TTArtisan's cunning little light meter

It's small, it looks good, it fits on my old film cameras and it doesn't break the bank. What's not to like?

Well, according to some reviews, these meters just aren't very accurate. For the first few weeks, I thought I had one of those inaccurate meters - until I realised that I wasn't using it correctly. Turns out I had a bad case of RTFM. Now that I've read the manual, I'm happy with the meter and the results agree with the old hand-held meter that I brought from Boots The Chemist sometime in the 1960s (yes, that one still works).

The TTArtisan light meter and its packaging.

Somehow, I had got confused by the little button on the back of the TTArtisan light meter, thinking that it was the "On" switch; turn it on, point the meter at the light, adjust the dials and get your settings. Simple. No, no, no! The manual (which I had only skimmed) makes it clear that this is the "Metering button". First, you point the meter at the scene, THEN you press the button and adjust the dials appropriately. The meter is NOT constantly metering the scene; only when the button is pressed. 

What I had been doing was turning it on (actually taking a reading), then pointing it at the scene and adjusting the dials. No wonder the readings were all over the place - it could have been pointing anywhere when I 'turned it on'. I wonder how many experienced 'geniuses' (like me) relied on their old knowledge of light meters, got bad readings and blamed this little light meter?

The light meter attached to the Kiev 4a

There really isn't anything not to like here; the TTArtisan light meter is everything it appears to be AND it does the job well. Oh, and it comes in a nice little box with a screwdriver to change the position of the foot if needed. Just a pity a battery wasn't included and that I didn't heed the instruction to "Please read the manual carefully before use."

About $78 (if you can find one) from TTArtisan.

This camera is a mutt

... and I love it. It's also a camera with history.

As a user of vintage cameras, there was a time when I wanted an older Leica. The Leica name is synonymous with excellent build quality (and stratospheric prices). But, as time went on, I became aware that all was not necessarily perfect in Leica land. Those prized, early, Barnack Leicas, had issues that made them less than perfect working cameras. Nice to keep on the shelf perhaps, but not so nice to be taking photos with. (See here for a rundown of the issues: https://petapixel.com/2022/12/21/barnack-quirks-an-intro-to-shooting-with-early-35mm-leica-cameras/)

In 1930s  Germany though, there was a camera specifically designed by Zeiss Ikon to out-Leica the Leicas of the time. The Contax was designed to be everything a Leica was and then some. While the first Contax suffered from being somewhat rushed to market, it was the Contax II from 1936 that delivered the goods, beating Leica with an integrated viewfinder/rangefinder, better shutter mechanism, faster shutter speeds, better film loading, and a significantly more accurate rangefinder. 

The original Contax II from 1936

The Contax II became a much sought-after camera for working professionals, especially press photographers, who needed a small camera which delivered great image quality and was able to take the punishment dished out in daily use. Production of the Contax in Dresden survived the war years and continued post-war until the Russians dismantled the factory and moved the manufacturing plant and most of the German engineers to Kiev in Ukraine.

Production of the Contax continued in Kiev using the same machine tools and technicians as in the Dresden factory. Nothing changed except for the name - Contax was dropped in favour of the name "Kiev" after the city in which it was now produced. Some of the early Kiev cameras still had "Contax" embossed on the inside of the front plate.

My copy of the Kiev 4a - the flash sync port was a later addition.

Production of Kiev cameras continued largely unchanged for the next 40 years. They progressed from Kiev to Kiev2, Kiev3 and Kiev 4 with only minor changes until production was finally terminated in 1987. During the 1980s, the quality of the Keiv cameras started to suffer as a result of ageing machine tools and the loss of all the original Contax staff. It is rumoured that, in the 1980s, whole batches of Kiev cameras were dumped because they didn't pass quality control. 

The Kiev 4a - opened for loading film

As a camera from 1977, the Kiev is not very impressive - most cameras of the era were much more sophisticated. But, as a camera designed in 1936, it was already streets ahead of its Leica contemporaries and makes a very useable camera for anyone who knows their 'f' stops from their shutter speeds. I took it for a walk around our local school to test it out and came away impressed.

Kiev 4a, f8 @ 1/125, Ilford FP4

So, my replacement for the Leica which I can't afford is a Kiev 4a. Basically, a 1936  camera designed by Contax in Germany but built in Kiev in 1977. If this camera were a dog, it would be a mutt.

(Support Ukraine; buy an old Russian camera.)