your classic camera roots in photography ?

[rustys pics]

Well I feel like a youngster at 45, but the first camera I used was the Kodak 126 Instamatic. Pretty humble plastic lens but Dad took some great shots with it and always let me finish the last couple of shots on the roll. I can still remember the day he brought home the bright yellow box. The family had a real camera at last! That got me hooked. I kept using it through college in the early 1980s. Started doing my own processing at age 14 in a friend's cellar. He had some old enlarger he bought used. Graduated to a Pentax SLR after that.

Now that I have a stable of Nikons and Rollei TLRs I feel like a rich man. But none will ever match the thrill of the old 126 instamatic.

[steve_bellayr]

I started out using a Kodak instamatic which was just okay for snapshots of friends. From there I went to an Agfa 35mm. I had that camera for about a year until I sold it and bought a Nikkormat around 1970. I still have that Nikkormat and in all this time I have replaced the seals only once. Not too shabby. I used the F4 for a long time because I wanted the motor drive for sports. Later, I got the D1 but I could not get used to looking at the photographs immediately. I have now returned to shooting with vintage 1970's or 1980's. Excellent quality lenses even on lesser models. Light weight. Not expensive.

[geowelch]

I'm now 60, but started taking pictures when I was about 12. I went through a series of classic cameras. They weren't considered classic then - just old and/or cheap. I started with my Dad's Ansco (Agfa) 620 folder, a GE exposure meter, and a little accessory rangefinder. This was old, obsolete equipment even then. This was followed by a Ricoh Reflex. After that I went over to 35mm with a Werra I, much to my Dad's disgust - he didn't hold much with "miniature cameras". It is vaguely ironic that I now find myself gravitating back to what is now known as medium format.

 

There have been many cameras since then, some classic, some not so much. But I have fondmemories of Dad's old Ansco, and I'll always be grateful to him for teaching me the fundamentals of photography.

[bigpat]

I am 64. I came from quite a poor background,in England.During my childhood almost everything was rationed and the country had been brought to its knees by fighting the Nazis, from 1939, not 1941 like the USA.For a long time we stood alone in Europe against Hitler, with only the ever reliable former colonies, the Aussles, New Zealanders etc to help what they called 'The Old Country' Without the 'Lease Lend' sopply of Ships, Aircraft,Tanks etc.from the USA, we may well have been defeated.But the price and conditions imposed on us by the USA were crippling and were the main cause of the near bankrupcy of Great Britain. The import of high quality Foreign cameras such as Leica,Rollei etc was illegal, and those pre-war quality cameras which had not ended up in the hands of the military,as many of them had, were in great demand,The tOwn I lived in was on the South coast, and although not bombed as much as London and other big cities there were large craters all over the town where buildings had been destroyed by the Luftwaffe. This seemed normal to us kids and we played on the remains of the Central Library, Fire Station, one of the major Banks. a Department store,one of the largest Hotels etc, Then at the age of about 12 I pestered my parents for a Brownie 127 for XMAS. i got one, and one film.What I had not considered was where the money was coming from to develop and print,and buy more film. I never saw a photo from that camera, and my photography went into suspension until I was about 18 and working, when I purchased a second hand P;axette. The intervening years had been spent with my nose pressed to the window of the local dealers ,looking at the ever increasing supply of highly expensive quality cameras.

Contrast with my son, who at the age of 12 toured the Soviet Union with my wife and I. I was in charge of the video camera,which most Russians had never seen at the time, and he expertly took care of the photography. Most of the cameras on show were Feds, Zorkis and Zeniths. He sported a black Nikkormat FT2, fitted most of the time with a massive black 38-100 Tamron zoom,which was very good for an early zoom. A year or so later he repeated the feat in the South West USA. Today we both have collections of high quality classic cameras,in my case over 100. He takes quite a few street candids ln London,where he works on the outskirts as a computer Programmer. His outfit for this purpose consists of a very expensive- - -M0BILE PHONE !!!

[alex macphee]

This has been a fascinating thread. I have so enjoyed reading all these recollections and reminiscences. A real pleasure.

[alan_rockwood]

My first camera was a simple 620 box camera back in the 1950s. I got it for $1 and two box tops. My mother, the skeptic, thought the money was lost, but the camera came and it worked.

