YOUR FIRST CAMERA

How many of you remember what was your first camera that you actually owned and with which you took your first pictures? And do any of you still have that camera and/or the pictures you took? A favourite uncle of mine gave me a Kodak Brownie Starmeter camera when I was 7 or 8 years old back in the mid-1960s. That started me off as a camera bug which has continued my whole life. I still have the camera itself but since it takes 127-size roll film, it's not possible to use it any longer. Here's a page from a Feb. 1962 Kodak dealer catalog showing the Brownie Starmeter.

The first camera that I owned was an Agfa Isomat Rapid. I still have some of the negatives produced with the camera, but no longer have the camera itself. The first camera I used was a Kodak Duaflex, which belonged to my mother.

The first camera i used was a Kodak Baby Brownie Special. The first i owned (a gift) was a Kodak Instamatic 25. The first i bought was a Hasselblad 500 C/M.

First one used was an Agfa Isolette, first one owned, a Nikon FM; no longer own either of them.

The first camera I used was a friends Brownie. First I owned was a Zenith 12xp which I still have. May put a film through it soon for the first time in 30+ years.

My first camera was a Windsor 120 plastic creation that I believe was essentially the same camera as the Diana. Single speed shutter with a single element meniscus lens. I sent off for it for 65 cents and three Popsicle coupons. Still have a few pictures that I might scan later. My first 35mm camera was a Konica Auto S2 that I bought from the family camera shop in 1974.

I was given use of the family bakelite Brownie that was mainly otherwise unused for 350 days of the year. Then I saved my pocket-money for a nice-looking Ferrania 120 camera of my own, that turned out to have a junk lens worse than the Brownie's. I learned to reject styling over function with that lesson!

 

My first decent camera was a used Werra 1 in green with a fixed Tessar lens, and quickly followed and accompanied by a brand new Praktica VF. It's rubbishy 'kit' Meritar was replaced by a used Steinheil f/1.9 Quinon. Hooked!

Edited February 11, 2021 by rodeo_joe|1

My first camera was this Ricoh 500G. I got around 1977, got hooked and used it heavily for a number of years. I still have it and it still works.

 

An anonymous plastic 35mm 'focus free' thing, long since gone, though I used it for many years as a child.

 

First camera I bought myself was a Zenit B.

I took my first photo, aged eight, with a secondhand Brownie, a birthday gift. Wonder how many photographers were started off with a Brownie? Two years later my father gave me his Ilford Sportsman which I thought was as special as a Rolleiflex.

Some long forgotten box camera. My first serious camera was a Yashica J7 that I bought in the Fall of 1967.

My first camera was a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye "Flash" model that my parents gave me when I was about 12 years old in 1968. In 1972 I bought a used Canon QL 19 rangefinder for $50. In 1981 I bought a new Canon AE-1.

 

 

Family camera - Ist pictures and development/printing

 

Kodak Jiffy Six-20 1933-1937

 

First "real" camera I bought with my own money

 

A Personal History of the Heiland/Asahi Pentax H2/S2

My first camera was a Kodak Instamatic. Was for my birthday around 1960/1961. Shot a lot of film with it and still have some of the pictures. I don't have it any more and can not remember what happened to it.

The family had a Six-20 Brownie, and I remember being shown how to hold it and look through the little brilliant finders, aged about six or eight. I was probably allowed to take a picture or two, but I don't remember that. My mother had an Instamatic that I remember using a few times; the prints were pretty bad.

At seventeen years old, I lusted after an SLR, and my parents treated me to a Canon AE-1, which I still have. I have some of the films that I took in the first couple of years, and there are some that I still think are quite good (but were conscious copies of photographers whose pictures I'd seen and liked).

My first camera was a 126 instamatic that accepts magic cubes for flash. I joined our high school photography club and We were required to have a camera. We were poor and My mother can only afford to buy me an instamatic. My Aunt who was a sewer made me a leather camera case that has a bulge in front. It looks like an SLR because of that bulge.

