My first thought was that this could be an interesting find, the lens caught my attention as I was browsing the big bay for other odds and ends to feed my interest in vintage and pre-digital manual focus prime lenses to add to my small selection of vintage lenses preview and try a few shots with. The Seagull-610 could very well be the kit lens for the Seagull DF-300M 35mm SLR film camera, a licensed copy of Minolta's X-300 produced at one time by the Shanghai General Camera Factory.
The lens itself, on arrival, was rather a disappointment. The all-plastic helicoid gear is all but stuck with gunk and turning it by force snaps and breaks the focus ring trim. The focusing ring, now held together with a rubber band, gets to smoothen out after a few twists and turns but one end of the focus decides to stay stiff and very bothersome to focus with.
The lens mount to my adapter front was also a bit fiddly and I ended up moving the camera back and forth instead for subjects that were close to the shortest focusing end. Shot wide open, images are surprisingly soft and pleasant, with good bokeh, but fall rather short of excellent. These are about the best shots after the early morning session. Looks like the lens may go into storage or be put up for sale sooner than I thought.
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