The factory was originally an arsenal affiliated to the Ministry of Ordnance of China. The old factory was built in a ravine in Zhenping County, Nanyang City, Henan Province. It's like a small society there with everything. Originally, it only produced military products as planned. Later, as the times changed, the number of national military products decreased, and it began to consider converting the arsenal into producing civilian products. Since our factory is engaged in optical electronics, we decided to switch to camera production.

I just started producing the Zhujiang H801 camera for Hesaku. This camera has an electronic program shutter and uses a 6-volt battery. It was discontinued after a small batch was produced, and there was basically no sales. Then the factory developed the Braun 821 camera completely independently. I was in school at that time. I know that the quality requirements were very strict in that era, so the quality should be very good. This can be seen from the camera itself. All parts are made of aluminum and copper, and the optical glass coating is also very good. None of the glass that cannot meet the image quality standards is used. At this time the camera didn't really have a brand name. After factory research, it was named "Chinese". Then the name was changed and produced "Huaxia 821". At that time, the Chinese name on the camera cover was not yet used, but the English name "HUAXIA821" was used. On the back of the cover, there were the words "MADE IN CHINA", which were all engraved. I think the writing was not bad. The 821 camera was very popular at the time and was difficult to buy. You could only buy it with the signature of the factory director. But the factory also gave some away as gifts. Later, it was changed to "崋夏822". At first, it was engraved on the upper cover with "HUAXIA822" in English, and later it was changed to "崋夏822" in Chinese. In fact, the two cameras are basically the same. Based on the Huaxia 822, we developed the Huaxia H823 camera, which has been popular for many times. This camera has been well received since it was produced and put on the market. I clearly remember that at the time, the high-level chess competition between China and Japan was given to the Japanese as a gift from China. . At the same time, the Huaxia 841 electronic photometric camera was developed. By 1998, I was assigned to the camera assembly workshop as soon as I started working. I've been tinkering with cameras ever since. At that time, camera production could no longer meet market demand. At this time, Huaxia 843, which uses electronic photometry and multiple exposures, has begun production, and the output has also increased. Due to poor factory management, the quality of cameras had been somewhat compromised by 1990. Before the 1990s

there was a national policy on arsenals. Due to inconvenient transportation and poor information, the arsenal was moved out of the valley. To be honest, most of the people in the factory did not come to Xinyang to let us open the original factory. I've taken a fancy to it.

Rebuild a new factory in Xinyang. (Actually, there were several places that were better than Xinyang at that time.) At this time, it had independently developed the Huaxia DC851 camera and the Huaxia 824 image and imaging camera, which were leading in the country at that time. At that time, the original engineer who developed Huaxia Camera had suggestions for improving the quality of Huaxia Camera, but the factory director just refused to listen (this is the same in China). Speaking of which, let me talk about the situation of Huaxia 824. This camera is just a slot on the back of the original Huaxia 823 camera. A set of cameras includes a camera, a power box, a control switch, a combination socket, and a set of background films. Specifically, you put the background film into the camera in the studio and plug in the lamp to take the photo as if you were at the scene. I originally kept a set of promotional posters and a set of negatives, but now they are gone. I said yes, this phone was a waste of national money and it was discontinued after selling only a few units.

At this time, the Huaxia 851 camera in our factory has been finalized. It is completely independently developed by the factory. Every part is produced by the factory itself (except for the shutter, which is completely imported). To be honest, such a camera was developed at that time. It was indeed not easy. Later, Jiangxi Phoenix Factory was also developing this camera. After our factory was finalized, the small main body of the Phoenix factory could not be completed, so they sent engineers and technicians to our factory to study. Our factory leaders warmly welcomed the drawings and tooling and showed them everything (without any sense of technical confidentiality). By this time in 1991, our factory was mainly focusing on relocating the factory. The Huaxia 851 camera produced by the factory did not sell much and was given away to some major bosses. Production was basically discontinued at the end of 1991, and there was still a lot of inventory. The factory began to move on a large scale, and our assembly department only moved to Xinyang in 1992. In the old factory, everyone put away their parts and semi-finished products, thinking that they could resume production immediately after arriving at the new factory.

Unexpectedly, all production basically stopped after arriving in Xinyang. At this time, the factory was basically completely relocated and closed. Only then began to organize production, and the products produced include Huaxia 823, Huaxia 843, Huaxia AP-20, and Huaxia AP-30. Huaxia 851 has basically been discontinued (Huaxia AP-20 and Huaxia AP-30 are point-and-shoot cameras) -20 and -30 cameras.

The functions of the camera are good, but the workmanship is not good, especially the good and bad parts do not match well. In the next two years, the factory will give up cameras (it originally developed motorcycle accessories) and mainly produce motorcycle accessories. (The employees didn’t understand) The factory only left a branch factory to produce cameras. (In the past few years, the ignorance of our factory leaders transferred the main component technology of Huaxia DC851 that our factory had worked hard to develop to the Phoenix Factory.) How could the Phoenix Factory have done anything before this? The main parts are not included in the small body. In the past few years when our factory management was incompetent, the Phoenix Factory developed. In 1993, South Korea's Samsung Camera came to negotiate with our factory for a joint venture to produce Samsung cameras. Because the leaders of our factory did not delegate power, the negotiation failed and a good opportunity was lost. Now they have negotiated with Tianjin, which is the current Samsung Camera.

At this time, the camera production line of our factory was shrinking step by step. It was produced here for several years. By 1995, the production of cameras was completely discontinued. Due to my self-study in cameras and electronics. Our factory established a small camera sales and after-sales service department, and I was selected to follow and do camera after-sales service. I worked for several more years, and the fate of Huaxia Camera came to an end in 1998. I was asked to go to a branch factory to produce VCDs for cars. Because I loved cameras, I didn’t go. Later, I worked in Xinyang City to do camera repairs. After the camera was stopped in 1995, I found out that the drawings were ruined, the very good tooling molds were ruined, and they were sold for scrap metal, as well as a lot of parts, which made me feel very sad. I now have some camera parts left over for later use. The efficiency of our factory is very poor now. All the technicians have gone out and only the optical branch is engaged in external processing of optical glass and machinery manufacturing.

Fully manual, focus, aperture and speed are all manual

Open the back cover and it looks similar to other mechanical cameras. However, when rolling the film, the two buttons on the right The direction of the root axis is opposite, and the film is automatically locked, which avoids the most common film winding errors of mechanical cameras. This kind of camera that can lock the film is rare, and this feature is unique.

\Its maximum aperture reaches 2.0. The better cameras at that time generally had a maximum aperture of only 2.8, because large lenses and large apertures were their second features. One lever was the self-timer lever. There was no doubt about that. What was the other lever? The shutter lever is used for multiple and unlimited exposures. Of course, you must calculate it well. The sum of the light passing through multiple exposures must be equal to the correct exposure value of the film. This level is not difficult for experienced photographers. Many photography stunts in the past were inseparable from multiple exposures. Experienced friends will say that without this lever, I can do multiple exposures of the same film - in fact, the shutter lever of this camera is screwed in front of the lens, and there are two loose leaves in it, which are used to set each shutter. With it, similar to today's digital photo post-processing methods, such as shape-changing, can be done directly on the film. Of course, in addition to artistic photos, they are more commonly used in daily life, for taking group photos of the same person in different actions, or taking four standard photos on one negative film