Tianjin
Revision as of 15:27, 10 July 2020 by Dustin McAmera (talk | contribs) (Made Eastar S3 a new page link)
The Tianjin Camera Factory was a camera factory in China. The factory was founded in the late 1950s[1][2] The factory's first camera was the July First (Qiyi), a folding camera copied from a Mamiya Six. Only 40 examples were made. It is often described as 'the first camera of the New China'; however, the Beijing Dala Precision Machinery Factory had already made a trial number of Zorki copies in 1955.[3]
Tianjin's Chenguang SLR is a simplified copy of the Russian Start. The Eastar cameras may have been the company's only top-sellers with a production of some tens of thousands.
It is not clear when the factory stopped working. The Eastar S2 was (according to many websites) made until about 1990.
Cameras
- July First; roll-film folder (copy of the Mamiya Six)
- Xing Fu, copy of the Altissa Box
- Xing Fu-2
- Eastar TLR
- Eastar S2 35mm rangefinder
- Eastar S3 35mm rangefinder[4]
- Eastar EF-35
- Eastar EF-35 II 35mm compact with fold-down lens cover and a flash[5]
- Chenguang
- Lanjian Saomiao She Ying Yi 950 SM, panoramic camera for large roll film
Notes
- ↑ Flickr member Jun Peng states the factory was founded in 1958, by eight existing workshops which up to then made wooden cameras; in this discussion about the Easter TLR camera
- ↑ Collector Wang Guosheng stated in an article in People's Daily that the July First was made in 1956, in which case the factory must have been in existence by then: An antique camera collector in Tianjin at People's Daily Online.
- ↑ Web article Chinese old cameras at digi.163.com (in Chinese)
- ↑ Eastar S3 at Antique Camera Museum (in Chinese)
- ↑ Eastar EF-35 II at Antique Camera Museum (in Chinese)
