The production and price of old domestic cameras in the early days
Recently I checked the domestic old camera data, found some data impressive, can be found in the late fifties of the camera production quantity is very small, more only Tianjin made of happiness camera, other is not much.
Production and price of ordinary household simple cameras:
Happiness-Type I is 75,000 units (retail price 29 yuan); Happiness-Type 2 is 11,000 units (retail 36 yuan), Peacock production is ominous (retail price 36 yuan); Blue Sky camera is 20,000 (retail price 38 yuan), Starlight 20,000 (price is ominous), Yangtze River small camera is 20,000 (price is ominous); Huashan small camera data is ominous.
The labor camera I want to introduce in this article is 10,000 (retail price of 39 yuan), which is the most expensive of them, is it because it looks "handsome"?
This set of data tells us that in the late 1950s, when the country was difficult and the people were poor, when cameras were an absolute luxury, and many people could not reach it.
The production of cameras in this period is extremely low, although as long as more than thirty dollars, equivalent to a month's wages, but people still can't afford to buy, because the income is stretched, more than thirty yuan is also a family of five or six monthly living expenses, not to owe a good debt, where there is spare money to buy a camera to take pictures and play.
So at that time, having a camera was a luxury, and it was not easy to take a photo, and some rural people in remote areas had never taken a picture in their lives.
And even in the city, how many children have no photos in their childhoods and miss the memory of the times.
Impressions about labor cameras
At first glance at the "Labor" camera, I was startled, this viewfinder is so beautiful!
The Labor Brand Camera is a 120-type simple camera introduced to the market by Shanghai Guanlong Photographic Materials Store during the "5.1" International Labor Day in 1959, and the retail price at that time was 39 yuan.
In the past, people often envied the glory of Shanghai Guanlong, and also envied the high retail price of the cameras it sold, but they did not know that Guanlong did have unusual prosperity in the promotion and use of cameras in New China.
A photographic materials store also produces cameras, I am afraid that not only are there not many domestic precedents, but also rare in the world, which is also a product of the times, with the characteristics of China's Great Leap Forward era.
Although the appearance of this camera viewfinder is beautiful (in fact, it is also composed of two lenses), it is not as good to look as the camera produced in Tianjin in 1956, also known as the "headlight", that is, the Happiness-I type. The viewfinder of the latter is brighter and more comfortable, mainly because the rear window of the labor viewfinder is still a little smaller.
The other workmanship of the labor camera is still very simple, and there is no big difference from the other 120 simple cameras at that time, but the aperture value of the general two gears becomes three gears, more choices, and the shutter speed is still B, 1/25 second two gears.
The focal length of this camera is fixed, pick it up and shoot, no need to adjust, there is a pull-out hood in front of the lens, the early camera lenses are not coated, which is particularly sensitive to the effects of stray light, and backlight is more needed.
The shutter was pressed from other styles of lenses to on the fuselage, which was consistent with later cameras.
But this camera can not use flash and interface without shutter cable.
As I write this, it occurred to me whether these two things were not popular or expensive at the time.
In particular, the price of flash at that time will not be low, domestic production, and buying foreign even higher than the price of this camera, so that with flash, many people dare not even think.
And do flash light sockets and connection lines, as well as shutter cable interfaces, but also to increase the cost, is not the pursuit of this simple camera, so this camera does not have flash sockets and wiring holes, but also the actual situation at that time to decide it.
Due to the low income of people at that time, it was quite difficult to afford this kind of camera, and it was enough to show off on their backs.
Technical data of labor cameras
Type: 120 type, can shoot 6X6, 4.5X6mm two kinds of frame
Shutter: "I" (equivalent to 1/25th of a second), "B" gate two gears
Focus: Fixed
Lens: unspecified, estimated at 65mm, two lenses, uncoated
Aperture: 11, 16, 22 three gears
Viewfinder: Heads-up fixed viewfinder
Loading and unloading film: rear open lid, background window counting
Accessories: Leather jacket.
In addition, the machine is imitated by Japanese cameras and simplified manufacturing.