What was your FIRST 35mm and how old were you?

[aldevo]

My first real 35mm camera was a Kodak Retinette IIB rangefinder that my father puchased while visiting relatives in Italy in the late 1950s. I began to use it in the early 1990s and used it for about 7 or 8 years.

Since then, I've gone digital...only to return to film in early 2003. I started with a Canon EOS-5 and used that until about a year ago when I won an E-Bay bid on a Fujica ST-705. I've since acquired a couple more manual focus cameras (Fujica ST-801 and Pentax Spotmatic SPII) and a series of Fuji and Pentax M42 lenses. I use these cameras in preference to the EOS - unless I need to use flash.

The Retinette is still used on occasion. Thankfully, it is in splendid cosmetic and mechcanical condition. Beautiful camera.

 

[MattKing]

My first real 35mm camera was a Kodak Retinette IIB rangefinder that my father puchased while visiting relatives in Italy in the late 1950s. I began to use it in the early 1990s and used it for about 7 or 8 years.

...

The Retinette is still used on occasion. Thankfully, it is in splendid cosmetic and mechcanical condition. Beautiful camera.

You probably like my avatar then

Matt

 

[sepiareverb]

A Kodak Pony 2. I was ten, it was 1972. The camera had been my fathers, he'd replaced it with a Mamiya Sekor SLR. The Pony replaced my 620 Brownie (the cube shaped one with the plastic loop handle on top) This Pony had a collection of little plastic cards you'd slip into a pocket on the back (like the film box top pocket), that gave you suggested exposures for various films. I still think of 'Cloudy-Bright' when shooting! Tri-X was my first film.

 

[Richard Mendales]

My first 35mm camera was a Konica Auto S, when I was about 12--a great old-fashioned rangefinder, with a fast and very sharp lens.

 

[Bandicoot]

It was a Zenith E, with the 58mm f2 lens.

My very first camera had been a Kodak Instamatic that took 126 film cassettes. I had wanted a camera, and that was a birthday present from my parents when I was four (I think). Later my grandmother gave me an old Agfa that used 828 roll-film, and that produced some not bad results - I still have some square slides shot with it.

By the time I was getting into my teens 828 film was getting hard to come by. On a visit to us, my grandmother announced that she thought the local camera shop might have some, and took me there with her. The owner - who was in on it - put on a sorrowful face to explain that they had sold out and would never be able to get any more, at which point my grandmother said that she'd better get me something that used a more readily available film instead. So that was when she bought me the Zenith. It was only later that I discovered the whole thing had been set up in advance.

I used that camera for years, replacing it with a Pentax Spotmatic when I was 18, adding another when I was 21, and a third later still, so I could carry different sorts of film. And I started using rangefinders too. Those Spotmatics, and a growing collection of wonderful Pentax lenses, stayed in use till my late thirties when I finally added a Pentax MX. Soon that was followed by an LX, and now I use five LXs (including the trademark pink one that I use for self-promotion as much as anything else), two MXs, an MZ-S, an MZ-3, and a 'range' of rangefinders. (And MF and LF...)

I'm still grateful my grandmother, as it was her that really fuelled the fire that that first Instamatic had lit in so tentative a way. After she died about five years ago it was with some of the money she left me that I bought my X-Pan and lenses.



Peter

 

[braxus]

It was either 1986 or 1987. I don't recall exactly when. I was 16 or 17. Bought myself my very own Canon T-70 with 50mm f2 lens. Even got a generic case and some 52mm filters while there. Before all that I had used my mom's AE-1 on occassion. Funny thing is I sold the T-70 a year or so later for a T-90. Sold the T-90 in the 2000s for parts. I now have my mom's AE-1 to inherit (she let me keep it this time). The AE-1 isn't working so great, so its a good thing I switched to EOS a few years back.

 

[Richard Lupu]

I was in sixth grade (80' or 81'), it was a silver jobby owned by the school, and I took pitures of basketball games; none to well if I remember correctly.

 

[Neanderman]

The first one is always special

The first 35mm I bought was a Mamiya Sekor 500tl. I think I was about 14. I cut a lot of lawns for that baby.

Rick.

Wow. It's my doppelganger.

I bought my first 35mm SLR in about 1972, a new 1000 DTL, with an f1.8. I too cut a lot of grass for that thing. Took my first ever trip to Chicago with my oldest friend and his dad to pick it up personally. My mom gave me an excuse to cut school to go because she thought it would be an important 'life experience' for me. I still have it, I think the meter still works and it looks pretty good save the missing 'button' in the center of the wind lever pivot that serves to turn off the meter. I put a few hundred rolls of film thorough that camera.

Nice memories, all.

Ed

 

[Woolliscroft]

Zenit EM with f2 55mm. I think I was 17.

 

[fotogreg]

Olympus OM-2 that my dad gave me when I was about 14. Now using that and a Nikon F80.

 

[wiggy]

For my 16th birthday (back in 1976) my parents bought me a Canon AE1 along with a Vivitar Series 1 200mm F2.8 and a 2fps Power Winder.

Just discovered today that the 200 has been living in my old camera case in my parents loft (I thought I'd sold it years ago) and am absolutely overjoyed as I adored this lens due to it's speed, sharpness and ease of handling. It's also a perfect match for my newly acquired A1.

