What was your first camera?

[Adrian Twiss]

My first camera was a Cosmic Symbol. Direct vision with a 3 element 50mm f4 lens and leaf shutter (1/30 to 1/250) if I recall. It was a gift from a colleague at work who also gave me my first lesson in developing and printing. What did it do for my photography? Well two things a) it began my love affair with taking pictures, something I had no interest in until he gave it to me. It also made me eternally grateful for the Zenith E I bought six months later (will Leningrad light meter). After that a series of Canon SLRs that started with an FX and ended with a F1. Interestling I have only ever disposed of three pieces of equipment. Two I sold and one I wore out. So here I am with nine Canon bodies. Ah well it pays to have a backup or two. 35mm taught me to be careful. It is very easy to mess up such a small negative. When the MF bug bit I got a Pentacon Six. When it really bit I got a mamiya 645. To stop it chewing my leg off I bought an Exakta 66. You've guessed it folks, I'm single and have a very limited wardrobe. My latest buy was a Linhof Kardan GT with Technica adapter. Before you think I spend my time buying cameras, this little lot took nearly 30 years to accumulate. I got that cosmic symbol when I was 17.

TTFN

 

[AndyH]

What a great thread!

My first camera was a twinlens box camera - a Japanese plastic clone of some unknown brand. My grandfather rewarded me for my interest in photography by passing along his old Kodak Tourist folder with three shutter speeds and a "fast" f/8 lens. Later Dad got me a used Argus C-3, the one I think of as the "classic" before they tried to meter it up or streamline its bricklike form.

My first SLR was an old Practika that I bought from Altman's in Chicago by mail order with my high school bag boy earnings, followed shortly thereafter by a TLR Richoflex with a gawdawful shutter but decent optics (as long as you stopped down below the theoretical maximum of f/3.5). My first larger format was a 3 1/4 by 4 1/4 Speed Graphic that cost me all of 20 bucks completed with holders, a wooden carrying case and a couple of packs of out of code Tri X.

Thanks to all of you for reminding me of what a long strange photographic trip it's been.

 

[esearing]

First Camera ever used - Dad's Brownie, then Mom's Minolta SR201

First Camera I purchased - Minolta X700 with 50mm lens (1984ish), sunpak flash. still works and gets used for 35mm slides.

First Digital Camera - Olympus C700UZ (2mp) Now upgraded to Canon 10D.

First LF camera - 4x5 Calumet CC400 recently acquired from Ebay.

Plus a few polaroid and P&S cameras along the way, and some collectibles which never got used.

Next Camera - homemade pinhole 4x5 or 8x10.

 

[PieterB]

First camera: a Praktica with MF 50mm 1:2.4 (the lens is the only thing that works now
metering was not very precise too...

First camera I bought myself: Nikon F55 with kit lens :s, 50mm 1.8 (next one 105 MF I think....)

Next camera: 35mm Nikon F100 or F5 (if it becomes cheaper) or a medium format...

 

[M. Walter Lyon]

The first camera that was actually mine was an old Polaroid when I was 9. I don't remember the model but it was a solid plastic box. Then in Junior high I started shooting for the yearbook. My teacher let us use his Pentax K1000. My first real camera was my Sears (Ricoh) KS-2. It is my primary camera to this day. It came with an automatic exposure that I really have never had any use for. I also picked up a couple of antique cameras, an Ikonta 521/16 (6x6) that I have recently been experimenting with and a Retina 35mm. And just last week I got my Mamiya RB67 Pro 6x7. I put my first roll through it yesterday and I can tell it is going to take some getting use to! What a heavy tank!

 

[wiseowl]

As a nipper I had a 126 kodak instamatic, I had a Praktica super tl2 for my 13th birthday, I sold this about 11 years later to part fund a Nikon F301, which I still have, it looks a bit worse for wear but still works a treat.

There's been quite a few in the following years, all sold but with a hint of sadness.

Cheers

Martin

 

[George Losse]

My first camera I ever used was a 126 Kodak Instamatic also. I was shooting my first or second grade classes trip to Philadelphia. Hard to remember that far back.

