Your first SLR...would you buy it again?

[nathantw]

My first was a Nikon FE. I saved and saved for many months and when I finally saved up enough for the camera. I still have it today. Yes, I would buy it again in a heartbeat.

 

[twelvetone12]

My first was an NOS F3, a birthday present from my father, in 2003-2004. Still have it and still love it!

 

[jwd722]

A Ricoh Singlex with a 55mm f2.8 purchased in 1969. I was young, mostly broke so it seemed reasonably priced compared to anything else I may have wanted. I don't know what ever became of it but I do remember lusting for the Ricoh TLS 401 which I would still like to own...and yeah, another Singlex would be nice too.

 

[summicron1]

Exa IIa and yes, absolutely, great camera. Consumer Reports rated it a "Best Buy" the year I found one -- 1965 -- used.

Still have it, too, although the shutter has dried and rendered it inoperable.

 

[spark]

Nikon FM with the 50/1.8 Nikkor lens. Still have it, still use it. It has been serviced a couple times but it is a great camera.

 

[darkroommike]

Oh, God no! It was a Petri with a M42 lens mount. Lens was terrible and the image spacing was horrible, I took it back after my first roll, I was shooting Ektachrome and the auto cutter at work didn't like my slides. I exchanged it for an Canon FTb, and last year I bought another for nostalgia. Both Canon's had the same issue, 40 years apart, but it was an easy fix.

 

[Sewin]

A black Praktica LLC given to me by my then brother in law in 1974.
It worked for a few years and had some hard use but the meter eventually started to play up and I bought a Nikon EM in 1982.

I've had quite a few Prakticas which I liked,and I still like Prakticas, but I doubt if I would buy the LLC again.

And the EM, no I wouldn't have another one, too many niggly problems and not enough control.

 

[Jeff L]

Definitely yes. 1979 bought a Yashica FR. Still have it, still works.

 

[msage]

1. Mamiya Sekor 500TL (1971)

2. No, cameras shutter died one month out of warranty (6 month) and was not worth fixing! Bought a Nikkormat shortly after that. Still have it, still it works! I still am a Nikon guy and have bought many in the following decades.

 

[macfred]

Nikon FM with the 50/1.8 Nikkor lens. Still have it, still use it. It has been serviced a couple times but it is a great camera.

same here !

 

[Eric Rose]

The OP and I share something in common, a Minolta SRT101 as a first "mine" SLR. It was an adequate camera but I quickly moved over to Nikon. Would I make the same initial purchase again, no. I would have started off with Nikon.

I hated the lower center weighted metering of the SRT101 and found the lenses wanting in the contrast department. The colour was wonderful, but I was shooting mainly B&W in those days.

I have always kept a special place in my heart for Minolta products though. They were much more sexy than Nikon or Canon cameras. Although in the 70's the Nikon F was found to be quite sexy by many gals I ran into. Ah times were different then .....

 

[Fin]

First SLR: Pentax 110 Auto Super

Would I b... Wait, what? Ah, oh. This is in the 35mm section? Yeah... OK then

First 35mm SLR: Praktica MTL 5b

With a 50mm f:2 and a 28mm f:2.8, one was a Zeiss, one was a Pentacon and then I added some other meh lenses later on with my lack of budget! Owned the camera for about 6 years, and it took a fair bit of abuse. Early on, it developed a meter problem, then the hotshoe came loose. These were both fixed under warranty despite being a used camera, apart from that it was pretty decent. I eventually and regretfully traded it in for a series of failing and faulty Yashicas, then bought a Nikon hockey puck and never looked back!

Would I buy one again: No. I have 2x Fs, an F2 and an OM10 I was given... I don't collect cameras and I really don't need any more...

<Goes on eBay> Erm, oh. Cheap. Also cheap. There's quite a few of them. Oh, and that one comes with a nice lens. Dammit!

 

[dxqcanada]

First camera I ever purchased was a Canon T-70.
I would not buy that again ... not that it was a bad camera ... it's just that I found better ones after that.

 

[mhanc]

first SLR was a nikkormat FT2 which i got new as a present when i was 15. absolutely fantastic camera. totally mechanical camera -- no auto anything.

oh, the places that camera went and what great films i put through it !!

unfortunately, it was stolen some 18 years later... so yes, i would and did buy another one. a few years ago when i took up photography as a hobby again, i picked up an EX+ condition nikkormat FT3 from KEH... for much less than was paid for the original some 30 years earlier!

btw: this is the only 35mm SLR that i have ever owned and i wouldn't consider having any other.

