What was the first camera that you loved?

[brian_m.1]

<p>I was in my early teens and knew or cared little about cameras. It was in the late 60s when I went on a tour of Europe with my parents. Most people carried Instamatics if they carried a camera at all but there was a gentleman carrying a camera in a gorgeous brown leather that made him clearly stand out. It just oozed quality even to my untrained eyes, making reassuring sounds while going through its motions. I always wondered what camera it was. I knew it wasn't any of the Japanese cameras otherwise I would have remembered the name. Years later, with the help of Google and a vague memory of what I saw on the nameplate I figured out what it was. It was a Contaflex. Something like<a href="http://honksystems.com/gallery2/d/9726-2/Zeiss+Ikon+Contaflex.jpg"> this.</a> </p>

<p> </p>

[MichaelChang]

<p>I've had an assortment of cameras through the years, but it wasn't until 2000 that I really fell in love with my <a href="http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonydscf505v">Sony DSC-F505V</a>. It was my constant companion for almost 5 years and responsible for some of my most memorable and best pictures. </p>

<p>Although the camera is now retired, I still play with it on occasion and have never felt quite the same fondness toward any of my subsequent cameras. </p>

 

[James G. Dainis]

A Pentax 67, although I never owned one. I had Minolta 35mm, Speed Graphic, 4x5 and 8x10 view cameras but whenever I went by the old Competitive Camera store in New York and saw the Pentax 67 with 150mm lens in the window I used to drool. What a big bodacious looking camera.

[mark_pierlot]

<p>Probably my first Canon New F-1, though I had a big crush on my A-1.</p>

[acbeddoe]

<p>Canon FTb w/ 50mm f/1.4 lens - built like a tank, great lens. My first SLR.</p>

[andylynn]

Polaroid 600 type that I had when I was young. Then later I got to use my mom's Minolta SRT with the 58mm 1.4 and

couldn't go back to anything without interchangeable primes.

[Norma Desmond]

<p>I've never had a camera that I loved. I love some photos and some subjects, but no cameras. Sorry.</p>

[chuck -]

<p>+1 Charles - Canon FTb QL w/50mm 1.4 "chrome nose" lens. Bought it in 1973 and still have it...</p>

[willis]

<p>My first camera that was the most memorable was an Exakta iia.<br>

I bought it in Germany on the local economy.<br>

I still have it and it is still used.<br>

I have other cameras but the Exakta line still stands out.<br>

It was an industrial quality camera that stands out above the rest.</p>

[DickArnold]

<p>Minolta One. Post WWII Leica knock-off. Minolta SRT 101. Bronica ETRS. </p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>The Miranda Sensorex. Bought her new in 1970 with 13th birthday money. We took some great photos together. Well... "great" by a teenager's low standards.</p>

<p>By 1973 her meter quit working and Miranda was out of business.</p>

<p>Little trollop. She seduced me and broke my heart.</p>

<p>Since then I'm strictly on a mutual respect relationship level with cameras, tho' I've been ... fond ... of a few.</p>

[daverhaas]

<p>Konica TC...then I feel for it's younger sister the T4... </p>

[rogerwb]

<p>Leica M2 that I bought while stationed in Germany. At then time it was about 2/3 the US price and I could get it on a GI's Pay.</p>

<p> </p>

[seandepuydt]

hasselblad is my instrument.

[philip_wilson]

Canon A1 was my first - I still have it almost 30 years later and it still works. I will have to put a film through it!

[Gup]

<p>Minolta SRT 202 with the 50mm 1.4 upgrade, September 1974, $325 CDN. I bought it with my first paycheque and still had $75 left over for film and burgers. My parents almost went out of their minds. That was a 'monthly' paycheque and it wasn't til years later I realized together they had never had $400 to spend on a luxury item and couldn't justify my new toy. That camera was the best investment I have ever made and works today as well as when new. I made it a gift to my eldest daughter 6 or 7 years ago and she now cherishes it. Neither of my girls wanted the Hasselblad...</p>

 

[SCL]

<p>My first was an Olympus Pen F way back in the 1960s, although I had owned several RF cameras before the OLY. When I divorced to OLY, I fell in love with a Leica M4 in 1968. Both were bought on military pay, but the Leica was heavily discounted and sold by the Leica rep who visited my ship making it affordable to a pretty wide audience.</p>

[User_3804048]

<p>Leica III with a Summar that was "born" the same year that I was.</p>

[brian_m.1]

<p>Just like Charles and Chuck, my first serious SLR camera was an FTB with a 50mm f1.4 lens. I sold it 22 years ago but few months ago the old flames flared up and bought one again with the same lens. It feels like it never left me.<br>

<img src="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/415093/101_2589.jpg" alt="" /></p>

[woolly1]

<p>Canon AE-1 21st birthday present from my father. Carried it all over Asia backpacking in the 70's.<br /> I defected to Nikon after spitting the dummy out because they dumped FD lenses.</p>

<p><br /> Leica M9-P retirement present from me :)</p>

[Lou_Meluso]

<p>I have to say I never had a camera that I loved, although, as a kid, I lusted after a few. In fact most cameras, to this day, frustrate and annoy me. Such primitive, clunky but, sadly, necessary devices.</p>

<p>I do have cameras that I have gotten comfortable with, mostly due to sheer time-in-hands sort of thing. A Canon F-1n, Sinar P, Nikon F3HP and Bronica SQ-A would fall into that category. Oddly, although I've been shooting digital cameras for years, I've never had any one long enough to reach this status.</p>

[michael_elenko]

<p>"Loved" is slightly too strong, but sweetly remembered is more like it.</p>

<p>Konica S2 was a gift from my grandfather who was a Konica dealer in New York City. Great ease of focus and a fantastic Hexanon 45mm 1.8 lens. I recall killing the camera during a two-week bicycling trip in Vancouver Island over thirty years ago. It somehow fell out of a pannier, hit the concrete below hard, and was done. I've never quite forgotten the thud sound it created upon landing.</p>

<p>ME</p>

[david_carroll4]

<p>My first proper camera was a Pentax ME Super with a 50/1.4 SMC-M lens. Went everywhere with me, and then I got a hankering for something more basic, and traded it in for a Minolta SRT-100x. I liked the Pentax, but I <em>loved</em> the SRT. A few years later, it was stolen when my flat in London was burgled in 1986. I replaced it with a used Olympus OM-1n, which I still have. The SRT started me on manual mechanical SLRs, which are still my favorite cameras.</p>

[geoffs1]

<p >OM -1md - I lusted after the OM-1 since it came out, but I had to wait for the "md" version. I got one almost as soon as they were in stores. I still remember driving back to NJ through the Lincoln tunnel from 42 St Photo with my new acquisition.</p>

<p >I still have it, but it hasn't seen any use in about 7 years...</p>

[Hector Javkin]

<p>Like Michael, I think "love" is too strong a word for any piece of equipment with the possible exception of my parents' 1955 Chevy V8. There is one thing: the belay rope I used to catch a falling fellow mountain climber, saving him possible death. Otherwise, equipment is just equipment.<br>

The camera I remember with the most fondness was an Olympus OM1-MD, traded in years ago for a scanner used to digitize the trannies from the Olympus.</p>