Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“There are a thousand ways to point a camera, but really only one.”—Ernst Lubitsch
Aside from a Holga, my only other medium format film camera was a birthday gift from my wife Mary. It’s a gold-trimmed Seagull 4A-107G Limited Collector’s Edition medium format TLR. OK, it’s not a Rollei but that didn’t stop Seagull from trying to make a nice camera.
According to Wikipedia, Seagull Camera Ltd is located in Shanghai and was the oldest camera maker in China. Their Seagull product line includes TLR, SLR and even folding cameras that are constructed using the most basic mechanical designs that required no batteries. Since its founding in 1958, Seagull produced 21 million cameras. Sadly, according to what I was able to dig up, all camera production ended in 2004 and they went silent for 10 years. Later, it seems they were acquired by a digital opto-electronics company. If I find out more, I’ll update it here. If you know anything about the current state of the company, please let me know.
Since the 1960’s, Seagull has produced a series of Twin lens reflex camera and the last model was the 4A-109 that features modern lens coating and some other improvements. You can find dozens of them for sale on eBay. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Shanghai Seagull Camera Corp., Ltd, announced they were producing a special limited edition gold-trimmed version of the Seagull 4A-107 TLR. I saw one at a photokina show and really wanted to own one.
How I made this photograph: I made this photograph of Mary on a bright sunny Colorado day using the gold-trimmed Seagull 4A-107 TLR that she gave me for my birthday. The film used was Kodak Ektar 100 in 120 format, but the image converted to monochrome with Silver Efex, exposure was unrecorded.
All of the external metal detailing on this special Seagull was gold plated and the top cover featured an inlaid 18-karat gold commemorative logo. Seagull devoted a special division to the production of this camera and units were assembled to “even higher tolerances than that was achieved during normal production,” whatever that means. Only 2,500 cameras on a worldwide basis were certificated and supplied in custom boxes.
When it was new it was really a fun camera to use and reminded me of an old Yashica TLR that I used to own, more than a Rollei but the Seagull has build quality that was somewhere between the two. If you are lucky enough to own a Seagull TLR and it works fine, please use them. Mine suffered from several years of neglect and it was difficult to find a repair person to do a CLA. The one that I did find charged me more than buying a replacement camera from eBay where normal editions sell from $125 to $150. It works better than it did after the repair but not great, so I’m not using it as much as I should. If you get one, use it!
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