lens mount and a general silhouette. They do not share internals, design philosophy, or build quality. In some important ways, the Kiev 60 is actually a better camera than the Pentacon Six.
It is also a beast. Large, heavy, mechanical, fully manual except for the optional metered prism. Mine is in genuinely lovely condition and works beautifully. It runs through 120 film at 6x6, takes the same Carl Zeiss Jena lenses that fit the Pentacon Six TL, and produces images that compete with cameras costing three to four times the price.
This is a review based on a couple of weeks of shooting it across landscapes, environmental work, and studio portraits.
What it is
The Kiev 60 was built in Kiev, Ukraine, from 1984 to 1999 at the Arsenal factory. Production began while Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union and continued through and beyond the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991. This is why it is often referred to as a Soviet camera, although the later production years were post-Soviet.
It is the successor to the Kiev 6C (1976-1986), which was the same factory’s earlier 6x6 SLR. Production overlapped briefly. The 60 is the more refined of the two, with various improvements to reliability and ergonomics.
Fully mechanical body. No batteries needed for the camera itself. The optional TTL metering prism uses a battery, but the shutter, mirror, and film transport all work without any electrical power.
120 film, 6x6 frames, 12 exposures per roll. Standard medium format proposition.
Pentacon Six lens mount. This is the crucial detail. The Kiev 60 takes the same breech-lock mount as the Pentacon Six and the Exakta 66, which means an enormous available pool of lenses across the German and Soviet manufacturers. I will come back to this.
![PLACEHOLDER: the Kiev 60 with the Carl Zeiss Jena Biometar 80mm f2.8 mounted, showing the size and the chunky form factor]
The “is it a Pentacon Six copy” question
This comes up every time someone discusses the Kiev 60 online, so worth addressing properly.
What the Kiev 60 shares with the Pentacon Six: the general silhouette, the upright SLR form factor, the lens mount. That is the lot.
What the Kiev 60 does not share: the internals, the shutter design, the mirror box, the wind mechanism, the build quality. These are different cameras designed by different people in different countries at different times for different purposes.
The myth that the Kiev 60 is a Pentacon Six copy comes from two things. First, the visual similarity. Second, a general Cold War-era assumption that Eastern Bloc engineering was always copying Western designs. Neither of these is good evidence.
Look at the actual cameras side by side and the differences become obvious. The Pentacon Six has a focal plane shutter with a particular feel and sound. The Kiev 60 has a different shutter mechanism with a more positive action. The wind mechanism is different. The viewfinder bright screens are different. The handling is different.
What they share is strategic positioning: both cameras are upright 6x6 SLRs designed to compete in the medium format market, both with interchangeable lenses and finders. They arrive at similar form factors because that is what 6x6 SLRs look like. The Kiev 60 is its own design, and a fairly good one.
The shared mount is the key feature
This is the bit that genuinely matters for buying decisions.
Because the Kiev 60, the Kiev 6C, and the Pentacon Six share a mount, the available lens ecosystem is enormous. Lenses for this mount were made by:
- Carl Zeiss Jena (East Germany)
- Pentacon (East Germany)
- Arsenal (Soviet Union, with the Volna and Mir branded lenses)
- Schneider-Kreuznach (the rarer earlier lenses for the original Pentacon Six, also fit)
That is an unusually broad pool for any medium format mount. Pricing is reasonable for most of it. The Carl Zeiss Jena lenses especially are the high-value choice: properly excellent optics at prices that would not buy you the equivalent Hasselblad-mount Zeiss glass.
I used three lenses on this review:
- Carl Zeiss Jena Biometar 80mm f2.8 (standard length)
- Carl Zeiss Jena Flektogon 50mm f4 (wide)
- Carl Zeiss Jena Sonnar 180mm f2.8 (portrait length)
All three are excellent. The Biometar and the Flektogon are sharp, contrasty, well-corrected lenses that give you genuinely good results out of the camera. The Sonnar 180mm is the kind of portrait lens you would happily pay considerable money for if it had a Hasselblad mount on it.
The Schneider lenses are reputed to be even better than the Zeiss but they are rarer and pricier. I have not used any. The Volna and Mir lenses (the Soviet-made options) are more variable in quality but include some excellent budget options.
The shoots
I took the Kiev 60 out for a couple of different sessions, with mixed films and lenses.
Session 1: Severn Bridge, England-Wales border. Started with the 50mm Flektogon, switched to the 80mm Biometar mid-roll. I had loaded Portra 400 a few weeks earlier for a London trip that did not happen, and had forgotten to label the camera. I made an educated guess that it was Portra 400 and metered accordingly. It turned out I was right.
The light was interesting: a broken low cloud layer over the Severn estuary, decent definition in the sky, no direct sun. I shot some wider compositions of the bridge and the surrounding landscape, then closer detail on an abandoned-looking building near the bridge. f6.3 to f11 across most of the roll, 250th to 500th of a second handheld.
Session 2: more Severn Bridge, Kentmere 400 with orange filter. Switched to black and white for the sky-and-building work, with the orange filter on the Biometar 80mm to darken the sky. Got some nice high-contrast results before running out of film.
Session 3: Bergger Pancro 400. This roll ended in disaster, though it was nothing to do with the camera. The whole roll came out with lines across the negatives, which I am attributing to fixer fatigue. Bergger Pancro is well known to need a generous fixing time, and my fixer was getting on a bit. Lesson learned. Nothing to show from this roll except some interesting unintended effects.
