For me the one that will never leave, the one that inspires, the one that excites ever time is my Kiev 88CM. I have owned it for over a decade, shot many films and every time I use it makes me love it even more!

I have never used a Hasselblad, nor do I feel the need to as I don’t have gear envy or lust for the expensive. The humble Kiev is just a delight to use and feels as special to me as anything.

Mine came direct from Kiev in 2012 as new, old stock. And apart from not having it’s original box, it was indeed new! It came with the 80mm Arsenal Arsat-C f2.8 lens which is just incredible for sharpness and detail.

Some of my best images have come from this camera, for example the one above. This was not an easy shot - it was quite dark in the forest, and I didn’t have the correct tripod mount with me. This was shot at 1/15th second with the camera rested on top of my DSLR mounted on the tripod! This is a special place for me, so to capture it in it’s full glory on my favourite camera makes it worthy of being printed big and framed on my wall.

My Kiev is not without issues even though it was effectively new - the winder is far from smooth and makes some unpleasant noises when turning the handle, and the little plastic safety switch on the film back release is broken, but you don’t buy a Soviet era camera and expect perfection like a German built one - but that is all part of the appeal. At the end of the day if your camera does not make you want to shoot with it, your images will suffer.

I could add so many images that I really like from the Kiev, but I won’t!

Who doesn’t love a bit of Cinestill 800T? This was my first roll in 120, so obviously it had to go in the 88CM. I do own a Zenith-80 as well which is smoother and a lot more run-in than the CM, but it falls short of the experience of the utterly beautiful waist level viewfinder of the CM. For this night shoot the Zenith was not an option as the viewfinder is too dark.

I could rave for hours about how much I enjoy and treasure it, but that would get boring!

Even though it is treasured, it needs to be used, and that means standing in the sea with waves crashing against me to get this shot. When you look at the state of some of my cameras after a trip - you can see they are definitely used! I remember having to towel dry my Canon EOS 500 after shooting on a boat in the Norwegian Fjords, and having to brush off the sand and dirt off my Fujifilm X30 after quad biking through the Moroccan desert.

Out of the hundreds of cameras I own, there are only a handful that, if push came to shove, I couldn’t part with - The Kiev 88CM being top of that list.

The ONE - The Kiev 88CM…

Fuji TW-3 - GOAT half frame…