What was your first slr?

[Jon Shumpert]

I wanted to start this thread because tomorrow I will be using a camera that is the same model as my first slr. In 1989 I was a much younger man stationed in Okinawa, Japan in the U.S Navy. I didn't know anything about cameras or photography, but a friend talked me into buying his Olympus OM88. It is an unusual camera in that it is a manual focus camera that uses a motor to manually focus. Olympus called it power focus. It actually works very well, but takes some getting used to. I ended up shooting many rolls of film with it. In its standard form, it is a Program mode only, but you could buy a manual adapter to give aperture priority and manual exposure. I sold the camera a few years later when I bought another slr, but I kind of had an attachment to the Oly. A year or two ago, I found one at a thrift store for $10. I wrote about it in another post a couple days ago while talking about cameras I had owned before, and bought a second time. I loaded some black and white film in it tonight and will take it out tomorrow. My son, who is 12, will be going along and I will let him take some photos with it. He actually has an appreciation for the older equipment. By using the camera, I will create new memories while bringing back old ones. Not a bad way to spend a day.

 

[MattKing]

An Olympus OM-1 - the short lived model that preceded the OM-1 MD.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

K1000

 

[macfred]

Nikon FM

 

[ronnies]

Yashica FX-3

 

[jimjm]

Canon AE-1.

 

[Stanislav Boščík]

My father's Zenit with Helios 44-2.

 

[darkosaric]

Nikon F801s.

 

[narsuitus]

What was your first slr?

In the 1960s, a brand new Miranda Sensorex was my first 35mm SLR.

It broke three times within the first two years.

I replaced it with a borrowed Pentax Spotmatic until I purchased a used Nikon F.

Have been using Pentax and Nikon SLRs ever since.


Nikon and Pentax by Narsuitus, on Flickr

 

[David Lingham]

Zenith E in 1971.

 

[AgX]

AE-1

 

[Ste_S]

I think a Zenit TTL bought for me by my parents when I was a teenager. Stupidly I traded it to a friend for a set of speakers.
Didn't realise at the time how much photography meant to my Dad and how much it must have disappointed them when I traded it. Didn't stop them buying me more cameras though - a fair few 110 cameras, a disc camera and also another SLR - Praktica BCX.

 

[Michael Firstlight]

Canon FTb - still have mine and fully functional.

 

[BMbikerider]

A Kowa E way back in 1963. Well built, but with mirror vibration registering somewhere near the top of the Richter scale and a combined mirror/shutter so noisy it made the windows rattle!. It had a nice sharp lens though, but limited because it wasn't interchangeable, although you could buy accessory screw on type, (85mm & 35mm) on by Kowa to fit but they destroyed the quality of the prime lens with really heavy vignetting at all apertures,

 

[Frank53]

Olympus OM-1 got it new in 1974, still have and use it.
Had it serviced 3 or 4 times over the years. Prism and wiring were replaced and adapted to modern batteries.
Regards,
Frank

 

[blockend]

A Chinon CX in 1975. Shots taken on the 50mm 1.7 stand up even now. I was a status anxious teenager back then, and wanted a brand people would recognise so it was traded 3 years later.

 

[neilt3]

I bought a used Minolta 7000AF in the mid 90's .
Got it with the 35-70mm f/4 , 70-210mm f/4 and a 50mm f1.7 .
Still got them and the 70-210mm still gets regular use on my modern gear , both film and digital .
Camera still works fine too , ran some film threw it earlier on in the year .

 

[LeftCoastKid]

Nikon F2AS, purchased in May 1979, along with a 28mm F2 Nikkor Ai, 55mm F3.5 Nikkor Ai, and a 105mm F2.5 Nikkor Ai. Loaded the camera with Kodachrome, and my journey began. The camera was used constantly until December 2010, when it shot its last roll of PKM 25. "Upgraded" the Micro to the 2.8 Ais version in the early '80s; the other two are still in constant use. Subsequently built up a 8 (active) body, 16 lens Nikon kit. Soverized, the F2 remains far and away my favorite Nikon.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

I wanted to start this thread because tomorrow I will be using a camera that is the same model as my first slr. In 1989 I was a much younger man stationed in Okinawa, Japan in the U.S Navy. I didn't know anything about cameras or photography, but a friend talked me into buying his Olympus OM88. It is an unusual camera in that it is a manual focus camera that uses a motor to manually focus. Olympus called it power focus. It actually works very well, but takes some getting used to. I ended up shooting many rolls of film with it. In its standard form, it is a Program mode only, but you could buy a manual adapter to give aperture priority and manual exposure. I sold the camera a few years later when I bought another slr, but I kind of had an attachment to the Oly. A year or two ago, I found one at a thrift store for $10. I wrote about it in another post a couple days ago while talking about cameras I had owned before, and bought a second time. I loaded some black and white film in it tonight and will take it out tomorrow. My son, who is 12, will be going along and I will let him take some photos with it. He actually has an appreciation for the older equipment. By using the camera, I will create new memories while bringing back old ones. Not a bad way to spend a day.

mine was a Nikon EM

 

[mooseontheloose]

Nikon FE for me. It was my second year living in Japan and I got it from one of the then ubiquitous camera shops you found everywhere (this was in 2000/2001). I had initially bought a Canon auto something SLR but didn’t like the way it handled, so went back to the shop and exchanged it for the most classic looking camera I could afford, which happened to be the FE. I think it came with the 43-86mm zoom lens, which I retired after a year or so. I’m still shooting with the FE when I shoot 35mm, but not with the original since it broke down after shooting it in -40 degree weather.

 

[Chan Tran]

Nikon F2AS in 1977. It was the first camera I ever owned. I never have anything better than that even now.

 

[Ozxplorer]

Mine? A Praktina IIa gifted to me by my Dad... followed by a Nikkormat FTn.... which camera I still use today!

 

[benjiboy]

A Praktika Super TL with Zeiss Pancolour 1.8 lens.

 

[Agulliver]

The first SLR I used was the Minolta 110 SLR (mark 1) circa 1980. It was my dad's....in 1983 I got hold of a Praktica MTL5 with CZJ Tessar 50mm lens, to which I later added a Mackinon 70-200 lens.

I still have that gear, though I don't think I've used the MTL5 since about 2003 as it has a wind-on issue. The Tessar gets used on more modern equipment, I have adaptors for the Praktica B series SLRs and for Nikon SLR/DSLR cameras.

 

[Ian Grant]

A Zenit E which I wore out

Ian