Does anyone else still have their first camera ?

I have looked after my first camera - mainly checking the bellows having treated them many years ago with a

leather food - since 1953. Now that I can scan negatives I have dug it out and am putting a film through it this

month. In those days I had no meter or rangefinder and used the exposure guide in the Selo film box for the

shutter speed and aperture to use. Distances I guessed in relation to a cricket pitch and usually got it right,

by using the right aperture to cover the distance,

You really had to think about the picture in those days and action photography was out of the question. My camera

was a Zeiss Ikon Ikonta with 4,5 Tessar in a Compur shutter to 1/250th. As a schoolboy, photography had just been

introduced as an after hours hobby and only four or five boys were interested. The one rule our master gave us,

and illustrated by us all testing the theory, was never to take a handheld photograph below 1/100th of a second.

<p>A proud "No!" - I seem different vintage. - The first picture I was allowed to take was with my mother's (higher end) Agfa pocket, which probably still exists but doesn't tempt me at all. In 1983 I made the worst mistake ever: to get a Kodak Disc 2000. I don't bash the lack of IQ, but the shutter lag was even beyond horrible. - I am happy I traded it in for a ridiculous price later just to get rid of it.<br>

Mistakes aside: I still own my first SLR and also the first real camera I was given (when fed up with the Disc) a Super Isolette a great granduncle must have bought some 15+x years before my birth. Both are in working condition, although the brassing Pentax' base plate is too bend to take the motor drive anymore. <br>

Side note: I envy the older folks who picked up photography when even the worst cameras were worth collecting / keeping.</p>

Not really that old, my Nikon FM10 bought in 2000. I have many cameras now, but this one still works very well. It was despised for not being a real Nikon. But I have used it for 14 years in the snow and in the heat and it never let me down. I still have a roll in it and used it last weekend. Actually, my best 35mm shots were taken with it. A camera is a faithful companion.

My Mamiya/Sekor 1000 DTL, bought in Long Bien Plantation PX in 1969. Played with it for three years untill children intered my life. I put it away for thirty years untill first grandchild arrived. Digital proved to be easier and faster, so back in the closet for the DTL. Last year I discovered old film cameras were rediculously cheap. Finding four of five film cameras at yard sales and getting them operating lit the fire. I had to clean the aperture blades, and the DTL shoots good! Old cameras are a fun,cheap hobby for me. I must say, finding local and on-line camera friends has been a pleasant surprise! Thank you, all.

 

cls

Yes, I think I have both my first two! The very first one was a box brownie bought at a village fete, which took 620 film I think. The second was a Lubitel TLR. I must have got both in the early 70s: I used to make (terrible!) contact prints from them. Neither are in very good order I expect. I probably don't have films I took, which might be a good thing.

<p>My first SLR camera was a Praktica Super TL, and 3 lenses. The 50mm Zeiss, 21mm Zeiss, and 135mm Zeiss. Then, the Nikon F, two and three, and so on, most of the models, all the way to the F5. Still owning all the cameras, to many, to day, and using them time to time. The favorite is the FA but mostly used, the FM-2 and the FE-2s. The real beauty is the FM3a.</p>

<p>My first camera was a brownie bullet camera. That is long gone. I still have my first "real" camera, the venerable Argus C3. It still works. I had no light meter but it had a convenient code as the numbers we color coded for the correct film. Some of the Kodachrome slides I took with it look like they were taken yesterday. My Nikormat EL went away for a motorcycle in the 70's but I have my F2AS that took my first published shot.</p>

Rick - Like you I am amazed at the Kodachromes I took in the late '50s. I still have some that I took when I worked for the Ford Motor Company at Dagenham. By then I had a Contaflex, still with a Tessar, but that was my first 35mm camera, after which I bought a Corfield Periflex - nice little camera but a poor lens. Can someone explain why those Kodachromes have lasted so long with minimal deterioration?