 

My first high quality camera was an Exakta VX iia with 58mm f/2 auto Biotar and 90mm f/3.5 TeleXenar. I got rid of the camera and lenses along the way, but I missed it, so I got another on ebay a couple of years ago. The shutter has pinholes (now fixed with goop) and the lens (58mm f/2 auto Biotar again) has some mechanical problems, but still it is good to have an Exakta in the nest again.

[l._david_tomei1]

Patrick... 29? I have bottles of D76 older than you!

[Andy Collins]

I must agree with Russ that "none will ever match the thrill of the old 126 instamatic." I remember being a little envious of my sister's 126 Instamatic in the '70's...it was a year newer than mine, and it was 'more advanced' because it had framing lines in the viewfinder! How could you top that?! Sadly, I discarded my X-15 in the '80's at some point, but the bug to acquire another hit me around '95 or '96 when I found one on display in a local camera shop. I bought it off the display shelf, even though I think the guy running the shop thought I was a bit crazy for doing so.

These stories are wonderful...keep them coming!

[Jochen_S]

In 1984 when I was 14 I got the Agfa Super Isolette of my grandmother' s late uncle handed down. Befor that I used my mothers Agfa pocket and - shame on me - bought a Kodak Disc 2000 as my first own camera. I also borrowed my father's Voigtlander Vito C once, but didn't like it a lot.

 

Later in 86 I got my 1st 35mm SLR, a Pentax but also bought a Voigtlander Bergheil 6.5x9cm platecamera with Rollholder when I was 18.

 

My current 35mms of choice are a pair of meterless Leica M and a Retina II, The Mamiya TLRs Pentacon Six and Linhofs are probably classics too and the oldest I own is a 13x18cm wooden Reisecamera which was crudely converted to accept tin plateholders, which I'll probably shoot one day too.

[andrew_brown3]

Hi,

I'm 60 and my Mum and Dad must have got me a Brownie of some sort in about 1955! What great pictures that took. You'd look down into that little curvy image finder and when you thought everything was just so, you'd push down the shutter release.... cloonk....!! My Mum used a little Agfa 35mm ( Sillete?) for about 35 years and still takes pictures with an Olympus Mju.Colour pics only. She's 84 and still feels the magic of image making. And she has pics from her childhood that she took!

I use Nikon Fs now,picked up really cheap, but so solid they'll outlast me and I just run outdated B+W film through them and process it at home. i have a ?20 Digital camera for stuff I want to put in the computer for reference: buildings, signage etc.

What a wonderful post from Alex.. Thanks very much....

Andy.

[summitar]

Dear Patrick,

 

My father was born in Scotland in 1912, and my grandfather spent 26 years in the British Army (Sudan, South Africa, etc.) You mentioned Australia and New Zealand answering the call of duty in WW2. You should have also included Canada, India, South Africa, Rhodesia, and probably a host of others. I should also add that quite a few Yanks volunteered pre-Pearl Harbor to fight for Britain. It goes without saying that all free peoples admire the courageous stand of the British Empire against Nazism from the beginning. Since this is an international forum, to its credit, I should state that I was born and reside in the US. As to lend lease, please bear in mind that the US population was very isolationist prior to Pearl Harbor and had no desire to become entangled in foreign wars, so FDR had to walk a tightrope. I am old enough to remember when the US had honorable, competent, and intelligent presidents.

[john falkenstine]

My 1930's vintage Voigtlander Brilliant, given to me by my Grandparents, which I still have, still works AND I have the negatives and prints, neatly filed in a Kodak filmholder booklet.

[bob_camarena]

I'm 60 and started with a Kodak Duaflex III which my parents bought me in the mid-50s. My father helped me develop and print photos from it at a military hobby shop darkroom when we lived in Tokyo in 1956. My first 35mm was a Petri 7S, which was upgraded to a Nikomat Ftn around 1967. I still have the Kodak and the Nikomat.

 

Over the years, members of my extended family have passed on their old cameras to me. My prized family possession is a Kodak Vest Pocket Hawkeye that my maternal grandfather took to Siberia during the Depression when he went there from the California Gold Country to work on a gold dredger run by and American company. The same camera accompanied my uncle to the Aleutian Islands during WWII.

