Your FIRST 35mm Camera...

[Stan160]

A FED-2, also my dad's first camera which he bought new in the 60's, came with a Weston Master IV meter. I got to use it after he upgraded to an OM-10 in '86 (I was 12). Bought a Praktica LTL in '88 to which I added a couple of cheap and nasty lenses and filters and used a lot until I went to uni in '92. Camera bag and contents stolen from my flat in '95, but was the only thing the police recovered. Apart from occasional holidays and festivals pretty much lost interest in photography for a few years. Bought a digital P&S in '02 which rekindled my interest, then a Nikon D70 last summer followed by more lenses and a speedlight. Browsing the auction site a couple of months ago and realised how cheaply Nikon film bodies are selling for so bought an EM (with meter connection problem, still need to get around to fixing that!) and more recently an FE which is performing well now I've cleaned it up and replaced the light seals.

 

[Wmcgowin]

A Rollei 35 that I bought used for $100. I was about 16 at the time. I loved that camera.

 

[DBP]

A 1971 Nikkormat FTn, which my dad bought new, then passed to me in my 20s, though I had used it many times before that. I actually cut my teeth on medium format, a hand-me-down Argoflex.

 

[tony lockerbie]

Praktica FX, but a Spottie soon followed! Can't beleive that no one has started with a box brownie. Must all be young folks.

 

[MattKing]

Praktica FX, but a Spottie soon followed! Can't beleive that no one has started with a box brownie. Must all be young folks.

Of course, a box brownie wouldn't count as a first 35mm camera, but how about a Brownie Starmatic - 127 is close...

 

[Rob Archer]

I started out with a Practica MTL3 in 1981. I spent the whole of my 1st pay packet on it. I think it was £48 complete with 50mm lens and e/r case. I spent all my spare time (and a few mor pay packets!) travelling round the UK and Europe with it. I must have put a couple of hundred films through it in the two years I had it before it finally fell to bits! I saved up for an Olympus OM2n and haven't looked back since!

Rob

 

[naturephoto1]

My first 35mm camera was my dad's Argus C3. First 35mm camera that I bought was a Canon Ftbn.

Rich

 

[Samuel B]

My first camera was a Ricoh KR-10. It came with this really weird Ricoh 50mm autofocus lens, which had the whole autofocus mechanism attached to the side of the lens, which was really bulky. You had to press a button on the side of the lens to use the autofocus, which never worked anyway! Once I got rid of the lens, and got a "normal" one it was a great camera. I kept using it for about 15 years until I traded it in on a Canon EOS.

 

[LukeRamirez]

Canon Rebel G. From there it went on to a couple elans. Now I use a nikon fm2n (I only just found out it's the n, after I checked my focus screen, ha) and n90s.

 

[Terence Spross]

My first camera was a 127 film Kodak brownie, (I was about 7 years old) and took many B&W photos. But my first 35mm camera, when I started to really take photos was a Kodak Signet 35. I really miss that camera as apparently it was stolen sometime after I bought a Minolta SRT101. The Kodak cameras were given to me by my Dad, but the first SLR I used was a Nikkormat borrowed from the Kodak camera club for a week. I bought the Minolta as one of my first purchases after I had a job (at Kodak).

I do miss that Kodak Signet 35 as it had good optics and it had a quiet shutter and I can do candids iunobtrusivly at public functions. I've owned other Minoltas since.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Contax 167mt. My first film camera was a Seagull 6x6 folding camera. That got me hooked on medium format, which then drove me to a 30+ year old Hasselblad 500c. I then realized I needed SOMETHING in 35mm if nothing else for shooting slides of my own artwork, and I was hooked on the Zeiss glass, so I got the 167mt and a 50mm 1.7 lens. The system has since grown/mutated into a pair of 167mts, an RX, five Contax lenses and one Sigma lens.

 

[Stanislav]

Greetings to all! I from Belarus. My first camera is Zenit-ЕТ. I photograph to it till now!

 

[Fotohuis]

My first camera was a Lubitel 6X6 in 1967. The thing died after a few years (Russian or Ukraine quality ?? ) so I become my first 35mm, an Olympus trip. I still have it here around somewhere, still working......

 

[haris]

SMENA 8 or if you prefer CMEHA 8

 

[Stanislav]

And still Агат-18К (Belarussian manufacture)
At me a warm feeling to this camera...

 

[Fotohuis]

Not all crappy: I still own a Zenit Horizon 202, even for IR panorama pictures with an own rebuild 720nm IR filter.

Dead Link Removed

 

[Brian Jeffery]

A Fujica STX-1. A second hand camera that I got for my birthday. Still got a fond spot for the camera even though I've not used it for 20 years.

 

[Alan9940]

Minolta SR100. Acutally, my wife bought it for me for a Xmas present along with a copy of "The Portfolios of Ansel Adams". Didn't take me long to figure out that the work I saw in that book was the kind of stuff I wanted to do. So, I moved on to large format pretty fast. But, I continued to use that Minolta for family snaps, etc, for years and years.

 

[Mike Wilde]

Minolta X-700, with a vivitar 35-70 lens. I was 15, in high school, and the science teacher arranged a bulk purchase of them. I think I paid $230 canadian all taxes in.

It is still my primary 35mm camera, for colour film.

When 22, I bought a used Minolta SRT-101 for $100, just CLA'ed from a camera repair shop. I still use it, and it is generally loaded with B&W film. I still ahve a spare mercury battery, so it will be a few years until I need to tune it for a different battery or go with limited time Wein batteries.

When 39, bought a used Mamiya C330f. Use it more than the other two, but it has to be a great looking hike day to carry this thing in my pack all day when out on a hike.

 

[filmnut]

My first 35mm was a new Ricoh Singlex TLS with a 50mm f1.7 lens, that I bought when I was 17. At the time I worked in a camera store that was also the company that imported these into Canada, so I got a better deal on it than if I had bought something else. It cost about $175. none the less, which represented my savings for about a year's worth of part-time work! Added a few lenses here and there, but it was my main camera for about 15 years.
Although I've bought (and sometimes sold) many other cameras, but now over thirty years later, I still own it, occasionally use it, and after a meter repair and some of the foam replaced, it still works great!
It has been well taken care of, but it hasn't always been babied, as I've backpacked with it through the wilderness, taken it on canoe trips, etc.
Can't imagine ever selling now.
Keith

 

[onigiri]

mine was Canon AE-1 my mum bought on '81, slightly younger than me, he he

use it as manual camera extensively from '98, now used by a friend to finish her major.

i wish i knew OM system sooner

 

[Philippe-Georges]

Praktika TL, it got stolen (who on earth...) and replaced it by an used Nikon F, I droped it (stupid!).

 

[wheelygirl]

Hi everybody, my very first 35mm camera was [I still use it] is a $10D-US "Walgreens" point and shoot. Now, I am a proud owner of a Minolta srt 101!! Yyyyiiiippppeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[MAGNAchrom]

My first camera was Leica M4 w/ Sumicron 50mm and I used it with Kodakchrome 25 -- now *THAT* camera was sharp!

 

[Bromo33333]

First 35mm camera?

I actually used a cheap instamatic initially, and some P&S cameras, but I suppose a Nikon FM2 was the first "serious" 35mm camera I owned.