Equipment taken to formal education

[cliveh]

What equipment did you take to college/University to start your formal education in photography? I remember getting off the train with minimal luggage which contained a Leica II, thermometer and spiral tank.

 

[Chris Lange]

my Nikon F3 and F4, and a Yashica 124G.

Went through a RB67 and Bronica ETRS which both got resold in short order for a Hasselblad, and traded the 124G for a Rolleiflex Automat.

As a first year fine-arts student at Alfred, there were no photographic classes as part of the curriculum, and I didn't have a changing bag or darkroom access for the first semester, so I would use my backpack in my dorm room closet and process in the bathroom at night, keeping my chemicals in spare snapple and gatorade bottles that I scrounged from recycling. Hung the negs to dry in my room using thumbtacks to hold them to the soft ceiling panels. I would take developer concentrate (sprint) from the photo dept. late at night and store it in an old 500ml rodinal bottle that I had brought with me.

 

[Jeff Kubach]

Canon F-1 and various lens.

Jeff

 

[removed account4]

What equipment did you take to college/University to start your formal education in photography? I remember getting off the train with minimal luggage which contained a Leica II, thermometer and spiral tank.

clive, i sort of started my formal education in high school, with a k1000 and then i took it to college. in college
besides the camera i brought paper route money for film and paper, and halfway through the 4 years
( i was in the pre architecture program with a minor in photography ) i bought a yashica 124 matg ..
but 7 semesters (incl 2 directed studies ) wasn't really my formal education, ... THAT started AFTER college when i assisted freelancers
and eventually became an apprentice to a portrait photographer ... it was at that time i bought a speed graphic.

 

[Dave Swinnard]

A 16x20, 2" high fiberboard "portfolio" case with webbing straps containing a technical pen with a lettering guide, a tape measure (inches and metric required), a tool box with a magnifier, 6" steel ruler, an incident-capable light meter, darkroom apron, print tongs, Kodak grey card and colour patches, and a short list of Kodak technical "books". A 100 sheet box of Ilford MG paper - to start - in 8x10 inch size.

The cameras and lenses were supplied as were all the darkroom equipment and chemicals. Paper and film we supplied, as per each weeks assignments.

The first year of two was spend shooting 4x5 (the ubiquitous Calumet - but we had ONE with the short bag bellows for the 90 and 65mm Super Angulons we had available). The 4x5 monotony was broken in the second term when we got to use the 6x7 Mamiya 23 rangefinders for a few small assignments. NO "small" camera work at all. First year was ALL black and white, with each student taking turns running the "film lab" for a week at a time.

I was paranoid and did all my own film processing away from school, using my equipment at a darkroom I had available where I was working (just the go-fer) at the time. It really rankled one of the instructors that I didn't share the others experiences in the too crowded communal darkroom at school. Some of then were total beginners in the darkroom with all the attendant mistakes - like turning on the light to find the film they dropped... I wasn't looking for that kind of experience with my assignments, the work load was heavy enough without allowing for reshoots caused by another persons mistakes.

I remember those hectic days mostly fondly, hectic, but totally immersed in photography with like-minded folks. I still shoot 4x5 and did during my foray into the world of making a living at it. Sometimes, for a lighter bag to carry, I shoot with an old Hasselblad.

 

[chriscrawfordphoto]

I went to Indiana University's Fort Wayne campus, and since I lived in the city with my parents at the time, I didn't take anything to school as far as equipment or other items college kids leave home with. I did have two new professional cameras my father bought me when I graduated from high school. He got my a Mamiya 645 Super and a Nikon F4s with some lenses for both so I'd have good professional gear for my education. I earned a Bachelors in Fine Arts with photo major.

 

[Peltigera]

Taught myself - went to college to study chemistry. Learnt about photography with a Zenit E camera and a Zenit enlarger.

 

[Sirius Glass]

To whom do you refer about having a formal photographic education? Not most of us.

 

[cliveh]

To whom do you refer about having a formal photographic education? Not most of us.

Well those who do, or whatever your introduction to photography with what equipment. I'm not trying to be elitist.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Taking photographs, learning from mistakes, asking photographers questions, reading books, experimenting, making mistakes ... not necessarily in that order.

 

[Jim Taylor]

Taught myself - went to college to study chemistry.

Same here, 'xcept I'm a biologist!

My first SLR was a Canon T70. I still use it (although it's not my favourite).

 

[Kc2edh]

When I went to college the first time it was for music education, now I'm attending for outdoor education. I've never had any formal photographic training. Found a Yashica FX-3 at a garage sale for $8 some years ago, put in an order to B&H for probably 10 different kinds of black and white films, and that was how it all started. I did have film point and shoot cameras when I was younger, but never a "nice" camera like that one. I started reading books and found APUG, and that's where all my photographic knowledge has come from. That Yashica received lots of use, and I did take some really great pictures with it. Sadly I was shooting while ice fishing up in the Adirondacks, and in the -20F weather I went to advance the frame and something mechanical broke down. The 50mm Yashica lens is still taking pictures on a Contax body though!

