Your FIRST 35mm Camera...

Black Dog · May 10, 2020

40mm is a really nice focal length-my Olympus Trip has a 40mm and it's usefully wider than a 50mm but not too extreme (mind you Bruce Gilden and many others have used more extreme wideangles to good effect). Rosslyn Chapel, XP2-contemplating the architecture.

BayG75 · May 10, 2020

Horatio said:
Wow. Almost a five year lull between posts. Anyway, my first 35mm camera was a Minolta Himatic F rangefinder. Really sharp lens, as I recall. I traded it for my first SLR, a Petri. Wish I’d kept it.

Just noticed that it’s the second five year jump in this thread. Page 18 went from 2009 to 2014.

mrosenlof · May 11, 2020

My dad's old Argus C3 that I found when unpacking from a family move in 1968.

About eight months later, for my 10th birthday my parents gave me a Minolta Auto-Pak something (126 cartridge) that never took a sharp picture in its life. The argus was capable of sharp photos until I took it apart shortly after getting the Minolta.

Federico Pose · May 16, 2020

Pentax K 1000 with SMC Pentax-A 1:2 50 mm lens.

images39 · May 16, 2020

Nikon FE, bought used in '85, in Hawaii. Still have it. Such nice ergonomics, it fits just right in my hands, and the controls are perfectly placed. Great design.

Dale

Mal Paso · May 17, 2020

Another Argus C3, I'm thinking age 12-13. I was shooting a Brownie Hawkeye before that.

Bauman · May 18, 2020

Four years ago I bought a Canon EOS 3 to attend to a course, I bought it but I didnt know how amazing it is.

4season · May 18, 2020

images39 said:
Nikon FE, bought used in '85, in Hawaii. Still have it. Such nice ergonomics, it fits just right in my hands, and the controls are perfectly placed. Great design.

You wouldn't happen to have picked it up in a little shop in windward Oahu, would you? Around that time they made me an offer I couldn't refuse on an F3. Anyhow, it'd be a heck of a coincidence.

radiant · May 18, 2020

Minolta Dynax 500si in middle of 90's. Used all my summer work money for it. And still using it. It's plastic but it's fantastic. Also known as Maxxum 400si and Maxxum RZ400si.

Gosh how much I have shot with it. .. and I still have the negatives from the 90's. Haven't looked at the negatives after maybe 1999..

AndroclesC · May 18, 2020

Paul Verizzo said:
Yashica Lynx, 1964

What a beautiful camera!

iseolake · May 19, 2020

Bell & Howell -- I think it was an FD35 -- with 50mm f1.8 B&H/Canon breech lock bayonet lens. I bought it new, with money I saved while a high school student in -- probably -- 1973 or 1974. Basic camera (max shutter speed 1/500, no self timer). Excellent lens. From what I can find on the Web, Canon made this for B&H. Later on, Canon marketed it as the Canon TX. As I recall, I also considered a Miranda, but the salesman highly recommended the Bell & Howell.

images39 · May 20, 2020

4season said:
You wouldn't happen to have picked it up in a little shop in windward Oahu, would you? Around that time they made me an offer I couldn't refuse on an F3. Anyhow, it'd be a heck of a coincidence.

I grew up on Windward Oahu, but the FE was purchased at a small store in Honolulu. I can't remember the shop's name, wonder if it's still there.

Dale

4season · May 20, 2020

images39 said:
I grew up on Windward Oahu, but the FE was purchased at a small store in Honolulu. I can't remember the shop's name, wonder if it's still there.

If you're talking about the little hole-in-the-wall place specializing in used gear, I can't recall the name either but think it's long gone.

PhoBoKho · May 22, 2020

My first was a Canon Canonet G-III QL17. Given to me by my dad. I didn't use it much. I didn't really get into photography until relatively recently. The QL-17 sat in a drawer for quite some time and about 13 years ago, I gave it away to a friend's daughter. I never knew what became of it, but I wouldn't mind having another to play with now. I remembered it had a little tab to move the focus ring. Kind of like some Leicas do. Maybe I could use one (QL-17) for candid street one of these days.

Donald Qualls · May 22, 2020

PhoBoKho said:
My first was a Canon Canonet G-III QL17. Given to me by my dad. I didn't use it much. I didn't really get into photography until relatively recently. The QL-17 sat in a drawer for quite some time and about 13 years ago, I gave it away to a friend's daughter. I never knew what became of it, but I wouldn't mind having another to play with now. I remembered it had a little tab to move the focus ring. Kind of like some Leicas do. Maybe I could use one (QL-17) for candid street one of these days.

