YOUR FIRST CAMERA

Got this for my 6th birthday - still have it.

I took it on our family vacation to Europe and packed a total of three 126 cartridges for the trip

I took perhaps 7-10 rolls of 126 film for my Instamatic 25 when I went on a cruise aged 11. I remember it cost 70 pounds to develop the film with all the prints. This was a lot of money in 1972 . My dad was very nice about it. I still have the photos, but alas not the negatives. It really stirred my interest in photography.

(snip)

He used a Certo Super Sport Dolly, a mid-range folding 120 roll film camera popular in the 1940's, though his dream was to acquire a new-fangled Braun Paxette.

(snip)

 

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The Certo Dolly that I have uses 127 film, but it seems that they made them both ways.

 

I thought I would be able to tell from the picture, but I don't think I can.

The 120 version seems to be called "Super Sport Dolly".

 

In any case, they are nice, and the bellows on mine seem to be good.

As in the picture, the word "Dolly" is only visible with the light in just the

right angle.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4040/4338037416_3f5002fe09.jpg

 

I received it for Christmas when I was about 10 years old.

My mother had an Instamatic 104, so I have one in my camera collection.

As I am a few years younger than many posters here and I didn't buy my first camera until I was a few years out of college, My first camera was this Nikon F65 that came bundled with the kit 28-80 and 70-300 zooms. Purchased from B&H on February 4th, 2005, according to the receipt I kept. I still have them, and they all still work, despite having left the camera out in the rain all night after a night of drunken revelry about 15 years ago.

 

 

Here is an image from what I believe is the very first roll I ever shot with it, a 12 exposure roll of Fujicolor 100.

 

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4040/4338037416_3f5002fe09.jpg

 

I received it for Christmas when I was about 10 years old.

That little 104 was a Christmas gift from my Dad to Mom way back. Probably documented our Family during the growing up years more than any other camera. I remember borrowing it before I bought my first 35 mm to take down the Eleven Point River. Posted before, this is the single best photo I ever took with it....

 

Edited March 26, 2021 by Moving On

Here's my Kodak Instamatic X-15 world-conquering outfit...the original camera and bag from 1975, and some flashcubes and film that I bought several years ago. There is a cartridge in the camera, so that makes the three cartridges that I carried with me on our trip to Europe. Later in 1981 I took the same outfit on a trip to South America and once again took some amazing pics. There are still places online that sell 126 cartridges and develop the film as well, so it's still possible to use these cameras!

 

Andy

That film cartridge concept was brilliant in that it allowed anyone to easily load, advance, count, unload, and protect every roll.

I think it was a perfect concept that led millions to incorporate simple photography into their family routine.

One of the most successful for Kodak as well.

That film cartridge concept was brilliant in that it allowed anyone to easily load, advance, count, unload, and protect every roll.

I think it was a perfect concept that led millions to incorporate simple photography into their family routine.

One of the most successful for Kodak as well.

The most succesfull Kodak product.

I remember my first 35mm.

Paycheck was small and I spent much time looking at this neat, small Pentax before finally taking the leap. A pricey item for me back then, but well below those professional Nikons.

Remains one of my favorite little cameras.

Thanks for sharing the ME commercial, Moving On. There never were many SLR commercials as I remember. I think Canon and Olympus had a few. I don't remember seeing Nikon commercials until digital SLRs hit the market. I think Minolta may have had a commercial or two during the Maxxum days. As for the ME (and its all mechanical sibling, the MX), I read about them in Popular Photography (which often had double page ads for them). Years later I picked up a used MX with 40mm f 2.8 pancake lens. Still works, although finder LEDs are dim.

My first SLR was a Minolta SRT 201 that I bought at cost from family camera store stock in spring of 1978. A couple of months later I bought a Tamron 85-210 f 4.5.

Don't recall any Pentax commercials growing up, but do remember the Cheryl Tiegs ones for the Olympus OM-10 and "Only From the Mind of Minolta." I also remember a TV ad for the Mamiya ZE.

Growing up in the great age of magazines, the main influences in my youth were from the full colour adverts featuring story-book situations, with healthy, good-looking people having wholesome fun. Here's a typical Kodak ad from the small selection I've collected. There were quite a few ads in the "Beats talking about it!" series.

 

Made in France by Lumiere, it was my first camera in 1963

I'm an unusual case in that my parents were professional photographers with their own little commercial studio. I was literally surrounded by cameras from birth. Big 8x10s and 4x5s, a couple of TLRs, plus a Stereo Realist for family slides... which was replaced in 1963 by our first SLR, a Nikkorex F. A series of Nikkormats and Nikons would soon follow.

 

But my first personal camera, when I was around 8, was a Brownie Starmite. I shot 127 Verichrome Pan... and I soon learned to develop it myself. When I was 11, I was given a new-in-box Pony 828 by a photofinisher friend clearing out his old stock... I wanted a camera with manual settings in order to prove that I could handle estimating exposure and focus, so my parents would get me my dream camera, a Minox B, as my bar mitzvah gift. Hey, it was 1968, the spy-mad sixties!

 

So my first serious camera was a Minox B when I was 13. A couple of years later, when I was ready to move up to a personal 35mm, we replaced the Minox with a Petri Color 35, which was my go-everywhere companion for 15 years. A great little camera.

 

Since then, there have been a couple of more Minoxes, a pile of Olympus OM and Pen equipment, and plenty of others... Yet just as in 1967, I'm shooting Tri-X with my parents' Nikkors!

I started out in 1954 with a Brownie Hawkeye flash model. The lens was mediocre at best, but a little coaching would have greatly improved my output. After that initial outburst, I didn't take pictures again until 1978! I still got no coaching, but I was old enough to learn from my mistakes. But get this. My oldest son was never coached, and he is even retarded/autistic; but his sense of color and composition is quite good. Here's a picture he took of our cat. He was 5 years old (the boy, not the cat).

 

I started out in 1954 with a Brownie Hawkeye flash model. The lens was mediocre at best, but a little coaching would have greatly improved my output. After that initial outburst, I didn't take pictures again until 1978! I still got no coaching, but I was old enough to learn from my mistakes. But get this. My oldest son was never coached, and he is even retarded/autistic; but his sense of color and composition is quite good. Here's a picture he took of our cat. He was 5 years old (the boy, not the cat).

 

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What is wrong with Autism? I have Asperger's (High Functioning), Cerebral Palsy, Spinal issues from birth (Spina Bifida suspected), hip and leg length discrepancy. His photos are superb. As mine generally are. I am a very good amateur photographer, audiophile, adaptive athlete, record collector, broadcast engineer, gym member, wheelchair user, and try to be a good human being. I respect your oldest son, he's too much like me in terms of photographer. Thanks for being a superb Dad (I wish I had one like you). Mom and role models did fine.

In 1958 I was about to turn 14 years old and wanted my own camera. A boyhood friend had a 35mm Ilford camera and his father had a Rollieflex with its big negative. I went to the local Chemist who sold cameras and said I wanted a 35mm camera with fast 3.5 lens and a top shutter speed of 1/300. The wise old Chemist steered me to a cheaper folding 6x9 camera with 6.3 lens and top shutter speed of 1/100. This camera can do all that the little camera can do plus has a large negative he said. He sold me on it. Little did I know the seed had been planted for large format cameras. In 1967 I went to Earl's Court in London for the annual camera show and was captivated by the large format (ground glass) cameras on the Linhof stand. Now I have Linhof cameras in 5x7 and 4x10 and a bunch of lenses that cover these formats.