Your FIRST 35mm Camera...

Ira Rush · Sep 21, 2008

My father bought me my first 35mm. It was a Voigtlander Vitoret.
No rangefinder, (zone scale focusing, or guesstimate) ... 4 shutter speeds (including B), top speed being 1/125.
Lens was a f/22 ~ 2.8 Vaskar 2.8 lens.

For such a simple camera, you have no idea how sharp that lens was. Either I estimated distance correctly, used proper depth of field, or that lens was SHARP.

Now I use either my Nikon FTN or F2,... but I will always remember my 1st

Still have that camera to this day!

Ken22485 · Sep 21, 2008

My first 35mm camera was a Minolta SRT200 kit that came with a Rokkor-X 45mm f2 lens and a Minolta Celtic 135mm, along with a basic Minolta flash. I still have it all, except for the Celtic lens and the SRT is loaded with Forte film.

jake wolf · Sep 26, 2008

my friend bought me a minolta x-370 with a 50mm 1.7 for my birthday in 10th grade(I'm a sophomore in college now).

pesphoto · Sep 26, 2008

Pentax k1000 when i was 12 yrs old. Im 41 now and it still works.

Poohblah · Sep 26, 2008

i'm pretty young...
my first was my mother's N6006.

flatulent1 · Oct 9, 2008

My first 35mm camera was a new Maxxum 7000. Autofocus was nice to have, for a recent glasses-wearer, but the kludgy interface drove me nuts. Sold it six months later to a camera shop for less than half what I paid for it, and good riddance. Went right out and bought the new T90, and I've been a fan ever since.

My first camera was a plastic 126 something-or-other that my father (an Argus C3 user) got for me to use with the 4th grade camera club.

Deke · Oct 11, 2008

My first was a Petri Color 35 for a lot of money. It`s still working fine but I prefer better lenses..

Reg

vdoak · Oct 11, 2008

Canon AT1, still my favorite 35mm.

oldfaithful58 · Oct 11, 2008

Ricoh KR10, which is still working

Slixtiesix · Oct 11, 2008

A Praktica Super TL from the former GDR, equipped with a 50/2,8 Tessar lens.
My Dad gave it to me at my 13th birthday. It was a pretty neat thing with very smooth cloth-shutter and had the stylish "Zebra"-design of the 60s.
I still have it but haven´t used it for years.
Benjamin

monkeykoder · Oct 11, 2008

Nikon FM10 and Mamiya nc1000 my dad gave me when he went digital.

rusty71 · Oct 11, 2008

Olympus OM-1n, back in 1985. It was a college graduation present. I still have it and it still works fine. I still think it has the best viewfinder of any 35mm SLR. Take the hotshoe off and the pentaprism is almost like a Leica 50mm brightline finder!

Claire Senft · Oct 12, 2008

Good Lord, what the hell! You are interested in expoloring pre-history? My first 35mm camera, I forget the brand or the name but it used stoneplates. One good thing about it was that lifting the handles of its wheelbarrow with a full 36 exposure load was sufficient to provide a very healthy level of exercise. Man, oh man, even though the lens would flare quite a bit the negatives had that chiseled look that is so lacking in modern optics.

Changeling1 · Oct 12, 2008

Olympus OM-2 with a 1.4 Zuiko 50mm lens. Purchased new in 1977 followed swiftly with a Beseler 23C XL.

Bradd Cluckey · Nov 5, 2008

I found my mother's Minolta x-370 with a f 1.7 50mm lens in the basement. She took a photography class in college and dropped it. She said I could have it and I have had it for years, although it no longer works (it would have kept going, if not for an unfortunate accident). It looks nice on the bookshelf though.

Bradd Cluckey.

Chris Nielsen · Nov 5, 2008

Hi all

I'm one of those unfortunate people who got sucked into APS - and not just APS, but *cheap* APS... Kodak something or other with a fixed f/6.3 plastic lens or something like that, and the photos sucked hard... A few years later I bought a Zenit 212K with something like a 55mm f/1.8 or similar. Even though it was Russian and pretty agricultural it expanded my photographic horizons greatly. After a number of good and not so good cameras I now am the proud owner of a (beaten up but still working) Nikon F5 and some fairly nice lenses. When it dies I'm definitely getting another F5, probably an LN grade in it's original box from KEH.

ron110n · Nov 5, 2008

Kodak 76x

JasonC · Nov 6, 2008

My dad's Nikon FG.

Shutterbug · Nov 7, 2008

Pentax Spotmatic F

Chaplain Jeff · Nov 7, 2008

When I was 13 I saved up enough money to buy my first camera. We were going to Disneyland and my aunt who lived in CA wanted me to wait and let her help me pick out the camera - to get one like hers, the Canon AE-1.

We got to the camera store and they had a camera that was $25 less - hey, I was 13 and we were going to Disney the next day - that's a lot of money for a jr. high kid in 1981.

The camera was the Minolta XG-1. Later that month I also bought a "camera bag" and lens - an Albinar 135mm - from BEST PRODUCTS (anyone remember them?).

The XG-1 and the Albinar are long gone, but I've been shooting Minolta - and now Sony - ever since.

Jeff M

wogster · Nov 10, 2008

First 35mm SLR was a Zenit E. I think the Russians hand carved them out of a solid block of lead, sold it two years later as even at 17 it was too heavy to carry around all day. Replaced that with a Konica TC, the leather is shot, it leaks light, the meter is toast, but if you want a camera to shoot with in extreme cold (like when your out in -20℃ all day), when a digital would simply freeze up and die, this is the camera to use. Not bad for a camera that saw it's first roll of film in 1977!

I also have a Konica FC-1, it hates cold though, it gets cranky if the temps below about 10℃, no idea why, had one and it hated cold, replaced it with another one, and it has the same feature. :confused:

I OF THE BEHOLDER · Nov 10, 2008

My father gave me his Yashica Minister-D and I loved that camera. Dropped it in some stairs and the lens broke off. It just tore me up to throw it away. I've gone digital, but I still love the old stuff and just bought a Canon A-1 for fun.

flatulent1 · Nov 21, 2008

My folks got me a plastic 126 something or other when I was in the fourth grade; we had a camera club, went on field trips, shot pictures, developed them in our own darkroom. No idea what became of that camera, or the photos, for that matter.

My first 35mm was going to be either an A-1 or an X700, but then the Maxxum 7000 hit the market and I jumped at it. Six months later, sick and tired of its dysfunctional interface, I sold the whole kit back to a camera store and ordered a T90. Ahhhhh! MUCH better. I currently have an EOS 1V, RT, 5D, and a slew of others, but the T90 is still my go-to camera.

funkpilz · Nov 21, 2008

My beloved Canon AE-1 was my first 35mm SLR, and indeed my first "real" camera. And I bought it in 2008!

andrewc · Nov 22, 2008

I didn't get into serious photography until 1990 or so; up until then I had used various cameras and formats, the main one being my Kodak Instamatic X-15 and a couple of disc cameras (horrible things!). Then in 1990 a friend loaned me his Pentax ME Super (I guess he really gave it to me, since I still have it and he doesn't want it back) and thus began the long journey towards understanding apertures and shutter speeds. Not too long after that, 1994, I bought an EOS A2 and photography has been an integral part of life ever since. The more advanced my gear becomes though (DSLRs, digital p&s cameras, advanced film SLRs and such), the more I like using the 'old' equipment. My favorite right now is my Minolta Hi-Matic E, but I could have a different favorite by this evening.

Your FIRST 35mm Camera...

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