As a collection, I have several old cameras at home. If it had not been for the Cultural Revolution, I would have two older cameras. Their loss makes me feel more regretful than losing gold and silver.
Box Camera I don’t know the exact year of production, let alone the country of production. I guess it’s at least a hundred years old, and I don’t know the brand. It is a rectangular box with a very simple structure. It is only suitable for using 120 film. The size of the photo is 6×8 (mm). One roll of film can only take eight pictures. This camera was probably a toy that my uncle had when he was a student (around 1916 to 1918). This camera must have been very cheap, functional, and easy to operate. When loading film, you need to open the outer box. The lens is embedded in the top of the inner box (see the photo above). It is only about ten millimeters and is a single-lens lens. Although I have not used this camera, I have checked its imaging effect using frosted glass . This camera has neither speed nor aperture selection, only one shutter. The shutter speed is estimated to be about one-sixtieth of a second. There is a "normally open" T door next to the shutter. Behind the inner box is a rectangular bell mouth, the inside of the bell mouth is the light chamber, and the two ends outside the bell mouth are cassettes for installing film springs, one on the left and one on the right. There are two small windows horizontally and vertically on the outer cover of the camera, including the shutter and a handle for rotating the film. There is also a retractable leather handle on one side, allowing you to carry the camera in your hand. This camera must not have been worth much at the time, but because of its primitive style and long history, there must be only a small number of them in existence today, and it is undoubtedly a treasure in the collection world.
folding camera There used to be two folding (colloquially known as "leather tiger") cameras at home, one was my father's and is still in storage; the other was my uncle's and was lost during the confiscation of the house during the Cultural Revolution. The camera now in my collection may have been purchased by my father after the 1930s when he was working. It is also an American Kodak. It has a single lens with no speed, four apertures and can only be used at 620. film. I played with this old camera many times with my classmates when I was in high school, and I used it even after I arrived at the Chongming Farm. It left some records of my youth. If my uncle's folding camera hadn't been confiscated from his house, I didn't know where it was hidden, so I only played with it hastily. few minutes. The size of this camera is twice that of an ordinary camera. I have never seen a camera of this size in a consignment store ( Huaihai Road 's "Guojiu" was the largest camera flea market at the time). It looks bulky, but the functions inside are complete, with multiple shutter speeds, multiple apertures, and a tripod device. The condition is also good. It is estimated that because there was no matching film (twice as long as 120 film), it could no longer be used. This camera must have been expensive at the time. If it had been preserved to this day, it would have great collection value. It is a pity to think about it now.
Seagull brand dual lens camera I bought it in a consignment shop near Wujin Road on Sichuan North Road in the late 1980s. At that time, Japanese cameras and color film were imported in large quantities, and people liked to shoot with 135 cameras. The domestic 120 camera has basically been eliminated, so I only bought it for about 20 yuan. I later took a photo with it and the photo turned out great. It has been moved several times in the past thirty years, but fortunately I did not throw it away. The lens may be a little worn now (I wonder if it is mold), and the varnish on the camera casing is also a little warped, and the leather case is also broken.
Seagull DF camera In the 1980s, the Shanghai Camera Factory developed a new camera based on foreign cameras at that time. It used an internationally accepted standard lens, so it could be matched with various lenses such as wide-angle lenses and telephoto lenses. It was also the most advanced camera in the country at that time in terms of functionality. It was very popular when it first entered the market. I remember that the selling price at that time was about 600 yuan, which is equivalent to two months' salary of an ordinary person. I bought it a while back, when sales weren't as hot anymore.Unfortunately, I never used it properly after I bought it. I remember one time when students in school organized a National Day gala, and I used this machine to take photos of the students. When I went to the photo studio to pick up the photos, none of them were printed. It turned out that I forgot that this camera has a shutter-synchronized interlocking button when using the flash. Because it was the first time to use a flash, I forgot about this mechanism, and finally made a trumpet sound [that is, "making a fool of myself"]. The students made many poses, but they were all in vain. I became even more afraid of using this camera from now on, so much so that the lens became moldy. Fortunately, my high school classmate was the manager of the Shanghai Camera Factory, and later I asked him to help me repair the camera. Later, electronic cameras became popular, so my DF became a pendulum camera.
Entering the 21st century, after mobile phones became popular, they also became a substitute for cameras. Therefore, generally people who are not engaged in professional photography have cameras becoming something very far away from them. As a result, those old-fashioned cameras have become treasures favored by collectors. It was once the leading company in the national camera industry. As early as the 1950s, Shanghai Camera Factory first produced 135 cameras - 58 type 1 and 58 type 2. In the 1960s, it also produced Shanghai brand 120 cameras. As far as I know, the Model 58 II is an imitation of the German Leica camera. Of course, it only imitates its appearance and mechanical parts, and the optical lens is far inferior to the world's famous brands. But decades have passed, and I think today our country should have entered the world's advanced level in the field of optical instruments. The FAST five-hundred-meter spherical radio telescope built in Yunnan last year is a good proof. The Chinese finally have a day of pride and pride in precision manufacturing.
