This review is about the Mir-38 65mm f/3.5 lens. This is a medium format lens built by Arsenal for their medium format cameras. As a medium format lens, the 65mm falls between the 80mm standard lens and the 45mm wide angle lens. Not quite a wide angle, but certainly wider than a standard lens. Sort of a 40mm lens in 135 film parlance. The Mir-38 supplemented and later replaced the Mir-3 65mm f/3.5 in the Arsenal line-up and was built in an early and late version. The early version can be recognized by the 'Takumar-style' focusing ring and was replaced in the 1980s by the late version pictured below. The specifications below apply to both versions, however the two Mir-38s I own are both later versions so my findings are limited to the late model only.
Specifications:
Focal length: 65mm
Minimal focus distance: 0.5 meters
Aperture: f/3.5 - f/22
Aperture blades: 6
Lens elements: 6 elements in 5 groups
Diameter: 72mm
Mount: Salyut/Kiev and Pentacon six
Manufacturer: Arsenal
Built: 1972-1993
Use
Both the early and late versions of this lens were built by Arsenal in Kiev with two different camera mounts: A screw mount for their Salyut/Salyut-C/Kiev 88 series cameras called the Mir-38V and the Pentacon six mount for their Kiev 6S/Kiev 60 series cameras plus the Kiev 88CM called the Mir-38B. For this review I used lenses with both mounts, a 1984 Mir-38B and a 1990 Mir-38V.
The biggest difference between these two lenses is of course the lens mount, but the 1990 Mir-38V also has a Depth of Field (DoF) preview button, something the 1984 Mir-38B lacks. Both lenses focus fine although the focusing rings from both lenses feel a bit "heavy" in use. Both stop down from f/3.5 to f/22 without issue. I also noted that the 1990 Mir-38V has a rather loose aperture ring.
In the field
I used the Mir-38V on my Kiev 88 and the Mir-38B with a P6-Pentax 645 adapter on my Pentax 645D. The DoF preview button on the Mir-38V is said to be a potential light leak so I used a bit of gaffer tape to cover it up. The loose aperture ring on the 1990 Mir-38V was a bit of a pain in the lower regions, it meant constantly checking if the aperture hadn't changed accidentally. Other than that, both lenses were a joy to use and the heavy focusing didn't bother me at all once in the field.
The images below were shot with my Kiev 88 fitted with a 645 back and loaded with Fomapan Profi Line Classic 100 120 film, the negatives scanned by an Epson V850 Pro and resized in Adobe Photoshop from 9,968 x 7,247 pixels to 1,000 x 727 pixels.
The color images were shot with my Pentax 645D, converted from RAW to JPEG and resized in Adobe Photoshop from 7,264 x 5,440 pixels to 1,000 x 749 pixels.
I am really pleased with the images the Mir-38 65mm f/3.5 produces. Clean crisp images with a lovely color rendering.
Wide open this lens produces nice sharp images and as can be seen on both 100% crops the out-of-focus bokeh is smooth and not distracting at all. On a full frame medium format camera this 65mm lens provides a very good semi-wide angle lens and on a digital medium format camera with a crop sensor an excellent standard lens. It is not the fastest medium format lens around but its performance is good all across the board. Recommended.
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