I recently purchased an Arax 60 body from the Ukraine to replace my Kiev 60 for medium format macrophotography. The main reason for doing this was: 1. The Arax 60 has a Mirror Lock Up button to reduce vibration. 2. The Arax doesn't have the winding on issue that the Kiev had and 3. my Kiev's TTL prism finder had broken so I needed to buy a new one and, what the hell, why not stick a brand new body on the prism finder just because it has an MLU button.
The Kiev 60 kit I purchased some years ago came with two extension tubes (20 and 40 mm) and a 80mm lens and I completed the kit by purchasing a Carl Zeiss Jenner 50mm Flektagon lens and (more recently) a Jupiter 250 f3.5 lens.
There is no better place to test out a camera than a graveyard and so I decided to visit two local churches that have caught my eye when out on training rides - one in the village of Braughing and the other 5 minutes drive up the road in Little Hormead. By coincidence both are dedicated to St Mary the Virgin. A fact I only found out tonight, one week after having visited both churches.
I like the optics of the FSU lenses - not too sharp and just the right amount of contrast, but I was disappointed to see a couple of faults with the kit. The first is that the 250 lens has a light leak and the second is that the negatives shot with faster shutter speeds have a dark band on the right hand side of the negative as if the shutter is sticking. I am not sure what to do about the light leak on the lens but I can stick to slower shutter speeds to solve the uneven exposure. Clearly though some more testing is required.
Pleasingly though there was nothing wrong with the negatives where I used the extension tubes for some close ups of gravestones - this means that the Arax is perfect for the macro work for which it was purchased.
The images below are from the Braughing St Mary the Virgin
