Seagull 4B TLR Review
A TLR camera is an artwork all in itself. When I shoot with my beloved Seagull TLR 4B, it is a unique camera. When I don’t use it, it rests on my shelf as a unique decoration.
Seagull TLR cameras are made in Shanghai, China from the late 1950s to this day. Today, Seagull is one of the only two TLR brands that are still in active production, the other being Rolleiflex. Cheaper than its siblings, 4B is considered a basic and entry-level model for average consumers in the Seagull TLR line of production.
Traditional photographers may think 4B has got poorer optical quality and fewer features than other Seagull TLR models, such as the latest 4A 109. But hey, we are lomographers! When everybody else is trying to get rid of the “swirly bokeh” which 4B is famous for, I find I am crazily in love with it!
Using TLR camera gives you a totally different experience from a toy camera or a rangefinder. You set the aperture and shutter speed, look down in the viewfinder, moves to the left or right, compose the image, get it focused, cock and press the shutter… and voila! “Don’t think, Just shoot” rule does not apply here. The whole process takes a lot of time, patience and techniques. However, when you see the prints or scans, you will know that all your efforts are rewarded.
I got my brand-new dead-stock 4B from a friend of mine for only 250 yuan (around 35$). I did not know much about the correlation of aperture and shutter speed back then since this was my very first fully manual camera. I just followed the sunny-16 rule and my intuition when taking pictures. The camera has never failed to amaze me whether with slide, negative or b&w film! Take a look at the gallery and see for yourself.
Flexaret VII Review
Made by Meopta
Specs:
Lens: Meopta Belar 80mm f/3,5
Aperture: f/3,5 – f/22
10 bladed aperure
Shutter: Metax
1/400 sec to 1 sec plus a Bulb setting
Takes standard 120 film
6×6 images format
Automatic film advance stop
Double-exposure prevention
Image quality
This is a good lens! It have some glow effect in very hi contrast but other than that this do great!
Not that bad at all, not perfect but it preforms good.
Corner Sharpness
Not bad corner sharpness ether.
You can see some glow effect and uneven contrast.
This shot is a bit overexposed and this downsides are more viable because of that.
Download full size image. Here (up to 5mb)
f/5,6
All downsides are next to gone and it produce nice and sharp images.
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f/11
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f/16
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Bokeh
Really nice!
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Build quality
All metal body and it have a really good quality.
Conclusion
Its easy to use have good image quality.
You focus by pulling a big level underneath the lens that works great. This makes it quick and easy to focus and is allot better then many other similar cameras.
But in short this is a great camera!
Thumbs up:
Easy to use.
Good image quality.
Thumbs down:
Glow effect wide open
When you crank to the next frame you also crank up the shutter automaticly and I´m not a big fan of that.
Its not a big problem and I only crank to next frame before I´m going to take a new image.
Technical Info
Scanner: Epson V700
Film: Kodak Tmax 100
Developer: Kodak D76
And I used a tripod for all the images.
Ikoflex as a classic camera
Photoethnography.com – Classic Cameras.
Overview and Personal Comments
The Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex is a twin-lens reflex camera made by the Zeiss Ikon conglomerate in the years immediately preceding and after WWII. The model I have is the Ikoflex II according McKeowns and has the Zeiss-Opton T coated Tessar 75mm / f3.5 taking lens. Using the text or images on this website without permission on an ebay auction or any other site is a violation of federal law.
Interesting quirks
Even though the lens is cocked separately from the film winding, the camera has double exposure prevention! This most probably has relegated a lot of units to the “broken” bin since people didn’t realize that you have to wind the film before cocking the shutter. Also, if the film counter has counted past ’12’ then you have to reset it back to ‘1’ before it lets you shoot again as well. Those darn Zeiss engineers, they were too smart for their own good. There are actually four shutter interlocks:
- Double exposure prevention: make sure the film is wound to the next position
- No film interlock: if the film counter is past ’12’ then the camera will not shoot. Load film and/or reset film counter to ‘1’
- Waist-level finder interlock: chimney finder has to be in the open position
- Shutter cocked interlock: OK, it’s not a real interlock and obviously the camera won’t shoot if the shutter isn’t cocked, but after winding the film it’s easy to forget
Looking at the web at other people’s cameras, McKeowns has a couple of mistakes in his 2001-2002 edition. First he doesn’t think the II came with both a Tessar and a Prontor (1-300) shutter in the same unit, he thinks that the Tessars only came with Compur (1 – 1/500) shutters. Also his photos are a bit odd. I hope he fixes this in the next edition.
Technical Details
|
Camera Name
|
Ikoflex |
|---|---|
|
Manufacturer
|
Zeiss Ikon |
|
Place of Manufacture
|
Germany / West Germany |
|
Date of Manufacture
|
1939-51 (mine is most probably post-War as it is T coated) |
|
Focusing System
|
Twin-lens reflex design Lens use bellows focusing Focusing range 3.6′ ~ infinity (focus lever on left side, infinity is forward) |
|
Focusing Lens
|
75mm, f/3.5, Carl Zeiss Teronar-Anastigmat |
|
Taking Lens
|
75mm, f/3.5, Zeiss-Opton Tessar T coated lens |
|
Shutter
|
Prontor (?) shutter 1 sec – 1/300 B setting X-flash sync at all speeds X – M switch for flash or timer (can’t do both!) |
|
Metering System
|
Hah! Handy printed exposure scale on the waist-level finder hood. |
|
Apertures
|
f/3.5 – f/16 (stepless) 10 aperture blades |
|
Flash
|
PC cable connection |
|
Film type / speeds
|
Type 120 film (medium format) |
|
Battery type
|
hah! |
|
Dimensions and weight
|
A brick |
| Use of this chart, text, or any photographs in an eBay auction without permission will result in an immediate IP violation claim with eBay VeRO. Violators may have their eBay account cancelled. | |
About Zeiss Ikon
Zeiss Ikon was formed in 1926 out of the merger of five companies: Carl Zeiss/Jena A.G., ICA A.G., Erneman A.G., Goerz A.G, and Contessa-Nettel A.G.
Zeiss-Ikon was a huge corporation with offices in five cities in Germany and it offered a huge variety of cameras. Unfortunately, that was also its downfall. Various divisions competed against each other horribly and there was much, much reduplication of effort. It never really took advantage of its size.
Carl Zeiss, the main company, can actually trace its roots to 1846, to the very dawn of photography and is renowned for such designs as the Tessar and T* coating. Even now, Carl Zeiss lenses grace the very best cameras from Contax to Hasselblad.
In 1972, Zeiss formed into a partnership with Yashica Corporation of Japan. Zeiss now only does lens design and makes a small amount of photographic lenses. Yashica manufactures the Contax series of Zeiss cameras.
TLRgraphy 