I soon after found a Beseler 67 enlarger with the dichro colorhead locally, and still use that (but have since upgraded the stock "Beslar" lens).

 

[Light Guru]

What equipment did you take to college/University to start your formal education in photography?

You take the equipment the college requires you to have. Each college may have different requirements.

 

[ROL]

Bow–Tie Camera, High Hat, cane tripod. Dress for success, I always says.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

A Hasselblad 500C with one back and a chrome C 80mm lens was the camera outfit I used for much of my photo education, although it was through the continuing education program at Maryland Institute College of Art, not a degree program. They didn't have a requirement for any specific camera other than it should have manual exposure setting options. I think they had a strong preference for SLRs but it would surprise me if someone showed up with a rangefinder or a twin lens and they turned them away.

 

[BradleyK]

A pair of Nikons (F2AS and F3), and 10 Ai Nikkkors ranging from 20mm to 180mm, plus 35-70 and 80-200 Nikkor zooms went to the A** I******** with me. In retrospect, the two years spent on my "photography education" were the biggest waste of time and money I have ever invested on any endeavour. I learned far more on my own, by shooting, reading and hanging out with folks who were a great deal more knowledgeable than I. And, of course, the informal education (the more valuable component, photographically-speaking) continues here, courtesy of the generosity of the APUG brain-trust (although, I willingly admit, some of the technical discussions do make my eyes glaze over...).

Worse, though, it took almost a decade of shooting professionally for me to realize that I really was not interested in photography as a profession. Shooting now for my own enjoyment (and an upcoming website whose launch keeps being delayed because I would rather be out shooting than sitting and working at a computer), I find myself once again afflicted with the enthusiasm of an amateur: I carry a camera with me always and await the arrival of each and every weekend, so that I can pack a bag-o-gear and wander off shooting.

 

[mike c]

A 4x5 speedgraphic at Cypress Collage in Orange county. Still have it too.

 

[benjiboy]

I took 2 Nikon F2 Photonic body's and a set of Nikkor lenses to St. Andrews University, and remember vividly having to walk and carry it more than two miles from the nearest train station in torrential rain on the day I arrived because there were no cabs, I don't think they had ever heard about them in Scotland in those days

 

[E. von Hoegh]

What equipment did you take to college/University to start your formal education in photography? I remember getting off the train with minimal luggage which contained a Leica II, thermometer and spiral tank.

No "formal" education here. But, the two cameras I learned the most by and while using were/are a 1941 Kodak 35 RF at age 14 and a Deardorff V8 I acquired in my late 20s. Perhaps significantly, they both are cameras which force you to think to use effectively; looking back I think I learned more from the experience I gained with these two than all the other cameras combined.

 

[BrianShaw]

My formal education was OJT and Nikkormat FT-2 with Vivitar 285 was the tool. The classroom was underground metal mines and heavy-equipment repair shops.

 

[Claudia Moroni]

I started studying photography as an exchange student and I didn't bring anything with me, thinking that I could get what I needed from the college store and then bugger off three months later.

Little I knew that I'd end up enrolling as a "regular" student, spending three years in this tiny college in the North East of England.

My teacher must have foreseen it (or maybe he didn't initially trust me to get out the college cameras) and he brought me to a second hand camera shop in Newcastle upon Tyne to buy my first reflex, a Nikon F-301 with a 50mm series E lens.

Once I was deemed trustworthy enough to borrow cameras from the store, I started using almost exclusively a Mamiya C220 because all the other students were fighting over the Hasselblads and I could get away with using the Mamiya for weeks on end without anyone bothering me.

Good times

 

[BradleyK]

A pair of Nikons (F2AS and F3), and 10 Ai Nikkkors ranging from 20mm to 180mm, plus 35-70 and 80-200 Nikkor zooms went to the A** I******** with me. In retrospect, the two years spent on my "photography education" were the biggest waste of time and money I have ever invested on any endeavour. I learned far more on my own, by shooting, reading and hanging out with folks who were a great deal more knowledgeable than I. And, of course, the informal education (the more valuable component, photographically-speaking) continues here, courtesy of the generosity of the APUG brain-trust (although, I willingly admit, some of the technical discussions do make my eyes glaze over...).

Worse, though, it took almost a decade of shooting professionally for me to realize that I really was not interested in photography as a profession. Shooting now for my own enjoyment (and an upcoming website whose launch keeps being delayed because I would rather be out shooting than sitting and working at a computer), I find myself once again afflicted with the enthusiasm of an amateur: I carry a camera with me always and await the arrival of each and every weekend, so that I can pack a bag-o-gear and wander off shooting.

I should have added (lol): When I opted to return to school (to get a degree worth more than the paper it was printed on)in 1990 to pursue a BComm in Finance, I sold all my Nikon gear, and then picked up an M4P and three Summicrons which saw me through the next four years. About six years after graduation, with my interest in photography returning ever so slowly, I began building first a Nikon system, then a Hasselblad kit, then added to my Leica outfit. Combating frequent bouts of GAS attacks, the result of low prices brought on by the d*****l age and a sick US economy, my Nikon family has expanded to the point where...