<p>No, but I replaced them with other copies of them on eBay. :(</p>

 

<p>I think I do somewhere have my first camera, which was a blue Beau Brownie that had belonged to my father, but I have not seen it recently. My second, an Imperial plastic thing that came free with the opening of a bank account, I still have somewhere too, though not handy. My first really good camera, a Sawyer's Mark IV small-format TLR, was, alas, stolen in about 1967.</p>

<p>Somewhere not too long ago I found some of the first pictures I took with the Brownie, of the arrival of the Mayflower II at Plymouth, MA, which the whole family went to see. They came out, but were not very sharp.</p>

<p>My first camera was an Ansco Readyflash, given to me in the early '50s by an aunt, when I was 8 years old. It's long gone, but I purchased an identical camera a few years ago which proudly sits on one of my fireplace mantels.</p>

<p>I have the Canon FT QL with original box purchased from Hero camera co. in Tokyo.</p>

<p>Nope. My first cameras as a kid in the 1960s were a hand-me-down Brownie and a new GAF box camera with much better lens and viewfinder. Long since gone.</p>

<p>Like Rick, my first "serious" camera, a Miranda Sensorex, ended up being traded in the 1970s for a motorcycle that was equally quirky, fun and unreliable - a Bultaco dirt track bike that was loud, fast and remarkable mainly for not cracking my skull open.</p>

<p>I enjoy classic cameras as works of practical art, but try not to get too attached. I didn't even keep any of my grandparents' cameras, although I did keep all of their family photos and 126 Kodachromes. And I kept a couple of my granddad's old pens.</p>

<p>The only camera I've owned that I really regret parting with was a Rolleiflex 2.8C TLR. And I probably won't voluntarily part with my Agfa Isolette, mostly because I worked so hard restoring it.</p>

<p><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/101/271877075_cb9b429835.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="466" />Yes. But I don't use it. :-) </p>

<p>I still have my first 35mm SLR which is an Edixa Prismaflex which I got in 1982. It still works.<br>

My first camera was an Agfa Isolette. I don't have it but I do have one similar.</p>

<p>Yes, but define "first." :)<br /><br />I think, but I'm not sure, that I have the 126 Instamatic I used to take my first snapshots in second grade, circa spring 1968. I believe it was from Montgomery Ward. I definitely still have the Sears/Tower 127, which was close to a clone of Brad's Brownie Starmite above. I have the Roamer 63, a 120/620 folder with a 6.3 lens that was my first "serious" camera with adjustable f-stop and shutter speeds. All of these were my father's. I have my first 35mm SLR, a Russian-made Kalimar with a cloth focal plane shutter so flimsy it had to be replaced at least twice while still under warranty. Also my first Nikon F2, circa 1976. Saved my pennies for that one and bought it in high school before I bought my first car (and it cost more than my first car!). Haven't used it in a dozen years or more but it's still fully functional (except for a busted tripod socket because I was dumb enough to mount the camera to the tripod instead of the lens when using it with a heavy 300).</p>

<p>Since only Brad actually posted a picture here, I thought this sounded like a good "CMC Someday" post topic. So I shamelessly ride on top of Anthony's horse ( http://www.photo.net/classic-cameras-forum/00cZEU ).</p>

<p>Sorry, Anthony, but I had been trying to figure out where to go next with that occasional series. Need knows no shame.</p>

Yes, and no!

 

Yes, I still have the first camera I purchased at age 20: Leica IIIc with Summitar lens. My budget at the time allowed for either the cheapest new SLR (Zenit) or least expensive used Leica. I will always hang onto this one, even if I never shoot 35mm film again.

No, the first camera I used was my mothers Kodak box camera. This one was lost many years ago. The first camera given to me, was an East German Beirette. It only lasted 5 years, good triplet lens but horrible shutter and film advance. Both disintegrated, rendering the thing useless.

