Your first camera.....

[bensonga]

For most of us, I'm guessing it was a film camera.

Mine was a Canonet G-III QL17. Bought it in the mid-1970s, before I moved to Australia. I couldn't afford a Nikkormat (like the one my best friend owned), but at least this was a real 35mm camera!

I carried this little camera around Australia for a couple of years and took many photos (some good, some not so much). After awhile, I found myself longing for a Nikon or Canon SLR, or perhaps, someday, a Leica or Hasselblad. In the meantime however, at least I had the little Canonet.

This was the camera which first introduced me to to the mysteries of apertures, shutter speeds, ASA, depth of field etc. I lost it on the trip back to the States, which provided me with an excuse to buy the SLR I had dreamed of owning (well, it was a Pentax, but that's another story).

35 years later, I walked into the local shop today, took my customary quick glance in the display case containing used and mostly unloved cameras and spotted a little Canonet. Very nice condition. $50. Sold!

I will send it in for a good CLA and run a few rolls of film thru it....just for the memories.

What was your first camera? Do you still have it?

Gary

 

[David Schneider]

Petri 7

 

[mathomas]

Miranda Sensorex II, bought new, with paper route and Christmas money. 1975, I believe. I was 13-ish. Never had much money for film or processing. I probably put 20-30 rolls though it. I ended up giving it to my mother and she used it until it died.

I don't think it's in the family any more. The local shop has one, but I don't want it bad enough to buy it for old times' sake.

 

[fotografz]

I can't remember exactly.

I had a Kodak with a flash cube that I remember throwing on the ground when it didn't work at a family birthday, and my father laughingly advising I not go into photography for a living

As a young Art Director my first job was at a small ad agency in Ann Arbor that had the Argus account for a little while ... and I had an all chrome C3 ... which was my first 35mm film camera.

I moved quickly to a Canon FTB and a F1 and had a UofM student process my images. I still have many of those prints. Oddly, my sister-in-law just gave me an F1 to sell for her.

However, the first real foray into photography came when I bought a Leica M4 ... unlike the other stuff, I remember exactly where I was when I opened that package, and muttered to myself ... no more excuses.

-Marc

 

[GrahamWelland]

First one I bought for myself was a Canon AE-1. That seems like an age ago now ...

The first one I was given was when I was 8 or 9 but I can't remember the exact model except that my father gave it to me to use on a field trip to Switzerland, took 35mm and was pretty much a japanese point and shoot with a swanky brown leather case from the 70's. I also got to use a Mamiya C330 as I got older but only rarely.

 

[jlm]

first camera I bought, 1964,: Olympus Pen half-frame; 72 shots per roll!

next camera: yashica mat 124, 12 shots per roll!

 

[Hausen]

The first camera I bought for myself was Minolta XD-7. Superb little camera and I still have it.

 

[emr]

Can't really remember my own first camera. Must've been some film P&S. However, my first digital camera was an analog videocamera. Really! It was an analog JVC mini-VHS (was that the format's name?) camera which included a 320 x 240 pix digital camera functionality as well. In fact I still have it somewhere.

Really stone age in technology, but I still have some fond memories of my kids taken with it.

EDIT: First camera that I can name was an Olympus µII. Still have it as well.

 

[jlancasterd]

My first camera, around 1953, was a very second-hand pre-WW2 wooden box camera with a folding wire-frame viewfinder… It used 127 roll film and the frame counter was the little red window in the back. It wasn't easy to use and was replaced in 1955 by a Kodak Brownie model D box camera which used 620 film and had the luxury of a built-in optical viewfinder. The counter was, however, still a little red window.

None of my 127 negatives have survived, but I still have around 80 620 negatives and have recently scanned a number for use in articles about 'the way we were' in the 1950s. One particular photograph (see below) has already been used many times in Festiniog Railway publications - a good example of the 'best' camera being the one that you have with you when it is needed!

View attachment 63280

My first system camera was a Periflex Gold Star with a 50mm Lumax f2.4 lens bought in 1960. Made by Corfield in Northern Ireland, it had a Leica screw-thread mount and a periscope focussing system.

Unfortunately, they all disappeared from my life many years ago.

 

[GrahamWelland]

Lest we forget how much of today's digital photo legacy will hit the bit bucket and be lost forever. Your negs aren't immortal or indestructible but you were still able to find and scan them. :thumbup:

 

[micek]

1978, Olympus OM1n

 

[chrism]

Olympus Trip 35, followed after much scrimping and saving by this meterless Praktica:



An example of the problems of flash (bulb!) and FP shutters.... I was only about 15 at the time.