Session 4: studio self-portraits with the Sonnar 180mm f2.8. Limited setup in my garage studio, two LED Kickstarter lights either side of where my face would be, Reveni Labs remote release in hand, a roll of Tri-X 400 in the camera. The Sonnar has stuck aperture blades on this copy (permanently at f2.8) and some cleaning marks plus residual fungus haze, but I wanted to use it wide open anyway. Got some genuinely lovely portraits, plus some frames with what looked like light leaks or lens flare (more on this below).
![PLACEHOLDER: a Severn Bridge landscape from the Biometar 80mm on Portra 400, showing the kind of result the Kiev 60 produces with good glass]
The mirror box problem
This is the Kiev 60’s most-discussed flaw and worth understanding.
The inside of the mirror box on the Kiev 60 is painted gloss black, not matt. This means that under certain lighting conditions, stray light bounces around inside the mirror box and produces flare on the resulting frames. The Pentacon Six does not have this problem in the same way (its mirror box flocking is different).
For most shooting, this does not show up. Mid-aperture, normal light, no problem. Where it appears is in high-contrast situations with bright light sources near or just outside the frame.
My studio self-portraits showed this. With two LED lights pointing at my face from close range, you would expect some lens flare on any camera. But what I saw on those Tri-X frames was more than I would expect from the Sonnar lens alone. The most likely explanation: stray light hit the lens, bounced off the gloss black mirror box, and produced veiling flare on the film.
The fix exists. A company in Ukraine called Arax specialise in repairing and upgrading Kiev cameras, and they sell what they call a mirror box flocking kit specifically for the Kiev 60 and Kiev 6C. It is a coating that goes on the inside of the mirror box to make it properly matt black. People who have done this upgrade report meaningful improvement in flare resistance.
I have not done this upgrade on my camera yet. It is on the list. If you are buying a Kiev 60, factor in the cost of either getting Arax to do the flocking kit or doing it yourself.
The Sonnar lens itself may also be contributing to the flare I saw, given it has some haze and cleaning marks. So this is not entirely the camera’s fault. But the gloss mirror box is a known issue, and the fix is straightforward.
Reliability and reputation
The Kiev 60 has a reputation for unreliability that is similar to the Pentacon Six’s but skews slightly worse. The common issues:
- Frame spacing: uneven gaps between frames on the developed roll
- Shutter problems: speeds going out of calibration, occasional sticking
- Light leaks through age-deteriorated foam seals
There is an oft-repeated story that quality control at the Arsenal factory in Kiev was poor during the Soviet era, with emphasis on quantity over quality, leading to inconsistent build between camera examples. This is partly true and partly Cold War mythology. The Pentacon Six suffers from many of the same issues despite being made in East Germany rather than Soviet Ukraine, so the “Soviet bad, German good” narrative does not really hold up.
The practical reality: buy a Kiev 60 from a reputable seller who has tested it, expect it might need a service, factor in the Arax flocking upgrade. A well-sorted Kiev 60 is a genuinely lovely camera. A neglected one will frustrate you.
My example has not shown any frame spacing problems across the rolls I have shot. The shutter is well within tolerance on all speeds, which I verified with a shutter speed tester. I may have got lucky. It is also possible that a lot of the reliability complaints come from cameras that have been poorly stored for decades and need a basic service, rather than from inherent design problems.
How it compares to the Pentacon Six TL
Worth saying directly because the comparison comes up.
The Pentacon Six TL is the more famous camera and gets discussed more. It is also the easier camera to find. Production was longer, distribution was wider in the West, and there are simply more of them in circulation. The metered TL prism is a nice feature.
The Kiev 60 is, in my view, the more interesting camera. The build quality on a well-sorted example is genuinely good. The handling is, marginally, more positive (the shutter has a more confident sound and feel than the Pentacon Six’s “dull thud”). The Soviet-era origin makes it slightly cheaper on the secondhand market, despite often being functionally equivalent or better.
If I were buying one of these two cameras today, I would probably look for a Kiev 60 in good condition before a Pentacon Six TL, especially if I planned to get the Arax flocking done. You get the same lens system access, slightly more confident build, marginally lower price.
But if you happen to find a clean Pentacon Six TL at a better price, that is also a fine camera and the choice barely matters. The lens you put on either body is what determines the quality of your results.
Verdict
The Kiev 60 is a genuinely good camera that suffers from an unfair reputation as a Pentacon Six imitation. It is its own design, it works well, and it gives you access to the same excellent lens ecosystem.
Buy it if: you want a 6x6 medium format SLR on a budget, you want access to Carl Zeiss Jena glass at reasonable prices, you do not mind a heavy camera, you are willing to budget for a possible service and the Arax flocking upgrade.
Avoid if: you specifically want a refined, polished modern experience (look at a Bronica SQ or Hasselblad 500 series), you are sensitive to weight (the Kiev 60 plus a lens is 2kg+), you cannot find a copy that has been tested and serviced.
There are excellent resources for further reading:
- pentaconsix.com has extensive history of the shared mount system across all the cameras that use it
- Arax in Ukraine for repairs and the mirror box flocking kit
- The 35mmc Kiev 60 TTL review by Michael Elliott
- Camerapedia for production history details
Big thanks to whoever was on the receiving end of my distracted self-portrait session in the garage. (It was me. Hi.)