<p>My first camera was a Kodak X-15 Instamatic. That had to suffice in place of the camera I really wanted which was my Dad's Kodak Retinette IA, which looked to me at the time like the most sophisticated photographic tool a person could ever dream of! My sister also had an X-15 but her's was the advanced model; it had actual frame-lines in the viewfinder! Talk about extra features! I think those frame-lines actually made her camera feel nicer to use. I took the Instamatic to Europe on our family vacation in the 70s when I was a young teen and captured some of the most memorable pictures that I've ever taken. I still have most of them, but the color has faded on a lot of them. Back then, a couple of cartridges of 126 film seemed like more than enough to last for a month-long vacation! I don't have the actual original camera because as a teen and then young adult, I didn't have the same fondness (or respect) for cameras that I do now, and that one certainly wasn't a high-tech camera like the disc camera I was looking at in the early 80s! I bought one of those too and regretted doing so after getting the first roll (disc) of film developed. What a horrible camera! Much later into adulthood, I found another Instamatic just like mine and bought it along with the flashcubes, and it has a place of honor on my shelf. I still have a couple of 126 cartridges to use with it, so one day I'll re-live the Instamatic experience again.</p>

<p>My very first own camera, got it (already well used) for my 10th birthday, is still with me after 30+x years.<br>

Can't find the images I've shot with it back in the early 1980 years, favorite subjects were my bicycle and too far away birds.<br>

Here is the Reflecta II:<br>

<a title="Reflekta II von georgsfoto bei Flickr" href=" src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2680/4332442964_8ec4a1a702_z.jpg?zz=1" alt="Reflekta II" width="471" height="640" /></a><br>

Reflekta II, shot with Nikon FM2</p>

<p>and here's a shot taken with the Reflekta II:<br>

<a title="Mercedes von georgsfoto bei Flickr" href=" src="https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4006/4336202098_a856c35852_z.jpg?zz=1" alt="Mercedes" width="622" height="640" /></a><br>

Fomapan 100 in Rodinal</p>

<p>My first camera was a Windsor plastic 120 camera (looked like a Diana) that I got for 65 cents and three Popsicle coupons. It took 16 photos on a roll of 120. It fell apart after a few years. I next got a Sears 127 flashcube camera (same as Imperial Cubex) which I still have. A Kodak Instamatic 124 in 1969 and a Pocket Instamatic 40 in 1972. Still have those around the house somewhere. My first 35mm camera (which I still have) is a Konica Auto S2 that I bought from stock at my family's camera shop in the fall of 1974.</p>

<p>Mine's not that old either but I still have the first Nikon FM2n I owned, the first camera I bought new. It needs parts that are no longer available, and I'm not shooting much film. But it's a wonderful piece of machinery. </p>

Mine started in the digital age and in my late 40's. It is a Canon 300D from about 2004, and it is still in fine working condition. Not many seemed to have survived well. At least when you peruse the dead examples listed an ebay. The best thing I did was bolt on a F 2.8 24-70 after owning the camera for a year. Added a 10D a few years later that is converted to IR.

 

I also have my dad's 1953 Rolleiflex. But curiosity got the best of me so I now own the first Rolleiflex and Rollicord cameras all serviced to working condition.

 

CHEERS...

<p>A Walzflex TLR - from my parents on my 12th birthday in 1962. I haven't run a roll of film through it in decades, but it certainly still seems to function when I press the shutter. It reminds me of why I got into this somewhat obsessive hobby every time I see it.</p>

<p>I used mom's Kodak box camera for awhile then received a Kodak holiday 127 for Christmas 1956. Both cameras are lost somewhere in this old house. David Cavan said it well, it is an obsessive hobby. My wife kindly (sometimes) reminds me that 3 chest of drawers are full of cameras. I've been addicted for years. They are old friends of mine.<br>

The first camera I bought is Minolta X-570 that I still take with me to Europe and all over the US. Everyone needs a X-570. Bought mine in 1983. No trouble yet. I have two, just in case. David, I have a Walzflex tlr and think yours takes wonderfull pictures. I'll try mine this year. Good luck to everyone.</p>