First real camera that allowed you to take pictures with control

bobwysiwyg

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Dan Fromm said:
Bob, have your memory checked. The FE came to market in 1978. In the early '70s, Nikon's SLRs were F- series (F and F2 overlapped for a couple of years) and Nikkormats FT- and EL).

I started in 1970 with a Nikkormat FTN.
Click to expand...


Right you are.. on all counts it was later than I recalled.
 

ambaker

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My first "real" camera, was a Yashica TL Electro X. 50mm 1.4 Yashinon, and a Yashica 70-200mm zoom. Purchased it from the Base Exchange in Nha Trang Vietnam in 1969.

Still have some of pictures I took with it. Upgraded to a Canon A-1 in 1981, and sold the Yashica in 1983. Still have that one.

Just picked up another Electro X in a lot of old cameras that I purchased. It's almost like the old days.
 

DBP

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My dad's old Argoflex when I was about 11. Didn't get to use anything with a meter until I was 15. Until then it was walking around with the little paper insert. Made things a bit tricky with the Argoflex, which had a different f/stop progression (4.5, 6.3, 9, 12.7, 18) and shutter speed choices (10, 25, 50, 100, 200), than the Kodacolor or Verichrome Pan inserts. Did ok, though.
 

Gerald C Koch

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An Argus C3, the famous brick.
 

Kav

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A Nikon D3100.

Although now my primary shooters are my Speed Graphics and my F3/F4.
 

BainDarret

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My Dad's old Argus C at Expo '67.
It was an early one without a coupled rangefinder.
Shot a whole role of Kodachrome 25 and they all came out, more or less.
 

alanrockwood

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Exakta VX iia when I was 19 years old. It was used and came with a 58mm f/2 Zeiss Auto Biotar and a 90mm f/3.5 preset Schneider Tele Xenar.

Before that, when I was about five or six years old I got a simple box camera by sending in two cereal box tops and $1. My mother said the camera would never come, but it did come and I loved it.
 

Diapositivo

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Mainecoonmaniac said:
Does a 70's Kodak Instamatic count? I remembering saving money for film, flash cubes and print processing. It was the "Gateway" camera to photography. Been addicted to photography ever since.
Click to expand...

No it doesn't because the OP says the first camera which allowed to take picture "with control". My Kodak instamatic 36 had only 1 control: "sun" or "cloudy".
I also had a Polaroid which had a strange knob on the front of dubious utility.
Power is nothing without control.
 

Peltigera

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Agfa folder of some sort. I bought it in a junk shop for the sensible reason that the shop owner's daughter was (still is!) drop dead gorgeous - I needed a reason to be in there (too shy to tell the lass the real reason) so I bought the first thing I saw. That was 1969 - I had no idea what all the levers did, and it was missing the folding viewfinder but I managed to produce some half-decent pictures with it. Replaced it with a Zenit E in 1973.
 

DBP

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And the daughter?
 

Peltigera

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R.Gould said:
Voightlander Vito B, bought second hand in the early sixties as I was showing a greater interest in photography and only had a brownie Starmite at the time, I still have and use that camera
Richard
Click to expand...

My Voigtlander B is my second favourite camera that I now own - after my Voigtlander Vitomatic II
 

hdeyong

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Yashica Electro 35 GSN, with a 50mm, 1.7 lens, in around 1975. Took some great pictures, then moved up to an SLR, Nikon FM and then an FE to go along with it. One for Tri-X and one for Kodachrome.
Sigh.
 

Klainmeister

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Canon Eos Rebel with the awful stock lens kit on it. Produced good enough images to get me stuck in the analogue world despite, at the time, the appearance of the first competent digital systems.
 
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