[bigpat]

Dear Kerry

I tried very hard to get across my point about why it was probably more difficult to obtain a decent camera in Britain shortly after WW2 than almost anywhere else,giving the facts and not necessarily the reasons benind them, because I did not wish to offend anyone. I could have given a huge list of those who came to our aid,including the Free Poles,one of whom I personally knew. He was an Officer on one of three Polish Destroyers which ran the German blockade after the invasion and took their ships to England to continue the fight.Brave man. Also volunteers from the Irish Republic prepared to bury their historical differences in a common cause. And yes, I was well aware of the Eagle Squadrons and the courage of those who crossed the Atlantic and volunteered to fight for us,and in many cases die for us. Rightly or wrongly they were the etc in my posting. I am also fully aware of the isolationist element,the 'a plague on both their houses' feeling,and even the understandable if sadly misplaced pro German attitude of some Americans of German descent.

I consider myself anti no nation,only some people in that nation.I have toured a number of countries in the company of Americans,including the Soviet Union,a nation which suffered more than any other in WW2 . I drove for three weeks through Arizona,Utah,New Mexico,California and Nevada. The friendliness and hospitality were marvellous. I broke down in the desert South of Phoenix. My family and I were rescued by a lovely guy who was inspecting water pipelines in the area. He took us back to his office,cooled us down,gave us cold drinks, and called our hire firm for a replacement car. I have got drunk with various Americans in various places, and remember them with great affection. Many of them share my Wanderlust, and curiosity about what is round the next corner. I also speak German, and for thirty years corresponded,among others, with a man of great courage and integrity behind the wall in East Germany.I also visitad him there and was eventually able to welcome him to England in freedom.I am writing a book on our experiences behind the Iron Curtain. I do not know if anyone else will ever read it,and frankly;I dont care. I was in Poland a few years ago. They had just got their freedom.How come?? It was in the cause of Polish freedom that we declared war on Nazi Germany in 1939. So did we lose the war?? You tell me. We certainly lost the peace, as a comparison between us and Germany will show you. However,in what was West Germany I again have many friends,including a lovely family, the mother calls us her English parents! We expect her daughter in England this year,to visit us thirty years after her mother.

I tried without offence to get over the point that although we owed the Americans much, they poured aid into Europe while extracting from us a heavy price. And that is why I had so long to wait for a decent camera. EXAKTA-ly. By the way Kerry, if you haven't been you would like Scotland. Take your Camera. Japanese??? Well now----

[User_502260]

I reached the half century mark yesterday. The first camera I owned was an Instamatic 44. I was 13 and the pictures I took were dreadful. The 44 was so light that I must have pressed the shutter button too hard. All of my shots were blurred. I had already taken a few pictures (slides) with a Konica Auto S1.6 which my father bought in 1968. The Auto S1.6 was an improved version of the Auto S2. It had the faster 45/1.6 lens and also a hot shoe. In 1971 I got my first good camera. It was a Konica Auto reflex T2 with a 57/1.4 Hexanon. The lens had the rare combination of chrome/black color and the EE lock pin. Both the camera and the lens were worn out by the end of 1975. At that time they were replaced by a Konica Autoreflex T3 and the newer 50/1.4 Hexanon. I started to collect cameras almost 20 years ago and now I have more than I can remember but I don't think I will even have the same enthusiasm that I did at the age of 14 with my Autoreflex T2.

[chuck_foreman1]

I'll be clicking the half centry mark too... in a couple of months.

My Dad was probably the original Geek! But with seven children on a

High School teacher's paycheck...indulgence in gear was just

simply out of reach. There are numerous Kodachromes/Ektachrome of

me and some my brothers but by the time I was 10 or so the old RF

35mm Sears Tower? (fixed 2.8) with the Blue-Dot Flash Bulbs only saw duty on some B-days or Christmas. The whole SLR wave washed over us until I was about 22.

I remeber my brother got a Kodak Instamtic 124 with flash

cubes. I thought that was the cats meow ..wow modern!! I quess it took 126 cartridges. I borrowed my cousins Brownie Hawkeye for a field trip in school in Washington DC... I remember loading it and counting the exposures on the back .. Feeling Dorky with such a kludge but one or the other Kids had similar Ansco etc. I don't remember the pictures or if it was color film or not. I remember my Dad giving my sister (3 years younger)his old folding Six-20 for her photography class and when I saw it and laughed he looked at me askew and reminded me that all the B&W photos in the album from 1955-65 or so were all taken with this (antique). Shortly afterward I was about to travel with my Band and asked if I could borrow his camera.. I was 18 ...and he dug out yet another smaller 35mm with a 3.5mm. (It may also have been a Tower??) He explained it was his back-up. I'd never seen this before and I wanted to know how to use it... He launched me into my first photography lesson and after an hour I was still saying "...OK.. Yeah right Dad... but suppose I just want to take a picture?" Two or three years later My Dad changed schools and started teaching Photogrpahy because they need somebody and he was "the new guy" at about my age now. Shortly thereafter I bought my first camera an SLR used Yashica FXII for 75 dollars and I was able to pay on a bi-weekly basis.