Chris

 

[bensonga]

I can't remember exactly.
However, the first real foray into photography came when I bought a Leica M4 ... unlike the other stuff, I remember exactly where I was when I opened that package, and muttered to myself ... no more excuses.

-Marc

Smiled when I read this one Marc. For many of us, the quality of our gear is no longer a limiting factor, but I hadn't really thought about the other side of the equation...."no more excuses."

Gary

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

My first camera, which replaced the Kodak Brownie that I borrowed from my mother, was the Adox Golf 1A. I was just 10 or 11 at the time, and it felt very advanced compared to most of what my friends had. The only problem was that the shutter release was very hard to push for a young boy, so I could only get sharp photos at the fastest of the 3 shutter speeds, 1/125s.

Unfortunately, I dropped it into the sea a few years later, but it was the replaced by an OM-1 that my father bought in Japan and his old Rolleiflex "Baby". The OM-1 was my main camera for over 30 years, until I started taking photos digitally.

Here's what the Adox looked like (not my photo):

 

[Professional]

Is the question about which first camera used ever in life or which is first camera when getting into photography?

I never remember my first ever camera i had using when i was a kid, but i can remember which camera i bought when i entered photography or even before that short time.

 

[bensonga]

Whichever was most significant to you Tareq. Some people might have used a camera when they were kid, long before they actually bought their first camera. That wasn't the case for me. I didn't get interested in photography until my first year of college, when I met a fellow who owned a Nikkormat. He developed his B&W film and made his own prints, something I had never encountered before then. That's what led me to buy the Canonet I mentioned in the initial post. It was the best 35mm camera I could afford at the time.

Gary

 

[jsf]

My first camera was a Brownie Hawkeye, which in my zeal to understand it I promptly took it apart. Though horrified my folks bought another Brownie for me with commensurate promises on my part, they gave me a one roll of film allowance per week, which taught me to plan my pictures. I sold so many of my snapshots to the other kids that , again my parents made me do two things, one was save every penny and two write out a business plan. (I cannot imagine how rudimentary it was , but I stuck to it.) I bought my first camera Petri f/2.8 rangefinder when I was 13 or 14. I stuck with the "plan" and bought a Honeywell Pentax w/ a semi-auto lens when I was 17 and then a Nikon F when I was 19, which I replaced with another F, 40 years ago. I also bought a Cambo when I was 21 on this same plan. I was 19 when I started filing my business income tax forms from my photo business. Joe

 

[Professional]

Whichever was most significant to you Tareq. Some people might have used a camera when they were kid, long before they actually bought their first camera. That wasn't the case for me. I didn't get interested in photography until my first year of college, when I met a fellow who owned a Nikkormat. He developed his B&W film and made his own prints, something I had never encountered before then. That's what led me to buy the Canonet I mentioned in the initial post. It was the best 35mm camera I could afford at the time.

Gary

Well, in this case i will not consider the time when i was a kid, i used few different disposal and maybe film cameras only, so i will talk about my first time interested in photography.

When i was in college[university] i had a project to do with group [Graduating project], so i was asked to include photos in the projects, here i bought one camera, but that was not dedicated camera, it was Samsung 3-in-1 device [digital camera maybe 1mp + webcam + mp3], and because i saw another student has better quality camera but from a point and shoot i decided to buy another camera, so i bought my first real camera in 2005 after graduation [i graduated in 2004], it was Nikon Coolpix 8800, it was amazing clear quality camera up to ISO200, and i was happy until i took a course in photography late 2005, the lecturer told me to go with DSLR and not point&shoot if i want professional level, so even i was just a beginner i did a mistake and bought another camera not so long after my Nikon, that was my first DSLR, Canon 350D, since that i never look back to P&S and ended up to buy my first MF camera ever, Hassy H3dII-39 in Jan 2009, and because of this camera i bought my first film camera, Mamiya RZ67II and Hasselblad 501CM both at the same time only bodies, so i think those are my first cameras different systems, and my first LF was Speed Graphic Pacemaker 4x5 i think in 2010.

 

[ken_vs_ryu]

minolta srtmcii that was stolen

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Canon AE-1 with a broken meter. Followed soon by the A1, only camera I've ever fallen in love with.