Shanghai 7 rangefinder camera

Only prototypes were made. Exact number of cameras is unknown. It looks like a copy of the Zorki 6, one of my favorite Russian rangefinder cameras. Photo was borrowed from www.chineesecamera.net. I wish it was mass produced.

There are two sites with a lot of information for vintage Chinese cameras:

www.sy916.com

www.chinesecamera.net

They have a lot of camera images that are not found anywhere. But they are only in Chinese.

 

Zhujiang 7 TLR

Zhujiang (Pearl River) 7 120 TLR is another China made high end camera. About 50 cameras were made since 1970. It never sold well for the outrageous price of RMB 5,300. Some NOS was still at the factory's sale's store a couple of years ago for RMB 20,000. It is the only Rolleiflex 2.8 copy with a Planar formula taking lens.

RMB 5,300 was about 100 times of a young engineer's monthly salary in the 1970's.

 

 

 

Anamorphic lenses

These anamorphic lenses has not been mentioned before, nor images can be found elsewhere. So I post it here FYI.

35mm/2X Changjiang brand was made in Nanjing, and the 16mm 2x Great Wall brand lens was made in Beijing by a Nr.618 factory. The Nr.618 factory also made many types of 35mm and 16mm cine camera lenses since 1960's. PS: note the logo on the 35mm lens again repeated in the Changjiang camera that I will show at the following pages.

 

I just heard a story that Madam Jiang received a gift from a Iranian delegation, a Leica M4 from the Iranian King, and she liked the camera so much that she thought China should make cameras like this. So the Red Flag 20 might be a copy of a Leica M4 with some Chinese touches?

The blue colored 16mm Chun Feng brand (Spring Wind) cine camera shown in the previous segment, is said to be a copy of an Eclair camera. But I don't think it is an exact copy of anything.

Cheers,

 

Seagull 4A type A and B

Here is one of the earliest Seagull 4 A that is different in some details than later versions. The multi-exposure lock button, the strap lugs, and letters on the front plate are not the same. This is a rare camera. It also has cow leather case, while later ones has a pig hide leather case. This is a very uncommon version of the 4A.

And another image made with a Seagull TLR by the same Jinyu(gold fish).

 

 

 

 

 

Gaojipuguangbiao..   the Shanghai 58 series light meter. Photo courtesy of Mr. Zhao Zhenxin

 

 

Haiou (Seagull)-52 500mm F5 mirror lens

This is another lens not mentioned before. It is a Seagull mount (Minolta?) 500mm F5! mirror lens. Probably only a few hundred lenses were made. It focuses down to 15 meters. Optical quality of this lens and the other US$ 1,800 1000mm F10 mirror lens mentioned in St Denny's book is considerably lower than that of the MF 1000mm F8 mirror lens mentioned earlier.

I don't think either lens is a Russian copy.

At the back is a Chinese exact copy of a Zeiss GLF polarizing microscope made by Shanghai Optical Instruments Factory in 1962. Could a precision camea of Red Flag 20 be more difficult to make than a high grade microscope? When Leica MD was only an accessory of a Leitz microscope?

 

 

 

 

 

Shanghai 58-2 type B and C

Like many Russian cameras, there is a cost-down process for Shanghai 58-2 cameras. The earlier ones with strap lugs are much less often seen, and often sells more.

 

 

 

 

Chinese LF wooden field cameras

China made many brands of LF field cameras in many sizes- 12",8",6" as well as studio multi-format cameras.

The retail price of the Seagull WM 12" camera was RMB 585 without lens, and the 6" one was RMB 370. These cameras were made by Shanghai Nr.4 Camera Factory. The factory also made many LF lenses.

Many other factories also made similar cameras and lenses.

 

 

A book about vintage Chinese cameras could be even more challenging than a one for Russian cameras because there were many more factories of smaller scales that made all sorts of items. I feel a book like that should be written by China Association of Cameras and Watches&Clocks collectors. There is such an Association in Beijing area with a few dozen members. I am not a member yet.
However, I feel I am a more qualified author of vintage mechanical Chinese watches as I am now the co-moderator of this only online English forum for vintage Chinese watches.

http://forums.watchuseek.com/forumdisplay.php?f=72

Here is a 35mm cine zoom lens that should have been made by the Nr.618 factory. But a long time employee of the factory has never heard of it. It is a 35SJ F25-80, 1:2.5 lens with a S/N 72001, and Arri standard mount. I assume only a few prototypes were made.

