Pearl River S-201
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| Pearl River S-201, Serial-# J-1206334 image by Christoph Batz (Image rights) |
The Pearl River ("Zhe Jiang") S-201 was the most complete 35mm system SLR produced in China during the 1970ies and 1980ies. It is based on the Minolta SR technology (shutter, film advance, lens mount), but also borrowed a few features from the Nikon F, like exchangeable finders. The latter is unique for a Chinese SLR. It was produced by 5 former military equipment factories in the mountains of the Sichuan province in central China. The brand "Pearl River" was borrowed from an existing TLR manufacturer in South China, just to avoid registering another export brand. Although very expensive (690 RMB yuan[1], almost a years salary) it was very popular during its time.
Technical Details
- 35mm SLR with exchangeable finder
- Minolta SR mount
- available finders: waist level, eye level with penta prism
- finder screen with split image and micro prisms
- horizontal cloth focal plane shutter
- B, 1-2-4-8-15-30-60-125-250-500-1000 1/s
- flash sockets for FP and X, sync at 1/60s
- dimensions: 144x95x53 mm, 676 g (waist level finder, w/o lens)
Lenses
The camera would accept any lens with Minolta SR mount, which was the dominant lens mount in China. The Seagull factory in Shanghai offered a small series of lenses. The Pearl River S-201 came with specially branded lenses. It's not clear, whether these were produced by the Sichuan factories or made by the Shanghai Camera Factory. The standard lens was a coated 58mm f/2, presumably a clone of the Russian Helios-44, which itself was based on the Carl Zeiss Biotar Design from 1936. The [2] of the camera lists 3 additional lenses, specifically branded for the system:
- Zoom-Lens 45-90 mm f/3.5
- Telephoto lens 105 mm f/2.5
- Wide angle lens 35 mm f/2.3
All lenses appear in a Nikon style design.
History
Notes, References and Links
- ↑ Douglas ST Denny, "Cameras of the peoples republic of China", Jessop Special Publishing, 1989, ISBN 0 9514392 0 0
- ↑ user manual
Gallery Images
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| with disassembled finder and lens image by Christoph Batz (Image rights) |
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| back view, horizontal cloth shutter image by Christoph Batz (Image rights) |
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| Top view image by Christoph Batz (Image rights) |
