Shanghai Seagull Camera Ltd is a Chinese

camera A camera is an optical instrument that can capture an image. Most cameras can capture 2D images, with some more advanced models being able to capture 3D images. At a basic level, most cameras consist of sealed boxes (the camera body), with ...

maker located in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four Direct-administered municipalities of China, direct-administered municipalities of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

. Founded in 1958, Seagull is the oldest camera maker in China. The product line of Seagull includes TLR cameras,

SLR cameras SLR may refer to: Science and technology * Satellite laser ranging * Scalable Linear Recording tape drive backup * Sea level rise * Self-loading rifle or semi-automatic rifle ** The UK L1A1 SLR rifle * Semi-linear resolution, a search algorith ...

, folding cameras, CCD and SLR

camera lens A camera lens (also known as photographic lens or photographic objective) is an optical lens or assembly of lenses used in conjunction with a camera body and mechanism to make images of objects either on photographic film or on other media cap ...

es, large-format cameras, film,

night vision Night vision is the ability to see in low-light conditions, either naturally with scotopic vision or through a night-vision device. Night vision requires both sufficient spectral range and sufficient intensity range. Humans have poor night v ...

scopes, and angle

viewfinder In photography, a viewfinder is what the photographer looks through to compose, and, in many cases, to focus the picture. Most viewfinders are separate, and suffer parallax, while the single-lens reflex camera lets the viewfinder use the main ...

s. Seagull's cameras usually use basic, time-tested mechanical designs that require no batteries. Some Seagull cameras are distributed through the

Lomography A toy camera is a simple, inexpensive film camera. Despite the name, toy cameras are fully functional and capable of taking photographs, though with optical aberrations due to the limitations of their simple lenses. From the 1990s onward, ther ...

company. Seagull adopted the SR

lens mount A lens mount is an interface – mechanical and often also electrical – between a photographic camera body and a lens. It is a feature of camera systems where the body allows interchangeable lenses, most usually the rangefinder camera, sin ...

from

Minolta was a Japanese manufacturer of cameras, camera accessories, photocopiers, fax machines, and laser printers. Minolta Co., Ltd., which is also known simply as Minolta, was founded in Osaka, Japan, in 1928 as . It made the first integrated aut ...

's manual focus SLRs and camera design under license, and continues to produce it long after Minolta moved on to

autofocus An autofocus (or AF) optical system uses a sensor, a control system and a motor to focus on an automatically or manually selected point or area. An electronic rangefinder has a display instead of the motor; the adjustment of the optical system ...

Alpha

cameras. In 2009 a fixfocus-

Digital camera A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile devices ...

DS-5060S with 5 MB-sensor was offered.Seagull, 20. Januar 2009, ''Digitalkamera DS-5060S''
retrieved 15 November 2020. (webarchive) On June 10, 2012, Shanghai Museum of Old Camera Manufacturing opened to the public. The museum features historic items of the company, most noticeable the production line of Seagull 4A and collections of more than 200 cameras.

Major models

* Seagull 4 (4·4A·4B·4B1·4C) Seagull has been producing a series of

Twin-lens reflex camera A twin-lens reflex camera (TLR) is a type of camera with two objective lenses of the same focal length. One of the lenses is the photographic objective or "taking lens" (the lens that takes the picture), while the other is used for the viewfind ...

since the 1960s and it is believed that they are still producing; the latest model is 4A-109 featuring modern lens coating and some other improvements. Seagull 4 is the first model from 1967. The predecessor is Shanghai 4. Seagull 4A is the second model from 1968. Some Chinese amateurs consider the 4A and the later 4A-1 variants professional, partly because the camera was unaffordable for most Chinese citizens in the 1960s and 1970s. The 4A sold for 230 RMB and the 4A-1 for 290 RMB, whereas a worker earned only 20 RMB per month. The camera was unavailable to ordinary people, and only those working for government and press could afford one. Seagull 4A-1 from the 1970s and later 4A-1XX models feature

Tessar The Tessar is a photographic lens design conceived by the German physicist Paul Rudolph in 1902 while he worked at the Zeiss optical company and patented by Zeiss in Germany; the lens type is usually known as the Zeiss Tessar. A Tessar comp ...

type lenses. Another noticeable feature is the long-awaited

hot shoe Canon EOS 350D Hot shoe Proprietary hot shoe used by Minolta and older Sony cameras (Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D">Sony.html" ;"title="Minolta and older Sony">Minolta and older Sony cameras (Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D) A hot shoe is a mounting poin ...

. The later 4A-1XX models are mainly for selling overseas, hence the absence of Chinese characters is no surprise. Seagull 4B and 4B-1 are simplified models of 4A. The 4B-1 may take 645 formats. The focus screen of 4B-1 is

Fresnel lens A Fresnel lens ( ; ; or ) is a type of composite compact lens developed by the French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788–1827) for use in lighthouses. It has been called "the invention that saved a million ships." The design allows the c ...

achieving bright viewing. Unlike 4A, the original lenses for 4B and 4B-1 are three-element cooke triplet. Seagull 205 (4) (7845667518)

As some Chinese vendors are selling proclaimed Tessar lenses components for upgrading old cameras, one may come up with 4B-1 featuring four-element lenses. Seagull 4C can load 135 films. This model is however very rare. * Seagull 203 folding roll film range-finder camera * Seagull 205 range finder camera * DF-300, DF-2000, DF-5000 SLR * -I, II range finder * Dong Feng (East Wind) medium format camera developed and produced during

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...

, only very limited amounts were produced. * Red Flag 20 range finder camera, only very few were produced. * Seagull 501 kJ·KE

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.seagull-digital.com/ in Chinese

Historic as well as technical information of Seagull 4 contributed by Chinese collectors, Simplified Chinese

Article as well as photos of the Shanghai Museum, Simplified Chinese Photography companies of China Manufacturing companies based in Shanghai Lens manufacturers TLR cameras Chinese brands