Hello everyone,

In this segment I want to show several Chinese technical equipment that fascinated me for years.

That way enabling you, dear readers, in getting in touch with the unknown precision Industry of China.

To begin with, I found a decent image of the famous Chinese Leica M4 copy, the Red Flag 20 with its accessary lenses. Less than 200 cameras were made between 1970-1977 under the instruction of Mao's wife- Madam Jiang. Madam Jiang used a M3 or maybe sometimes a Kiev 4. Production cost for a Red Flag 20 camera alone was about US$6,000 in 1970's dollars, so that you can understand why I never had a chance to handle one. Even an image like this is not that easy to find now.
However, I do managed to find a Red Flag mechanical watch and a 16mm sine camera with the same Mao's style logo.

I heard that the optical and mechanical quality of those accessory lenses are comparable to their German originals.

Another image is a close-up of an early Shanghai 58-2 in near mint condition in my collection.

Cheers,

Zhang

 

 

 

 

Have you got some interesting Chinese cameras to add to your collection of Russian gears?
Here is an image of a top end Chinese SLR FYI, These are the Pearl River cameras and it is a rare "gold" plated edition version made by the factory. And a black one as well.

Cheers,

Zhang

 

 

Zhang, here are some more JPEGs...The first ones are from Leica Copies, by HPR; the last, courtesy of Jessops in London, is from 300 Leica Copies by Pont/Princelle, which says the camera's quality was "hazardous". HPR says the camera was never sold to the public but used as a gift for state visitors and later used by the press, police, universities and hospitals...regards, Bob Cole



more to kum ...the machine is acting up bob cole

 

 

Thanks for your interest. Although not a rangefiner camera, It is certainly much rarer than the Red Flag 20. This is a Chinese high speed 16mm cine camera. Only some 60 cameras were made until recently.
I is also much less often seen than the 16mm Red Flag and 35mm Heping (peace) cine cameras. This is the Chun Feng SX16K

I am a hopeless GAS

Kind Regards

Zhang

 

Many thanks for the kind words.

I will try to find more images of interesting vintage Chinese cameras plus some of mine.

Here is a prototype Shanghai 58-1. Less than 2000 Shanghai 58-1s were made in 1958, and a prototype is a super rare camera! It looks like an exact copy of a Leica III F. The image is from a Chinese cameras site. 试制品 means prototype.

Also an image taken with a Seagull TLR by JINYU (gold fish).

Now PSed a bit of the top image of this 58-1 FYI.

 

 

 

Here is an image of the popular(more common) Red Flag S-16 16mm spring drive movie camera. I saw a rare motor drive version last year, but I did not buy it. This image is from another collector. I have a same one.

Another image is a much less often seen;  Heping (peace) motor drive 35 mm movie camera. I saw a couple of them for sale last year. These were made by the same factory that made those Phenix 205 rangefnder cameras.

 

 

 

 

Dong Feng (East Wind) 120 SLR

Dong Feng 120 SLR ,like the Red Flag 20, is another attempt to produce a top end camera. It is a copy of a Hasselblad 500C, but with a top speed of 1/1000 second.
Only 97 cameas were made , and an outfit was retailed at more then RMB 9000 in the 1970's, when a Leica M3 with a normal lens was only about RMB2000-3000.
So the camera was hard to sell for the very high price.

The owner of this camera is a well known Chinese camera collector. I heard that he sold part of his collection of vintage Chinese cameras a few years ago for US$100,000. He also has some other versions of this camera.

BTW, a Kiev 4 was priced at RMB 1200+ in the 1970's as a luxury item. A Rolex watch was only RMB 300+ then. A Chinese Seagull 4A was about RMB 200.

But don't take the price information seriously. That only gives you a rough idea

 

 

Thanks for the kind advice. There are many items that are not mentioned in St. Denny's book, but most are not rangefinder items. That is why I am not sure if they are of any interest for members of this forum.
It seems to me that products made for military use are of considerably higher quality than consumer or civilian products. For example, these two lenses in Hasselblad mount are very high quality products. I have never heard of a 1000mm F8 mirror lens in Hasselblad mount. The 311mm F5 prime lens also delivers high quality images. These may represent the true engineering capability of Chinese optical industry in the early days.

Attached is an image of the 1000/8 mirror lens on a Canon 300D, also  the 311mm F5 lens with IR filter. The 311mm prime lens has no S/N or any marks. I heard these were used for battle field surveys.

Cheers.

 

 

 

**************************

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