I've learned a helluvalot since then but I was already 22 when I started and I almost immediately became enamoured with "old" affordable hardware. I started out wanting to do good pictorial style work and this led me to Speed Graphics and TLRs. It comes full circle ..now I have growing children and dream of doing darkroom work again...no darkness in sight!! I've enjoyed reading everybody elses posts! I think it is indeed the "time ritual thing that locks me in. Can you imagine having somebody load your old camera so you could just push the button? No way... Let me rewind the magazine.. lick the roll film seal.. I have almost more fun planning a photo excursion and trying to decide which camera gets which film. mmhh ..The Contaflex..the slide film? or should the Exa get the slide film. Should I take the Weston.. or let the Yashica meters everything and is loaded with PlusX while Baby Speed has Tmax.. it's too sunny for Tmax..Ok E-100 for the Mat124 it has a meter. Plus-X in the EXA..mmh decisions.. decisions..

My dream classic is still out of reach .. a Contax IIa

My Dads "back-up" Tower?? 35 was small and fit nicely in the hand. I'd love to find another. Shortly thereafter, (1976) the shutter was deemed irrepairable. So I started to take it apart.. I think I hid my mess in a box in the attic; pieces and all. I live quite far away now so it will turn up one day... or my sister or someone will tell me they found it. I'm sort of ashamed of myself thats why I never have asked about it.

The other Tower was still operable in 1982 when I found he had close-up lenses for it and I used those with mixed results.

I want to see those old Kodachromes again and try to have a "slide show" every couple of years to show my Kids slides of themselves.

It comes full circle. I hope one day my kids will ask me " So how do you take a picture.. It can't be all that complicated??"

[dan_fromm2]

Classic? I dunno.

 

But if you mean old, well, when I was a child my father's cameras were an Argus C-3 that I hated -- I found the knurled knobs painful to turn -- and a Kodak Tourist. He also had a turret type B&H 8 mm cine camera that he bought for a 3 month long business trip to Japan. While there he shot around 40 rolls of Kodachrome that he edited into the best home movie I've ever seen. After he got home he never used the B&H again.

 

My own first camera was a humble Brownie Hawkeye.

 

And that was it for cameras until my brother went to Ohio University to pursue a BFA in photography. He did a lot of his assignments and exercises and shot for the joy of it too with screw mount Leicas. At the time SLRs were a-comin' in and old Leicas, also lenses etc. to fit 'em, were cheaper than dirt.

 

When I returned to photography my brother's Leicas appealed but, as he pointed out when I asked, weren't much good for the closeup work with moving subjects that I wanted to do. So, on his advice I got a Nikkormat FTN (and another for him, too) and some lenses and haven't looked back.

 

These days I shoot newer Nikons -- updated Nikkormats, really -- with manual focus lenses and 2x3 Graphics, he shoots Mamiya 645s and, yes, Nikkormats.

 

When I decided to shoot a movie or two, I started out with a Canon AZ814LS. This was a Canon AutoZoom 814 modified by B&H for double system sound. B&H propaganda notwithstanding, editing sound with their system is nearly impossible. I shot silent. Later graduated to Beaulieus, which are classics but post-1970.

[icog]

I started with my father's old Argus 75. I think I was about six the first time he let me compose a shot. I remember being allowed to load it by myself for the first time when I was about eight. I think by that time dad had one of the new 126 cameras by Kodak.

<P>

I graduated to the Instamatic when I dropped the Argus while riding my bicycle. Dad didn't get mad, just viewed it as a reason to get another camera that interested him. I believe it was a Kodak 110. He never was all that interested in photography, he just wanted to have a record of his children.

<P>

I used the Instamatic and the 110 and whatever else fell to hand to record my own children's growth. I wasn't more than a child myself when they were born. It wasn't until my 30's and the boys were in their teens that I could afford my first serious camera. A used Canon 650. Life was good and fortune smiled on me. Eventually I was able to afford a 1nrs and many expensive lenses.