 

[RichardJack]

Bought mine mid 70s, yup not only would buy again but have about dozen of them right now including one that's never been used. XK AES

Have you experienced problems with your "sensor" switch? I bought my first XK in 1974 and it is probably the camera body that I wasted the most frames with. I loved it's build and features but on many occasions my shutter would hang up requiring that I reset it by breaking the battery contact. I wound up using the light meter switch on the finder instead of relying on the sensor switch, I still had missed frames. I eventually sold the body but in 2007 I found a newer version XK with the AES finder. It too missed a few frames on me. While I love the camera I don't trust it. A few days ago I found a XE-7 left over, new in a box and bought it. So far it works like a charm, I have it loaded and will have some fun. I think I should of bought one of these in the first place instead of the XK, I rarely changed finders.

 

[fstop]

I have one with a flaky sensor switch, I never really used it, I would turn it on with the on/off switch, that circuit bypasses the sensor and it stays on all the time, you have to do this when tripod mounted which is a lot of my photography because I shoot a lot of macro or long range with a cable release. Never had an issue operating this way.
The XE-7 is a great camera also, but the XK has 1/2000 top speed and mirror lock up which for me make it a better for some of my photography than the XE-7 or an XD.
I had a Leica R-3 and side by side with a XE-7 you can tell the R-3s lineage is from the XE-7.

 

[Harry Stevens]

August 1979 bought new Zenith EM (all I could afford) still working fine and it would be the last camera I would ever get rid off.

 

[mrosenlof]

Hmm, Yashica TL Electro-X. Worked all summer (of 73) to be able to buy it. I still have the 50/1.7 ? maybe 1.8 that came with it. It's a good lens. The body died sometime in the 90s. It was the best I could afford at the time. Another month of work and I probably could have bought a Minolta SRT 101. But it was a decent camera and I got plenty of good use out of it until it mostly retired in 82 when I bought a Mamiya TLR.

Sure, I would do it again.

 

[Agulliver]

My first was a Praktica MTL5 bought on the island of Jersey in 1983 (sans VAT) with a CZJ Tessar 50mm lens. I still have it though there are issues with the film winding mechanism these days which I haven't got around to looking at.

Would I buy it again? Given the circumstances, yes...it was all my dad could reasonably afford to buy for me! Is it a little heavy and cumbersome? Yes. Does it take cracking photos? Yes. And as it's M42 screw mount it can take a huge variety of widely available lenses. Would I buy one now? No need...I still have mine.

My first SLR was a Minolta super 110....circa 1980/81. My introduction to zoom lenses.

 

[railwayman3]

Exa IIa and yes, absolutely, great camera. Consumer Reports rated it a "Best Buy" the year I found one -- 1965 -- used.

Still have it, too, although the shutter has dried and rendered it inoperable.

Similar here, but an Exa 500 with fixed pentaprism. Bought for me by my Dad, who was an Exakta enthusiast. The Exa was a rock-solid little camera which I used for about 10 years with no problems. My Dad didn't do so well with his Exaktas, which had periodic shutter issues (seemingly some great additional lenses from Zeiss and Meyer, but the East German QC on the cameras and the standard lenses always seemed a bit suspect), and he eventually moved on to other makes.

(I was reminded of Exaktas some time afterwards, in the 1980's...a client had a garage and taxi business, using some Lada cars amongst others. His view..."Eastern European cars are great, built like tanks, good for 250,000 miles....once you'd taken them to pieces and put them together again....properly!".)

 

[Ian Grant]

A Zenit E, definitely never again although I made some excellent images with it but wore it out. In hindsight I wish I'd bought an Exacta Varex 1000 instead, my budget was very limited as a teenager.

Ian

 

[AgX]

I am surprised to learn that two members actually had one of those rare type 110 SLRs as first one.

 

[Agulliver]

I am surprised to learn that two members actually had one of those rare type 110 SLRs as first one.

Technically the Minolta 110 SLR was my dad's...but I used it much more than he did. The logic at the time was that 110 being a newer format might outlast the aging 120 and 135 formats....um....yeah...but also I was 7 years old at the time and the 110 was light, small and semi-auto which suited me...though I'd already mastered fully manual.

I've still got it but there's a problem with the shutter. Come to think of it I still have most of my cameras except the box camera I was given as a 4 year old...nobody remembers what became of it.

 

[AgX]

You were an early developer.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I am surprised to learn that two members actually had one of those rare type 110 SLRs as first one.

I considered buying a Minolta 110 SLR camera when they came out.