The Krasnagorsk

I have been seeing ads for a K-3 16mm camera for really cheap and am now wondering if it is a semi good camera for the low price of below $1000.

My budget is really limited and I am wondering if I should get that camera or wait and save my money for later when I can afford another camera.

Mathias Elgh

I think that the K3 is the same Russian made camera I saw in Moscow last year. I had a look at one there, they were asking something like $100 for it, it looks a lot like the old Bolex's but not as well built. Haven't seen any film shot with one. You have to wonder who will fix it when/if it breaks and if parts will be available, considering the state of the Russian economy.

I'd wait till I had more money for something more well known and proven.

James Neihouse

There's a group called Reel Trading in New York that sells and repairs them. The packages they sell are several hundred dollars, but they have been modified to eliminate a faulty autoloading system and properly calibrated. Reel Trading has a Web page:

http://www.concentric.net/~Jdq/reeltrading.htm

It seems that very few of the cameras are properly calibrated out of the factory, and they jam easily unless they've been modified. Once the modification is done, you have the equivalent of a decent reflex Bolex, without the same lens options (it has a different screw mount--I'm not sure what it is).

I've used it myself, but if I were buying a camera in that range, I would rather have a Bolex.

Chris Ray

I couldn't agree more about the Bolex....I have been to Hell and back a dozen times with a Bolex, and they have never let me down yet....

Kevin Bassett

Surely agreed. The Bolex _is_ my favorite camera for short-run MOS work. I really am impressed with the quality of workmanship on the things, enough that a good one is more stable than some pin-registered cameras I have owned. Admittedly, though, most of the lenses being used with them are pretty dreadful, and the prism arrangement makes it impossible to for me to use many of my favorite lenses. But seeing that you can find a Bolex Reflex for less than $500, it's hard to beat it.

Skip the Krassie, and get me some Sovcolor stock! Is anyone importing the Agfa-style stocks from the eastern bloc, and arranging processing for them? Until about ten years ago, you could get the Agfa reversal stocks and chemistry still, but when the reversal market died they pulled out. A shame, as the ball-and-chain coupler chemistry always gave me a very clean and subtle pastel shading that I miss.

scott dorsey

There was chatter about the Krasnogorsk-3 camera on this mailing list recently.

NCS Products maintains a web page with information about this camera...

http://www.k3camera.com/

You can find it at................