 

[Bryce Parker]

I was given a K1000 with no lens on my 13th birthday, or 1985. No lens, it was for use on my telescope, but I could borrow Dad's.
I still have and use the camera and a pretty complete batch of lenses and accessories, as well as other bodies.
Look where that got me!

 

[chriscrawfordphoto]

Olympus OM-G

My dad had an OM-G that he taught me to use and then he bought me one of my own because I was using his too much. I was 11 years old when I got my own. I don't have it anymore, it was damaged in a car accident when I was 16, but I still have all the lenses that my dad bought me for it between the time I got the camera and the time I graduated from high school. I used my dad's camera after mine got broken until I got a new camera to replace it: an OM-4T that Olympus gave me after they tried 4 times to fix my OM-G. I still have the OM-4T and the 50mm f1.8, 28mm f2.8 and 135mm f3.5 lenses that my dad got me earlier. I have since added a 50mm f2 macro, a 35mm f2, a 24mm f2.8, and a second OM-4T body. I use them almost every day still, and i'm 31 years old.

 

[lesd]

Zenit EM. Age 37.

 

[Trask]

A Nikkorex F, with clip-on light meter and interchangable Nikkor 50mm lens. Probably I was around 14 at the time, got into photography because a kid at my church had a Hasselblad and a darkroom...and a sister. When I graduated from high school in 1969, or sometime thereafter, my folks asked a neighbor United pilot to bring back a Nikon F from Japan -- remember the days of importing cameras when you had to put tape over the names? I also picked up a Leica screw mount, sold it, bought a Nikon S3 w/ 28mm, 50mm and 105mm lens. Joined the Peace Corps, went to Zaire, had all my Nikons stolen in Bukavu when the guy in the next room left his window open. So somewhere in war-torn eastern Congo, maybe, there are floating some collectable Nikons. At least I kept the negatives, and that's what counts!

 

[Trask]

...and I have to add, does anyone, like me, remember the thrill of subscribing to Shutterbug, and having all those ads show up at your door. Columns of Nikons and Leicas for sale, NY shops selling used gear -- God, the things I bought and sold that I really wish I'd hung on to (along with my McIntosh 275 tube amp with Mullard tubes, but that's for another website). The internet holds no rush like getting Shutterbug on cheap paper.

 

[Dan Williams]

Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic about 1968 - I still have it and it still works

 

[Snapshot]

I remember my first 35mm SLR was the Canon T-90 with some good FD lenses and flashguns in the mid 90s. My then boss was selling it because he didn't do much photography anymore and I bought it for a song. I took great pictures with that system but I soon got bitten by the AF bug and purchased a Nikon system.

I still miss that T-90 today and sometimes wish I hadn't sold it. C'est la vie!

 

[xford35mm]

Played with a Pentax K1000 when I was a kid, but it was my dads. The first camera I purchased myself was a Canon EOS Elan IIe, I was 24 or 25.

 

[bd3]

The first camera I ever made a photo with was a little Kodak that used 110 film. I was about 4, we were on vacation at Cumberland Falls in Kentucky, and my parents wanted a photo of the 2 of them with the falls in the background. Somewhat shy the wouldn't ask a stranger to do the honers so I piped up, "I can do it." After being instructed on not putting my fingers over the lens and how to push the button I snapped the photo. It still sits on my mothers desk to this day 36 years later.

The first 35mm that I purchased was a second hand Konica FS-1 with some nice hexanon lenses. I was 30 at the time and really enjoyed that camera. It did have a problem, though, it wouldn't meter correctly unless you set it in the sun or near the heater in the car for a few moments before you were going to use it. I finally sold it as a parts camera on e*** and purchased a Honeywell Spotmatic screwmount. Nice camera but lenses were not very sharp. I traded it to a Yashica which I traded to a Nikon N80 with 2 consumer lenses that I still use today. Of all of them I liked the Konica the best. If it hadn't had the problems it had I'd still be using it today.

 

[ValeriusCatullus]

Hello,
My first 35 mm was a very much beloved Nikkormat FTn with a Nikkor 35mm f/2.8, which I do not use anymore. I purchased it when i was 14 yrs old, now I'm 49.
Regards,
Per

 

[TStodPhoto]

My first 35mm was a Leica Rangefinder I believe.....When I was about 7 yrs old.... I found it at a garbage dump... So my favorite camera and camera was stolen by a family member to sell for drugs... Never trust a brother... It was around 1977 or so.... I loved that camera.... I would love to own another one....

 

[bcostin]

My first 35mm camera was a Canon AE-1P given to me by my father when I was about 18. I still have it, but it's developed the usual Canon shutter squeak. I've set it aside and usually use one of my other FD bodies instead.

(My first camera of any kind was a little Konipak Instamatic-type 126 camera that my parents gave me when I was about 5 years old. I still have that camera, too.)

 

[Deleted member 20172]

Zenith E, When I was 12.

 

[Jersey Vic]

My dad gave me a Minolta x700 in 1984 when I was 20. It's still a fantastic, lightweight accurate problem free miracle of design and engineering.