Your FIRST 35mm Camera...

[David Henderson]

A Halina Paulette PS compact ( well, not terribly compact) I won in a "points" scheme operated by my first post-university employer in 1972. It did me until I bought Practika in 1977.

 

[Wade D]

My 1st SLR was a Petri Flex V with a 50mm f/2.0 lens. It lasted from 1968 to 1980 then the shutter failed.

 

[Kapten Stofil]

Dad's old Pontiac Baby Lynx. It still works after I cleaned it.

 

[gospeldj]

An Argus C-3 that my father gave me. I took it to New York on a school trip while in college back in 1977. It made (and still does) excellent pictures.

Mike

 

[datfly]

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 35mm was a Pentax K1000 that I bought brand new in the late 1980s. I loved that camera.

It was stolen in the mid 1990s whilst I was travelling, and I replaced it with an Olympus OM10, which I think is highly under-rated. That camera was also stolen when my house was broken into, and I went back to Pentax with a KM, then an MX, and have most recently started using a PZ-1, which is great. I love the affordability and backwards compatibilty of the pentax system. The lenses I have are awesome, and work on every Pentax body that I own.

 

[Black Dog]

People steal Pracktikas?????????????????That thief obviously knew what they were looking for...

 

[MichaelHarris]

Mine was a Yashica J. I really liked that camera, droped it in a river and it never worked again. Someday I hope to find another one.

 

[Mark_S]

I was spoiled.

It was 1970, and I was 12 years old. A commercial photographer owed my dad some money for something, and he was broke, so he gave my dad a camera - it was a Canon FT QL. My dad had no use for it so he gave it to me.

I abused that camera terribly and ran hundreds of rolls of film through it over the next 10 years. It was built like a tank, and only slightly less weighty.

 

[alan c. davis]

My first camera was a Yashica TL electro. A few months before I bought it I'd asked a pro photographer what the best type of camera was and he said he had been using a Leica for 30 years and swore by them. I got the names confused and bought the Yashica by mistake [not that I'd been able to afford a Leica] That was Feb. 1974 and I was just embarking on what turned out to be a 7 year sojurn travelling around the world. So my Yashica was my faithful companion for aqll those years. IT eventually got pensioned off about 10 years later when the metering packed up and the shutter died. Took some great photos whilst alive.

 

[mitspooner]

Mine was a Nikon P&S that I would carry with me all the time. My first SLR was a Nikon F that I still use to this day.

 

[mgb74]

I started off with medium format.

Of course the medium format was a Kodak box camera (can't remember the model) that took 620 film. I was 13 when I got it as a gift. I remember (later) buying Kodak Tri-Chem packs and developing the film.

First 35mm was a Miranda Sensomat, followed by a Minolta SRT-101. I stayed with Minolta for about 15 years before switching to Nikon in 35mm.

 

[Jim Noel]

My first 35mm camera was a Kodak 35, f3.5 lens, 1/200th shutter, non-rangefinder.
Price - $50 new in the box.

 

[butterflydream]

Mine was M6TTL with Summicron 35mm ASPH in 2002.
Before that I used my father's Contax rangefinder and my sister's Rollei XF.

 

[Jedidiah Smith]

Minolta X-700 that Dad gave me for yearbook class my freshman year of High School...took some decent shots with that old rig.

 

[3Dfan]

My first 35mm was a Vivitar 3Dcam. Prior to that I used a Polaroid Sun 600 and a Kodak 110 Instamatic.

 

[shegs004]

MIne was a Nikon N90s...and have never used anything else, but Im new to this

 

[Ian Grant]

Zenit E, I wore it out in 2 years

 

[BWKate]

Mine was a Minolta XG-1 that was supposed to be a gift for my boyfriend. I kept the camera and not the boyfriend.

 

[floydking]

A Halina Paulette Electric in 1968, which at the time I thought was brilliant! The lens had a strage tendancy to produce somewhat diffuse 'warm' looking photographs (nothing to do with the darkroom chemicals used, or the Tri-X).

 

[SAShruby]

Zenit-E > Practica PC3, MTL, TL, BX > Minolta Dimage 7Hi > Deardorff 8x10 > Deardorff 8x20....

Thinking of 16x20 now.

 

[erikhaugsby]

A Leica M2

unfortunatly, promptly after arrival I sent it off to DAG to get it cleansed of any misuse as shutter speeds 1-15th second, and 1/1000 didn't work.

But it works now.

 

[Pavel+]

"Mine was a Minolta XG-1 that was supposed to be a gift for my boyfriend. I kept the camera and not the boyfriend"

I can understand that ... good move!

 

[Stew Squires]

Minolta SRT-101. Got it with the f/1.4 lens in 1971. Then went to XG-700, then Olympus OM-1, and finally still use a Pentax Pz-1p.

Stew

 

[jamie]

The first camera I owned was from fisher price but it wasn't a 35mm. The first 35mm camera I bought myself was a Canon Elan7ne not very long ago. But I was using other peoples cameras before that.

The NEXT 35mm camera I'm buying is a Leica M

 

[bruce terry]

The first camera I ever owned was an empty Palmolive soap box with a hole punched in both ends. Held it to my eye and kept saying 'click', got some good shots, but didn't have an Oatmeal tub to develop the prints in. I think I was six.