The G-III QL17 is a good street camera. Compact, fast focusing (via the lever/tab, as you note), and pretty easy to set exposure as well. A Canonet 28 might be even better, in the daytime; it's a little smaller and the lens isn't quite as, um, big.

PhoBoKho · May 22, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
The G-III QL17 is a good street camera. Compact, fast focusing (via the lever/tab, as you note), and pretty easy to set exposure as well. A Canonet 28 might be even better, in the daytime; it's a little smaller and the lens isn't quite as, um, big.

I wonder if a tab could be added to focus rings of lenses that don't have them. I have read about Leica street shooters who would eyeball the distance between themselves and their subject, rotate the focus ring via the tab without looking, and be able to fire off a shot in the blink of an eye.

While I haven't done it before, I'm thinking that at reasonable f-stops during the day (f/5.6 to f/11), the depth of field would be deep enough that your subject should be in focus by this fast but approximate method.

I might give this a try with some Nikon manual focus lenses on a digital body just to be able to try it out for "free" (not using up film).

Donald Qualls · May 22, 2020

At f/11 on a 40mm or so lens, you can just set hyperfocal and ignore focus. You'll be in focus from three or four feet to the horizon.

PhoBoKho · May 22, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
At f/11 on a 40mm or so lens, you can just set hyperfocal and ignore focus. You'll be in focus from three or four feet to the horizon.

Thanks. Will definitely give this a try. Sometimes I obsess over details like focus and was worried that hyperfocal would not always be optimal. But no harm in trying.

tomkatf · May 22, 2020

Petri 7S, Okinawa c. 1966

Donald Qualls · May 22, 2020

Hyperfocal depends on the "depth of field" myth -- but like most myths, it has some foundation in truth. In this case, it's all a question of "how out of focus is it really?" If you're making huge enlargements, you'd do well to recalculate your depth of field table and set your hyperfocal to accommodate, but even if you use the figures on your lens for f/8, you're getting 10 feet to infinity, approximately. And if you're printing no bigger than 8x12 from 35 mm (i.e. 8x enlargement), the DOF scale marked on your lens is just fine -- and that'll then be (it says on my Rollei 35, with it's 40 mm S-Xenar) about 8 feet to infinity. If you have a steady enough hand to stop down to f/16, that becomes 6 feet on out.

Alternately, you could shoot bigger film, enlarge less, and probably come out ahead. There have been a bunch of box camera photos that were acceptably sharp from four feet to the horizon, with fixed focus and apertures ranging from f/11 to f/16.

ts1000 · May 22, 2020

Smena-2 for me, then Zenit-E

Karte · May 23, 2020

The first 35mm camera I shot with was Dads Yashica FX-3
The first one I bought myself was Olympus 35SP
Favorite is the Leica M2

Only the first one remains...

Yuri Art · May 25, 2020

The first 35mm camera I shot with was Dads Zorki-C (Purchased in 1958).

barzune · May 25, 2020

gnashings said:
This place was looking a bit dead...not much doing, so i thought this might be fun. Lets see what all you folks cut your teeth on - what was your first 35mm camera!

Here is me: this little East German thing that you had to walk ten steps away from your subject to be more less in focus! Then you wound the little wheel until it stopped. As far as I recall, your legs were the only adjustment.

But the first real 35mm (I had a Lubitel after that) camera was a Zenit ( I forget which letters - I think MF - it had a photo-cell light meter over the lens). It still works although the rewind knob broke and I cant locate the pieces to fix it (and I just realized that I can't locate the camera... wife cleaned the place...it can be anywhere... it may be in YOUR house!). Pretty good for over 20 years of use!

Hope everyone has fun recollecting!

Peter.

My first brand new 35mm camera was a Zenit E ( as described above, with the non-integrated meter), in about '68 ??
I still look at many of the slides that were captured in that camera, and it carried me through my first year of college, my two years of paper-mill, my first
( and second) love, some serious Maritime-Coast travel, ......and then it was stolen in a break into my car that cost me more in insurance to replace the
broken window, than what the camera + lenses were worth new.

WOW, this thread brought back some serious memories!

nokia2010 · Jan 29, 2021

A compact "Minolta". Needs repairing.

Your FIRST 35mm Camera...

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