IIRC, another 35SJ F20-100. 1:2.8 35mm cine zoom lens made by the small factory was still listed on the factory's catalogue for RMB 35,000(!!) a few years ago.

Cheers,

Zhang

 

 

As I raved about this MF 1000mm F8 mirror lens, someone may wish to know how good it really is?
I just took a quick shot this morning and compared it with the Canon 18-55 zoom lens that is also a sharp lens at 55mm at a poster sign about 1000 meters away.

Both images are 100% crops of the original files without PS sharping. This lens could make very good images if the file is re-sized and PSed.

On a canon 300D, it equals a 1600mm lens on a full 35mm frame. As a Medium format lens, it equals the MTO mirror lens in sharpness. I am very happy with its quality.

Now I add a re-sized image of the full frame with a little PS FYI. This is still a medium size JPG file of the Canon 300D.

 

 

 

 

 

Hua Guang 210/5.6 LF lens

This lens is kind of unique among many Chinese LF lenses. It is a 5 element in 3 groups formula.  Many other Chinese LF lenses are either 3 element 3 groups Cooke or 4E/3G Tessar type lenses.

It has a angle of field of 56 degrees and covers 13X18 cm format. And it has a resolution of >250 LP/mm wide open! How could this be possible?

This lens is made of solid brass, and is much better finished than other LF lenses

 

 

A strange TLR

This modified Chinese TLR is said to be used for measuring the height of some tall objectives(trees or buildings). It is a clever idea of using cameras.

 

 

Great Wall DF-1, 2X teleconverter

Great Wall DF 120 cameras has a Tessar type 90/3.5 normal lens so that it should produce some better results than most early TLRs with a Cooke type lens. No other lens was made for this interchangeable lens cameras with a M39 mount.

But there is a rare 2x teleconveter made for this camera and it has helical threads so that some M39 enlarging lenses could also be used. The quality of this teleconverter is very decent.

The DF-1 in the image is better made and finished than a DF-2. It should be the lowest cost 120 SLR. Although it has a limited shutter speed range, it is a much reliable camera than a Kiev 88.

 

 

XIHU and HUAYING rangefinder cameras

In a next page I will show some other Great Wall cameras with details.

Here is a XIHU (West Lake) brand fixed lens rangefinder camera. It was made in small numbers by a camera research institute in Hangzhou. This is a cute little camera about the same size as an Olympus Trip 35. Its 40/2.8 lens is quite sharp.

The Huaying is an attempt to modernize a simple camera by adding a build-in light meter, and it is remarkable that it has a 5E/4G lens with lanthanum glass elements

 

 

 

 

 

Chinese movie camera lenses

 

Here is an example of a Chinese cine camera lens mounted on a Leningrad. It is a 20mm F2 35mm movie camera lens of very high quality. It has an Arri standard mount. It covers a 24X24mm frame. China began to make movie lenses since late 1950's.

Many factories made movie prime lenses ranging from 18mm F1.8,20mm F1.2,35MM F1.15,.... to 2000mm F10 and zoom lenses up to 25-750mm F 1:3.5 for 35mm cine cameras.

Movie lens has less concern for cost so that they sell 10-20 times of the price for a similar photographic lens, and they are much better corrected.

China also made 16mm cine and HD video camera lenses.

I have a zoom video lens 15-90mm F2.4 that looked like a copy of the high quality Zeiss Vario-Tevidon 18-90mm F2 HD video lens.

These lenses are almost unknown outside China.

 

 

More LF lenses

China made many brands LF lenses of various focal lengths as well as high quality aerial survey lenses and process and industrial lenses.

Here are some examples from my collection. In the next thread there are also some LF lenses with build-in shutters.

 

 

 **************************

Página Principal

Página Anterior

Página Seguinte

 

Chinese Pages. Click each number to view:
1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30
31	32	33	34	35	36
37	38	39	40	41	42
43	44	45	46	47	48