First camera that was mine for good, a Yashica 35mm rangefinder. A hand-me-down from my older brother.

First camera I ever bought, a Speed Graphic the Summer before my senior year of High School.

 

[galyons]

My first, first camera was a kodak Instamatic to take to the Boy Scout World Jamboree more years ago than I care to disclose! My first real camera wasn't really mine, but my high school's! It was a funky, well used Speed Graphic with inoperable range finder and no cams - all focusing on the ground glass or WAG & shoot. Although I drifted to 35mm/mid format, from large format, during college, I am back to 4x5 today.

Cheers,
Geary

 

[bjorke]

A Minolta Minox knockoff around age 11, followed by a Konica II and then an Argus C-3 and then up to a Nikon F. But the 8mm Bolex preceded all of them.

 

[titrisol]

First camera was a Kodak Instamatic (126 film I guess), was an Ok camera for a 6 year old.
After a year or 2 my dad let me use his Zeiss Ikon Contessa, since he could process the 35mm bulk loaded film himself and teach me how to do it

 

[c6h6o3]

A Miranda T with f1.9 Soligor. My Dad bought it in the late 50's. I'm ashamed to say that I don't know whatever happened to it. They're quite collectible now. Maybe my sister has it.

http://www.cameraquest.com/orion.htm

 

[Magic Rat]

I saved for weeks and weeks to order a small "Spy Camera" out of the back of a comic book when I was 9 years old. It looked like a tiny SLR made of tin with only a shutter trip and a film winder. It came with one roll of what I now recognize as Minox film wrapped in foil. The plan was take your pics, send in film, receive your prints. Waiting for the prints seemed an eternity. Unfortunately, there were limited instructions. I received six very faint images. Nothing was recognizable and I couldn't remember what I had shot. The film had barely been exposed. Of course at 9 with no photography exprience I figured I'd been ripped off. I never reordered film.
Cest le vis, however you spell that.
The Rat

 

[Ted Harris]

A Speed Graphic, shiny and new when I picked it up in 1954 to take pictures for the school paper. The first camera that was MINE followed shortly thereafter, a very beatup but basically functional Rollei.

 

[James Bleifus]

I started out with a Kodak X-15 126 camera that I borrowed from my cousin. After shooting a few roles I convinced my parents to buy me a Kodak Handle. Oddly, I still have the camera. It wasn't long before I realized that the instant film was too expensive for a 12 year old, so I saved my lunch money (I was much thinner then) and bought a Yashica 44 TLR (which I still have) from a pal at school. I had a hard time getting film at the local small town pharmacy so I saved my lunch money again (honest, I was much thinner then), went to K-Mart and bought a Minolta SRT-201. Since then I was always a 35mm guy until I switched to a Digital Rebel last year. Once I realized that I couldn't capture the black and white dynamic range I wanted with digital I dumped everything on ebay and switched to 5 X 7. It's proving to be my most fun camera of all.

Cheers,

James

 

[Flotsam]

Magic Rat,

I had that abslutely identical experience. It's a wonder that I ever went on in photography after that.

 

[Tom Hoskinson]

My first camera was my mother's Kodak 620 Box Brownie which I used with out-of-date Kodabromide paper instead of film. The first camera I bought was a new 120 Roll film Wirgin Folder. About a year after I bought the Wirgin, I started using the High School's 4x5 Speed Graphic.

The first 4x5 I bought was an ancient RB Graflex. The second was a used Linhof Technika - III. I still have both of them.

 

[SteveB]

My first camera was a Miranda Fv, no meter or any other automation. That was @ 1968. Since then have had Canon Ftb, and F1, Contax RTSII, Kowa Super 66, Graflex Speed Graphic, and various and sundry medium format "oldies" and box cameras. Recently got an old mint minolta Hi-Matic 7II to try rangefinder work, and love it! After all the trials of different cameras, have gone back to an F1n and just a 35 and 100mm lenses. They cover everything I shoot the way I want to shoot it.

