Your FIRST 35mm Camera...

[madvax]

I used disposable cameras for years (I wasn't really into photography then). My first real 35mm camera is my Nikon F80/N80.

 

[mysuzuki2]

A Mamiya-Sekor 500 tl. Not only my first 35mm camera but also the first thing I ever bought on credit. It was $10 down and $10/month or something. I was in college about 1968. The Mamiya -Sekors were c onsidered amateur cameras but were actually very good, with very nice lenses. I still have it and shoot about 6-7 rolls a year with it. It still works great!

 

[DKT]

as a kid-- first 35mm was a hand me down Argus C3, and an old GE lightmeter. After that-- a Minolta SR1. First new 35mm, Minolta XD11. Traded that and all the minolta stuff for a Nikkormat FTN and a couple of lenses. Later on I had a part time job at a newspaper that supplied me with an FE2, MD12 and a few lenses. I realized if I had my own Nikon, I would be better off....so the Nikkormat was traded against a new FM2 around 1985. Still use that camera, on it's second shutter....

first camera though was a 126 Mick-o-matic.

 

[RichSBV]

Hey don't knock those Mamiyas! My first SLR was a Mamiya 1000TL, because it had a spot meter and could use my friends Pentax lenses. Gees I put a lot of film through that poor thing and still have it, and it still works! That was an upgrade from an Argus Brick. Although it only lasted a couple of years in regular use as I then moved up to Minolta XK's. They're still in use today!

 

[sionnac]

Canon A-1; still making pictures.

 

[gnashings]

I am almost afraid of another A series Canon... my AE1 has had nothing but grmelins from day one - nothing outright disabling, but when I take a photo, I want to know it will be there on the negative... Its probably just my example, but you know how you can get weary of things that way.
I think I will go with an EF next.

 

[wiseowl]

Practica Super TL2, bought as a christmas pressie after I joined the camera club at school. I'd have been about 13 if memory serves.

 

[Ara Ghajanian]

My Pops bought me a Ricoh KR5 Super when I was 14. We were going on a trip to Armenia (Soviet Armenia back then in 1984) and I needed a camera. Well, that did it. It got me on the road to making great images and I've never looked back. I sold that camera years ago. Can you believe I got $150 for it?
Ara

 

[resummerfield]

I can't believe it! In 11 pages of postings, nobody started with a Pentax Spotmatic! When I first saw one in a store window, I KNEW it was destined to be mine. At the time, all I could afford was a Kodak box using 127 film. But finally I had saved up $200 in grass cutting wages, and it was MINE!

I've gone through quite a few cameras since then, but I still have that Spottie! I think it's one of the best cameras ever built. So surely someone else started with one?

 

[gnashings]

I thought I saw a spottie here somewhere...

 

[Woolliscroft]

I can't believe it! In 11 pages of postings, nobody started with a Pentax Spotmatic!

Grief, when I started that was an impossible dream. They cost actual money

David.

 

[grahamp]

The first 35mm camera I used was my father's Voigtlander Vito B (which I still have). I progressed to a Voigtlander Bessamatic (35mm, 50mm, 135mm lenses) which was an interesting camera. The Bessamatic has the distinction of being the only camera I have ever sold. I have a couple of OM1s and an OM2 which were acquired in the mid-70's and 80's. I rarely use 35mm these days, though.

 

[johnfalky]

My First 35mm was an Olympus Pen. (Late sixties or early seventies) It took horrible pictures ( It still have all of the prints and negatives to prove it.) Then a Chinon Autofocus....which found a garbage can after less than a year of use...clunker. What restarted my photography was a sale at the new defunct LaBelle's Catalog showroom ca. 1980. I became the owner of a Minolta SRT201 complete with 50mm lens for the stunning sum of $53.00. I still have the camera, still works excellent.

 

[bob01721]

My first 35mm was a 1/2-frame Petri -- I forget the model. It got blown up in a rocket attack in Vietnam and I replaced it with a Minolta SRT-101 in 1967. I still have and use the 101.

 

[CraigH]

My dad gave me an Olympus 35Ec that I still have. I was very unhappy that it had zone focusing & no shutter & aperature adjustments. I wanted a Nikkormat FTn since I knew I couldn't ask for an F2. A year or so later my dad got a Minolta SRT 101 that I mostly use. I also still have it. When I was able to afford it, I picked up a Nikon F2 FTn with a 50 MM F1.4. It's still my main camera. I'm happly stuck in 1972 with photography.

 

[magic823]

Learned on a Pentax Spotmatic and Yashica MAT-124, but my first 35mm I ever purchased for myself was a Fujica ST-701 (I still own it along with and 801, 901 and AZ-1 for collection - I have a Yashica MAT-124 also). I shoot two Maxxum 7 now, when I shoot 35mm - 4x5 when I'm not.

 

[ingobohn]

Praktica MTL5B

 

[edz]

My first 35mm camera was a Leica IIc with the 1:3,5/50 Elmar which my father got on the black market during his days as a DP. It was a nice but somewhat finicky camera but luckily an old hollywood camera builder would lay down the Mitchells to work for the price of a cup of coffee and a smile from a young kid. It was not, however, my first camera.. that was a Hit-type camera I bought "with my own money" at the age of 5 from a pawn-shop near where I then lived.....

 

[Elox]

Ricoh Singlex TLS & Ricoh 55mm 1.4 lens. Purchased used in '75 and it still works great. Don't shoot much 35mm today but I've kept this, and a nice collection of Vivitar Series 1 & TX lenses, to use occasionally.

 

[Travis Nunn]

My first 35mm was an Iloca Rapid A1. My father used it while in the Army back in the late 50's early 60's and he gave it to me when I was a kid. My first SLR was a Canon EOS Elan II. I still have both.

 

[raucousimages]

canon AT-1

 

[jon]

My grandfather's Minolta Hi-Matic 7s, still use it to this day.

 

[bohica]

when I was 12 I worked for 2 weeks for my uncle to get $10 to buy a plastic 127 camera with detachable flash gun, that hooked me, at 18 I bought my 1st 35, an Argu C3 (the brick), this was followed by a Petri Racer and a Minolta Himatic 7s. My 1st slr was a Miranda Sensorex, great camera that was ahead of it's time. Currently use a Ricoh XR-P, Pentax Program Plus, and for pure fun a Kodak retina IIIC. Foe MF I love my Mamiya 645 1000s

 

[snegron]

Pentax K1000. I couldn't afford a lens for it so I super glued an old Soligor 35 mm from some other mount I found on it. It actually worked, meter and all! After I got enough cash for a lens, I scraped off the old super glue crust from the lens mount and continued using it. The camera fell off my car one day (with the new lens) as I was driving off, bounced on the road several times, but was unharmed. I guess all the super glue kept it together!

 

[narsuitus]

Based on a Consumer Report magazine that declared that the Miranda Sensorex was the best 35mm SLR for the money, I purchased a brand new Miranda Sensorex with a 50mm f1.9mm lens.

I dumped the camera after it broke for the third time within the first two years of its three-year warranty.