Seagull "test"

Seagull cameras often are mentioned in discussions about entry-level MF

equipment, and usually people say that the quality is horrible. And there is

always someone new coming asking about them or reading in archives, so I though

to make a little contribution.

I'm not here to debunk the horrible-quality theories, because it's subjective, I

just wanted to post a few examples so people can decide for themselves.

 

I did a little stupid test set, thrown in a bunch of objects that I had around

that might demonstrate sharpness, vignette and color reproduction of Seagull

lenses.

 

Here is a frame of E100G shot at F8 and scanned at 4800dpi on a Minolta Dimage

pro 4800, downsized to 400dpi.

 

http://free-os.t-com.hr/redmist/E100G.jpg

 

Sorry if the color balance and saturation are off, I tried to match the slide,

but lost objectivity after staring at it too much while adjusting, happens all

the time.

 

and here are two crops at 2400 dpi.

 

http://free-os.t-com.hr/redmist/crop1.jpg

 

http://free-os.t-com.hr/redmist/crop2.jpg

 

My opinion: It isn't Zeiss, but it isn't that bad, and it's still better than

using 35mm.

 

Forgot to mention, the lens is a 4-element Seagull (Tessar clone) on a Seagull

109, and film is E100G.

 

thanks for reading

I think the issue is less the quality of the lens, it can be good, very good. The issue is more the garbage shutter assembly and the fact that they often fall apart or break quite easily. I speak from experience, in both the good quality of the lens, and the propensity for the shutter to be crap.

Oh, BTW, those look very sharpened to me. Are you saying you did NO sharpening as part of your downsizing?

 

And speaking of lens quality, I got very nice, very sharp images from a plastic Lubitel I bought new for $35. Unfortunately, that the lens assembly came right off in my hand one day. Nevermore.

The shutter problem is usually attributed to the Segull's traditional 1/300 shutter which was in there for generations. And half of these experiences (not saying anything about the other half) come from changing shutter speed after cocking the shutter.

But It could be that the 1/500s Japanese shutter is just as problematic, I really don't know, because I haven't had any input about it from other users, and I didn't have bad experiences myself, at least not yet. Which shutter do you have?

 

 

But regardless, this thread was really about the lens, which some people have spread nasty rumors about.

 

One of the myths is that these lenses have really bad vignette effect even at f8-f11.

As the picture shows, it's not true. At least I don't see it

I didn't say they weren't sharpened. But I used a scanning service, and they had a USM pass already done to it.

You think it's too much? I can try and resize them again using a softer bicubic filter.

I agree with the assessments of the shutter. I've personally known two of the Seagull TLRs, and they both died of busted shutters. The lenses were pretty good, though.

The scan is great quality, but what surprises me more is the quality of the image/lens. I had a Yashicamat 124G that was not that sharp, and I sort of thought of them being the same quality.

It is possible that your Yashica had a 3-element lens, which is about the same quality as Seagull 3-element, this one is the 4-element lens which is much sharper around the middle apertures than the 3-element.

 

Just to clear things, It was never my intention in this thread to promote ALL seagulls. This is the top model, and I think it's the only Seagull worth buying.