I have used arax and hartblei branded equipment in the past. both of them are what the automotive industry woudl call a tuning shop. they buy the stock products in all their glory and flaws adn tear the stuff apart and start rebuilding with quality in mind. the downside is that the kiev 60 and the 88 series cameras were pretty weak designs to start with, so at best you will get smoother, and maybe more reliable, and definitely prettier since they almost always add a nicer finish to the package.
the arax i had was equivalent to an 88cm. it was beautiful and a joy to use but it did eventually jam becasue a gear tooth sheared off and wedged in the gears between the film advance and shutter cocking mechanism. the same fate a stock kiev might have had. for the money i spent on this i could have gotten an ugly, but equally or even more reliable rebuilt camera from kiev USA, and not had to pay for expensive overseas shipping.
the hartblei i had pre-dated the 88cm but it was again similar, modify an 88 body for a pentacon lens mount, replace the metal shutter with cloth, and add a fancy finish and better light seals. the hartblei seemed smoother and lasted longer than the arax, and the finish was unique, so much so that someone in a national park offered me an absurd amount of money for it so i sold it on the spot. the step up from the model i had had a shutter/mirror cock and de-cock mechanism so you could have full contol over mirror lockup or mirror pre-release functions. those were problematic and now they will only build one like that for special purposes with essentially no warranty. the last thing i got was a kiev 88cm from mike fourman of kievcamera.com in atlanta. it has worked without problem for over a year now and cost me less than half what i paid for the arax and hartblei. the one weakness these things have is uneven exposure across the frame at high shutter speeds. mike sells some kiev 60 models that have supposedly been reworked by hartblei. not as hot rod cameras but just to make sure they worked as advertised rather than the more common state of working only when they want to. film advance and the shutter braking gears have been reworked to make things a little more consistent. the kiev 60 series is so much simpler than an 88 that even the mirror lockup version of the 60 are usually a better investment for most folks. all of mine get used primarily outdoors. the miserable 1/30th flash sync is only useful in the studio where this slow shutter does not invite as much ambient light to cause double images. if you get another kiev 60 and have frame spacing issues, just carry a little masking tape with you and cover about 2 inches of the film leader before you roll it on the take-up spool. this fluff makes the spool diameter seem bigger so it widens the fram spacing and it has never casued me any feeding problems since this part is well covered before the actual film ever makes it to the take-up spool.
one thing that arax and hartblei both do is rework lenses exceptionally well. hartblei is famous for it's tilt-shift modifications of the stock arsat lenses and the machine work in these is nothing short of beautiful. they also have started making their own barrel for the 150mm f2.8 lens. it looks nothing like the rough and ugle 150mm stock lens. they also will polish or strip the coatings off the original lenses and reapply their own multicoating that has been pretty good. i have not used a lens that arax has given this kind of extensive rework, but for sure hartblei has this process down to the point i would not hesitate to buy these lenses fitted for mamiya or pentax medium format cameras.
now if only i could get away from the office more and actually take pictures rather than just write about taking pictures.
(sigh)
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