Huaxia
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| Huaxia 823 image by Neal Wellons (Image rights) |
Huaxia (華夏)[1] is (or was) a Chinese camera brand. A Chinese 'Camera Museum' website attributes cameras of this brand to 'Factory 358' (三五八厂).[2]
The Baidu Baike page[3] for Factory 358 states 'the state-owned Huaxia Optical and Electronic Instrument Factory is an enterprise directly affiliated to Henan Zhongguangguang Group Co., Ltd., China Ordnance Equipment Group Corporation. Founded in March 1966, it was the first military precision optical instrument factory completed and put into operation in the Funiu Mountains in western Henan by the former Ministry of Ordnance Industry. On August 18, 1967, the Fifth Ministry of Machinery Industry officially determined that the first factory was named Zhenping Anti-aircraft Gun Command Mirror Factory, and the second factory was named State-owned Yunguang Instrument Factory, with the factory code name 358 Factory'.[4] That is to say, the camera factory had its origins in military optical-instrument making. The article goes on to state that the factory was originally built in a ravine in Zhenping County, Nanyang City, in Henan Province (presumably deliberately remote because of fears of war), but was moved (about 100 km) to Xinyang City in the 1990s. The article gives the more recent name of the factory enterprise as Henan Huaxia Optical and Electronic Instrument Factory (河南华夏光学电子仪器厂).[4] In the early 1980s, it was intended to make a camera with an electronically-controlled shutter, the Zhujiang H801, but this proved impossible with the availability and quality of domestically-made electronic components,[4] and it was decided to make a mechanical camera instead. This was the Huaxia 821, originally to be named the Bailing 821.[5]
At least four 35mm coupled-rangefinder camera models of the brand are known, made in the 1980s. They all have a fixed Huaxia 40mm f/2.0 lens.
These cameras have simple controls: a film-advance lever with frame counter, rewind crank, the shutter release, and a hot shoe. The shutter is a lens-shutter, with speeds 1 - 1/300 second, plus 'B'.
The Baidu Baike page cited also refers to an SLR camera, the Huaxia DC-851,[6] designed in the later 1980s and produced from 1991 (coinciding with the moving of the factory to Xinyang city).
Notes
- ↑ Huaxia is the name of an ancient people who lived in an area of China along the Yellow River, and who are believed to be the ancestors of the Han Chinese. See Huaxia at Wikipedia.
- ↑ Huaxia 821 at Xiangshenghang 'Camera Museum'.
- ↑ Baidu Baike is a Chinese online wiki encyclopaedia, similar in may respects to wikipedia, but more commercial and more regulated: see Baidu Baike at Wikipedia.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 三五八厂 (Factory 358) at Baidu Baike.
- ↑ Bailing (百灵) means 'Lark'.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 The Baidu Baike article cited states that the 821 is a copy of the Yashica FX-1 but this is clearly wrong, that being an SLR camera. It does not closely resemble any of the Yashica rangefinder cameras: the most similar is the Yashica J. The Huaxia DC-851 SLR does seem to resemble the FX-1 in the few images seen of it, and has a Contax-Yashica lens-mount.
- ↑ Forum post about Huaxia cameras at Cameracollector forum.