 

The first camera I bought was a Canon T70. I wanted a Canon A1 or an Nikon FA but my salary was enough only to afford me to buy a T70. :)

An Ensign Ful-Vue, and I still have a copy. Not a great picture-taker, but one of the best viewfinders, ever.

 

First camera, Kodak Instamatic which took 126 cartridges. First serious camera I ever owned. 1938 Baby Rolleiflex with Zeiss Jena Tessar. Paid $3 at the Oak Ridge, TN Art Center Flea Market. Worked for 2 rolls of film, then I misloaded it and the advance crank gear jammed. Next camera, Canon Snappy S, Mom gave me that for christmas, also for Christmas, bought me a used Yashica-Mat which I wish I still owned. First 35 mm SLR, a friend gave me a Canon FTb and a FD 50 1.8.

First camera was a Kodak Instamatic X-15. First one I had to pay attention while loading was a Minolta HiMatic 5.

 

Rick H.

My first camera was a Canon FT I "borrowed" from my father to use in a high school photography class. He bought it in 1970 but didn't use it much, and not at all after I started using it. I still have it but haven't used it in a long time since I "graduated" to an F-1n and then a New F-1.

 

The first camera I bought with my own hard earned cash was a Canon EF. I still have that as well...

First was an Imperial Delta that I "won" in a camera store contest, when I was about 8, that I didn't enter. Uses 127 film.

I only remember one roll, which I developed with my father in the darkroom at his work.

 

About the next year, I started using a Yashica TLR that my parents had from before I was born.

That was the one I first learned darkroom work with, developing and contact printing in the bathroom.

 

Also, when visiting my grandparents I found a Kodak Autographic Jr. 1A that uses 116 film.

That was 1968, when it wasn't so hard to find 116 film, so I had a roll to use with it.

I still have that one, and have had more film in it in recent years.

 

About a year later, my dad bought a Canon Pellix, and I got to use (borrow) the Canon VI rangefinder

that took all the pictures since I was about one. (The Yashica might have taking my baby pictures earlier.)

I took a lot of pictures with that one, and also some other 35mm cameras I inherited from my grandfather,

along with his darkroom supplies. I shot many pictures with the Canon VI for 7th and 8th grade

yearbook photography. I still have all the negatives from those years, and even back to 5th grade.

I had 35mm, 50mm, and 135mm lenses for it. (Well, still have them, and the camera.)

 

Just before the end of third year college, not so long after they came out, I bought my first camera,

a Nikon FM with AI 35/2.0 lens. So that is the first one I bought myself. I still have that one.

 

I got an Imperial Delta on eBay for $1, which is about how much they are worth.

It looks like most of us got our start with roll-film cameras at quite a tender age. Then we graduated to 35mm. My next camera was an old folding Retina my grandfather gave me. I followed that with a camera I bought with my own money on a layaway plan at the local camera store, a Kodak Signet 80. I saved enough to buy the 35mm and 90mm lenses, plus every conceivable accessory Kodak offered for it. I still have the kit and occasionally run a roll or two through it every year or so. I dabbled a little with medium format and then bought the Canon F-1 when it was first introduced. Afterwards I inherited my grandfather’s Leica M3 with all three Summicrons, and haven’t looked back since.

My very own first camera would be an Olympus XA, purchased at Labelle's department store in Tempe, Arizona after graduating from motorcycle mechanics school in Phoenix. I still have it. It's been to top of Pike's Peak, bottom of Grand Canyon, above the Arctic Circle. Works well; taught me a lot.

First camera I used was my father Petri 7s fixed lens rangefinder. First camera I own was the Nikon F2AS. I don't have the first pictures taken with either camera.

I do not remember my first camera but do remember a boxy Ansco. I did not start thinking cameras until I was 35 and that camera was a plastic Minolta (7000 Si )?AF something or other.