 

[Dave Wooten]

My aunt bought for me on I believe my 11th birthday a Koday Imperial 620...I loved framing compositions in that little camera and then taking the film in to see if "anything came out" I've been hooked ever since.

 

[philldresser]

My first camera was a Zenith E when I was 14 or 15. Once I had this I needed a part-time job (ffordes photographic)to fund the addiction. This only made matters worse as I was exposed to 'real' cameras and spent several months wages on a Nikon FM kit. Since then I've always been a Nikon man except for my 5x4 Cambo and a recently purchased Olympus Trip 35 for my 10 year old daughter

Phill

 

[BradS]

In 1977, I bought a brand new Pentax KX and 50mm f/1.8 pentax lens with money I had saved working summers as a caddy (humping rich peoples' golf clubs). Had it overhauled a few years ago and still use it frequently.

 

[Craig]

The first camera I used was my Dad's Pentax Spotmatic (which he still has). The first camera that was mine was a Ricoh SLR given to me by one of my Grandparents for a grade 6 field trip. That lasted for a bit until I got another hand me down in the form of a Canon AE1-P that served me all through highschool yearbook. In yearbook one of the other students was a photo junkie and bought a used F3, and then I got hooked on Nikon.

I worked for a year as the schools gopher for minimum wage and saved enough to buy an F4 when it came out. I still have the F4 and just picked up an F6. Along the way in University I dabbled in 4x5, and ended up building one of the Bender kits. Last year the buddy who indroduced me to Nikon gifted me his Calumet 8x10, so I've been having fum making contact prints.

 

[Bighead]

Canon AE-1, mid production.... Early 80's model... Was given to me by my step dad. Had the 50mm, 1.4 as well as some 20-200 Vivitar.. I now have this one and a "Program" that I use quite often. Both have been cleaned and rebuilt...

I love grabbing all of my FD lenses, both bodies and a few other bits and going on a road trip....

 

[Monophoto]

1963: Kodak Instamatic (junked)
1970: Konica S2 (sold it)
1971: Mamiya-Sekor 1000DTL (junked)
1978: Olympus 35RC (still use it)
1982: Nikon FM2 (still use it)
1982: Konica TC (junked)
1984: Nikon FE-2 ( - still use it)
1986: Yashica A (still use it)
1986: Crown Graphic
2001: Zone VI Lightweight ((out shooting with it today)

Yup - it's a gadget trap!

 

[modafoto]

My first was a Konica P&S with fix focus, one shutter speed and two apertures (named 100/200 and 400 ISO). Flash can be turned on and off manually. No automatic stuff. I have taken lots of pictures with it when I was on vacation and school trips back then (I am 25 and "back then" is 1990).

I didn't get any other cameras until 2001 when I bought an Olympus Digital Camera (great thing) and it brought my interest to life. Then I asked my father to find his SLR and let me borrow it. Then I was out shooting with a Pentax Spotmatic with 50mm and 135mm. Great!
http://www.photoethnography.com/Cla....html?AsahiPentaxSpotmaticSPII.html~mainFrame

Some months later I got my own SLR. Canon EOS 300 with 28-105 and 70-300 Sigma lenses. Then later I got a Canon EOS 7E and a Canon EF 50 mm f/1.8, and a flash was added, too.

Now I use the Canon EOS 7E and the all the lenses plus Olympus OM-1 and Mamiya 500TL.

Greetings Morten

 

[Max Power]

Like many others, my first camera was a Brownie. After that was a 110 instamatic.

At 14 I had to get an SLR for a beginner photography class in HS, so knowing absolutely nothing I saved up my paper-route money and got a Yashica FX-3 with a 50mm lens. It was fully manual and forced me to learn about everything which turns around metering.

Unfortunately, an acquaintance decided to take my FX-3 out in a boat in order to take some pics of me sailing (he did it without my permission) and dropped the camera into the lake. I was both angry and very sad at the same time. I replaced the FX-3 with a Minolta X-700 and went from there. Funny thing, though, I still only use the X-700 in manual mode, although my wife uses it in automatic mode.

Kent