<P>

The death of my wife, the flooding of my home in '97 reawakened the wanderlust of my youth. The theft of my tools and camera equipment were one just more reason not to stay in the town where I had grown up. It wasn't until about '99 I again felt the need to document the things I was encountering in life. I bought a used Canon A1 and a Vivitar 28mm. Other lenses followed. I settled in a small town near Sacramento when I found a church and a community that felt like home. The A1 has been on several mission trips and documented much of my church life. When the off switch failed the boys bought me the camera I had once dreamed of a Canon T 90.

<P>

I know the Canon equipment doesn't belong here and I apologize for that. For some reason the stories here compelled me to tell my own, small as it may be.I now also shoot with a Mamiya C22 and a Zeiss Donata converted to 3x4 sheet film.

<P>

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Thanks for the thread.

<P>

Lionel

[bigpat]

Lionel,who cares what equipment belongs here. Your story is very moving,and your defiant continuation of life is a tribute to your courage. I have had by comparison a very peaceful and happy life,which is now blighted by illness and pain. I hope I can be as strong !

[jtk]

When I began this thread I talked about my mother's photography. But my father's was also important.

 

He sent me an Iloca http://pheugo.com/cameras/rapidb/rapidb.html from Korea in 1955 ..he commanding a radar unit in deep mountains that remained under fire after the truce. He shot a Canon, brought back hundreds of slides of his rugged world and of backwoods Koreans in strange traditional outfits.

 

I used that Iloca to photograph Queen Elizabeth's visit in 1959 to Newfoundland (badly...just her car passing through the crowd) and again a year or two later, Stirling Moss in his Birdcage Maserati at Laguna Seca. I was still a teen: Sports Car Illustrated's rejection letter said they wanted color and that I needed a telephoto lens.

 

In 1964 a college room-mate gave me the yearbook's photographer job in exchange for occasional hot-date loan of my 1956 Ford. It paid a few $$ and I learned how to use the yearbook's Rollei. In graduate school I taught a psychology class using photographs by Harry Callahan and others to make some sort of point about interpretation of images. Wasn't making photos though, not until a girl talked about her passion for photographers...

 

That's when my classic camera roots shifted to modern camera roots :-)

[tri-x1]

I still have my dad's 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 Speed Graphic and the first 35mm camera our family owned--an Ansco (Agfa) Super Memar.

 

Speaking of Laguna Seca, I was stationed at Fort Ord in 1966 and had a chance to go to the Can-Am race there. It was the first year for the Chaparrals with the big wing on the back and they pretty much dominated the field. I was standing up on a hillside on the back side of the track with my trusty Canon IV with normal lens when either John Surtees or Graham Hill--can't remember which, lost it on a corner and blasted through some straw bales and came to a stop about 50 yards from me. The driver got out, took off his helmet and came walking toward me. I was so awestruck I never snapped a picture. He saw my camera and asked if I had taken a picture. I said know. He said "Too bad someone didn't get some bloody good out of it!" and walked off. I do have Kodachromes somewhere of the Chaparrals, however.

[paul_nelson]

This thread brings back some of my oldest memories. I?m 45, so they aren?t too old (I tell myself). When I was little, probably around 3-5, I was given a brownie box camera of some sort. I vaguely remember being told how to wind the film and take pictures, but I don?t remember ever shooting more than a roll or two. I realize now that film and processing were relatively EXPENSIVE back then. Sometime before first grade, my dad got rid of the camera and I remember being a bit upset about it. My next camera, late 70?s, was a 126 instamatic which I used until high school when by dad let me use his Yashika camera (I have no idea which model, but it dated from his trips to the Marshall Islands in the 60?s). I still remember the AG-1 flashbulbs, which I find myself using again today.

 

My interest in ?classic? cameras was rekindled again a few years back when I noticed a Brownie box camera on eBay. I?ve bought and enjoyed a variety of relatively inexpensive classics since then ? my favorite being my stereo realist camera.

[karl_adams]

The first camera I remember ever using was my father's Pentacon Pentina M - a leaf shutter SLR with a non-instant-return mirror. I must have been about 10 or so, maybe younger. I asked if I could take a picture with his camera & he said yes - then warned me that it would 'go black when I took the picture'. I heard what he said, but it STILL scared me a bit when the viewfinder went black - thought I'd broken something. Later when I was about 12 or 13 I would borrow his Mamiya/Sekor 500 DTL - happy memories.