What was your first real camera?

My first one was a Kodak X-15. Verichrome pan was a buck a cartridge. Moved up to a Minolta Hi-Matic 5 I got from the JC Penney catalouge. Same source for a Mamiya 528TL that I wore out. Then some SOB showed me an F2 with a motor drive and it's been all down hill. I had to have the whole rig and went in debt for that and 2 Nikkors for about $1800 in 1976 dollars. Just a senior in high school. The most honest camera ever made.

 

Rick H.

<p>First "real" camera, Olympus OM-1, prior to that, Instamatic. First "serious" camera, Rolleiflex E-2, with 3.5 Xenotar.</p>

<p>Patrick</p>

<p>First real camera was a Argus, C 4, maybe a C 3 I am not sure I remember which one.Leaving high school and going to photography school I quickly bought a Crown Graphic. I never really learned to use the "brick" I loved the Graphic. Both were stolen several years ago.</p>

<p>Olympus OM-1 bought in 1973 at beginning of summer. Still have it</p>

<p>A FED 5C. I still have it. It doesn't get too much use these days.</p>

<p>Mine was also a Konica Auto S-2. Bought mine new at cost at the family camera shop. By the time we starting stocking the Konica Auto S-2, Konica soon announced that it was discontinued. We sold everyone we had in stock. I still have my S-2 even after all this time and it still works.</p>

<p>I was doing a lot of scuba diving and my first real camera was a Nikon Nikonos III; if you don't count a Kodak disc as a real camera. That was in 1980. It was fully manual and I learned the relationship between f stops and depth of field by having to estimate the distance to my subject. No built in meter of any kind, just trial and error. I was 18-19 years old at the time and was so excited to get my photos back from processing only to find out that everything I shot was usually over/under exposed. </p>

<p>That camera taught me so much, I wish I still had it.</p>

<p>Double post. See below.</p>

<p>My first real camera was one that I got when I was a rather young child. It cost $1 and two box tops from a cereal package. This was back in the mid to late 1950s. My mother, the skeptic, said "They will never send you that camera," but they did, and it sparked my original interest in photography.</p>

<p>I say it was a "real" camera because it actually took photographs, on medium format film no less! I still have one or two photos taken with that camera. They were just drug store black and white prints, but they actually look a lot better than many of the black and white prints that come out of photo labs today. (I'm referring to the processing when I talk about the quality of the prints, not the camera.)</p>

<p>However, that first camera would not be considered a high quality camera.</p>

<p>That camera is long gone. However, feeling nostalgic for it, and realizing that it is identical to a camera known as the "Imperial SIX-TWENTY", I bought a replacement for it on ebay a year or so ago. However, I haven't run any film through it yet.</p>

<p>My first high quality camera was a used Exakta VX iia with 58mm f/2 Zeiss auto Biotar and a 90mm preset f/3.5 Schneider Tele Xenar. I bought the kit in early 1969 from a camera shop in Daytona Beach, Florida. The Schneider lens in particular was a real mechanical jewel.</p>

<p>I had a love-hate relationship with the Exakta. It finally gave up the ghost in the late 1970s, and I sold it to a neighbor who wanted to try fixing it.</p>

<p>A few years ago, feeling nostalgic, I bought a replacement for it, with the 58mm auto biotar, but not the 90mm Tele Xenar. Unfortunately, the focal plane shutter has pinholes, so I haven't used the Exakta much.</p>

<p>Canon A-1 with FD 35 mm f:2 and FD 100 mm f:2,8. These lenses I still have, body was soon changed to New F-1 that is also left.</p>

<p>Beacon 225 (1950 620 roll film); Ansco Memar (1954, manual 35mm); Konica IIIg (1957); Rollieflex 3.5 (1959 used); Pentax Spotmatic (ca 1963); Leica M4 (1967); many more followed. I still have the Memar, Rollie, Leica--all are going strong.</p>

<p>Does a Brownie "Star Mite" count? I do remember taking it,and a pocket full of AG1 flash bulbs to the auto show at the old Colliseum (sp) in NYC. I really consider my SRT-101 as the first though. I remember opening that box Christmas morning, and reveling in the feel, and smell of a brand new shiny SLR. Miles of film, till it got stolen 6 years later.</p>

<p>My first real camera was a Rollie Model T, and I believe I bought it in 1959 or 1960. <br />Beautiful photos from that camera. I used it up unitil about 10 years ago. It is broken now and I am not going to fix it. I have another rollie and a Hasselblad.</p>

<p>Agfa Isolette followed by an Edixa Prismaflex (which I still have).</p>

<p>Mamiya C3 in 1974. I had been trained on a 5X7 view camera. For years I thought of the negatives as small and couldn't imagine anybody using one of those tiny 35mm things. (That all changed when a friend let me use his Leica M3 several years later, it took me exactly one session to change my mind :-)</p>

<p>Black Rollei 35 S, circa 1980 B'Day present from my dad. Beautiful lil sharp, discret, clever camera, strong and attractive. Was stolen after about 15 years of faithful service...<br>

Dad also gave me his Pentax Spotmatic about 10 years later, I remember its second hand title dated 1974. This one attracted no thief, but it is also a genuine good stuff, and still with me.<br>

Both were great tools to try to catch secret chemistry between time, light, film sensitivity, etc...and then to continue the game in the darkroom. Faaaaar away from any computer, it was just about photography.</p>

 

<p>If the old Kodak 620 Hawkeyes and the Imperial Mark XII Flash don't count. It would be a Mamiya 500 DTL.</p>

<p>I started with my mothers Kodak Autographic roll film camera, then an Argus C3. But the Kodak was better, especially since I could only contact print negatives at the time.</p>

<p>I'm with Howard V. & Ed B.,<br /> my Kodak Brownie Starflash. <strong>I think it's a real camera;</strong> it took really nice pictures. I was six years old when my dad got it for me.</p>

<p>Much later my Uncle allowed me to use his Pentax Spotmatic & soon after, got my own Nikkormat Ftn.</p><div></div>

<p>Pentax K1000, which when stolen was replaced by a Nikon FE.</p>

<p>Kodak Instamatic in 1978, some p and shots in between until 1996: I got an used Nikon F2. That was my first SLR</p>

<p>Argus C3, 1947, sold a Kadachrome transparency to Look from one of the first 2 rolls.</p>

<p>Lynn</p>

<p>Canon EOS 630 with a broken LCD and an EF 50 f/1.8 mkI lens. My brother gave it to me saying, "If you don't want it, throw it out. It'll cost more to fix than it's worth."</p>

<p>Zenith 12XP - from Russian Technical and Optical Equipment in London. The UK used to have some sort of a strange import agreement with the USSR in the 1980's and you could get all sorts of strange stuff there for cheap. Came with a nice 55mm lens to which I added a 135mm telephoto for portraits later on that year.<br>

Great fun. Took it backpacking all round Europe still have all the pictures I took in 1985 in a shoebox (cant do that with jpegs) - make me tear up when I get them out and look :)</p>