N
nei1
Guest
It was an olympus om1 with a 50mmf1.8 lens,nice camera but looking back I think the viewfinder was a bit too big and bright.Must have been early eighties.
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First real camera
- Thread starter Guy Mancuso
- Start date
Honeywell Pentax H3 55mm f/1.8 lens
manual shutter speed setting to 1/1000.
"Auto" feature was that the lens stopped down automatically when you took the picture.
Date, well maybe 1967 or thereabouts.
Film reminder dial under the rewind crank where you set the asa (that was then ISO is now) on white numbers, or green numbers for color. This had no other function.
-bob
manual shutter speed setting to 1/1000.
"Auto" feature was that the lens stopped down automatically when you took the picture.
Date, well maybe 1967 or thereabouts.
Film reminder dial under the rewind crank where you set the asa (that was then ISO is now) on white numbers, or green numbers for color. This had no other function.
-bob
Lisa
New member
Maybe most of you wouldn't count it as a "real" camera, but one of my best photos was taken with it, so I have to include it: a Kodak Instamatic (1970's point-and-click).
If you won't count that one, then my first would be a Canon EOS SLR of some basic sort or other I bought around the late '80s, and that's all I used until I went digital (with Nikon).
Lisa
If you won't count that one, then my first would be a Canon EOS SLR of some basic sort or other I bought around the late '80s, and that's all I used until I went digital (with Nikon).
Lisa
Guy Mancuso
Administrator, Instructor
Now that is a Avatar. Love it
E
Eisemann
Guest
My father gave me a Leica 111a with Elmar 5cm 1:3.5 when I went away to college in 1964. I still use it as a backup to my M8. I had it CLA'd twice over the years, the latest last year with Don Goldberg.
gogopix
Subscriber
Kodak Six 20 folding camera. in 1954
I remember I was 11 and my aunt worked in a photofinishing lab. She got a new camera (she didnt have kids then so had more discretionary dollars I guess) and gave me her pre=war (NOT the Great war!) camera. Taught me to use it, load that 620 roll. There should be a special award for patient aunts.
I took it on a trip with family on the NEW NY State Thruway that summer. The service areas were still in temporsy building (a lot of 'temporary buildings, like those from the war in DC were like MASH barrachs.
Went to a wedding at Syracuse U. where I raised ebrows (but no ire) from the 'pro' (who I think was a student!) and we went on to Niagra falls (NOT with the couple!).
I remember my aunt taking me to the lab to see the prints made on those big hot metal drying drums, falling off the other side. I thought prints were SUPpOSED to be curled!
But the next year I won a brownie movie camera in a school magazine sales contest, and the still camera got a lot less workout.
I also remember making one of those 'solar' prints where you take a negative and put some chemical on a treated paper, then clamp between two glass plates with clothes pins (the sophisticated ones with the springs!)
then you left in the sun - for about two years to get any image :ROTFL:
We've come a LONG way , baby!
Victor
I remember I was 11 and my aunt worked in a photofinishing lab. She got a new camera (she didnt have kids then so had more discretionary dollars I guess) and gave me her pre=war (NOT the Great war!) camera. Taught me to use it, load that 620 roll. There should be a special award for patient aunts.
I took it on a trip with family on the NEW NY State Thruway that summer. The service areas were still in temporsy building (a lot of 'temporary buildings, like those from the war in DC were like MASH barrachs.
Went to a wedding at Syracuse U. where I raised ebrows (but no ire) from the 'pro' (who I think was a student!) and we went on to Niagra falls (NOT with the couple!).
I remember my aunt taking me to the lab to see the prints made on those big hot metal drying drums, falling off the other side. I thought prints were SUPpOSED to be curled!
But the next year I won a brownie movie camera in a school magazine sales contest, and the still camera got a lot less workout.
I also remember making one of those 'solar' prints where you take a negative and put some chemical on a treated paper, then clamp between two glass plates with clothes pins (the sophisticated ones with the springs!)
then you left in the sun - for about two years to get any image :ROTFL:
We've come a LONG way , baby!
Victor
clay stewart
New member
I guess my first camera was a Kodak Instamatic around "74 or 75" My mom gave me for seventh grade photography class. I bought a Minolta X700 in "81" and I've wondered where all my money has gone ever since.
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bradhusick
Active member
1978, Pentax ME Super with 50mm f/1.4
Ben Rubinstein
Active member
Am I the only one here going to say Canon AE-1?
RGoldman
Member
First "real" camera was also a Canon AE-1. I loved that camera until my ex-wife, well, that's a long story....
Dale Allyn
New member
1975 (maybe early 1976) Pentax KX, purchased with three lenses, a Leica shoulder bag and a Haliburton case. I was fifteen years old, but had a job and always managed to spend all of my cash. My mom was a bit shocked when I schlepped this stuff home.
Amazingly, the store manager gave me "90 days, same as cash" terms (not knowing me before I started hanging out there). About six months later I added the K2 DMD body. And in 1978 I went to work for that same camera shop and pro photo lab. I worked there for a couple of years.
My mom was a bit shocked when I schlepped this stuff home.Amazingly, the store manager gave me "90 days, same as cash" terms (not knowing me before I started hanging out there). About six months later I added the K2 DMD body. And in 1978 I went to work for that same camera shop and pro photo lab. I worked there for a couple of years.
Stuart Richardson
Active member
Well, I am a little late to the party here, but I started after most of you, so I suppose it is fitting. My first real camera was a Canon T90, it was my father's. He gave it to me along with an F1N in 2002 after I got back from living in Vladivostok. I became interested in photography there, but all I had was 3mp Canon digital point and shoot. Learning with a manual focus SLR shooting slides in the day of digital really made a difference for me. He also gave me a National Geographic photography how-to book from the 80s, and the "Canon T90 Performance Book" which was basically a book put out by Canon detailing the functions of the T90. It is a superb camera -- really the precursor to all modern SLR's (the R9 is not modern!).
The first camera I bought myself was a Leica MP...not long after it came out. They were 2200 dollars at the time! Expensive to be sure, but they are now 4000, so not bad...
The first camera I bought myself was a Leica MP...not long after it came out. They were 2200 dollars at the time! Expensive to be sure, but they are now 4000, so not bad...
D
divory
Guest
I am afraid that I predate many of you. My first 35mm camera cost £10 towards the end of 1945. It was a pre-war Argus C2 (I think, could have been C4) and it had a Bakelite body, an f4.5 front cell focusing lens and a four speed shutter (1/25, 1/50, 1/100 and 1/200). The war had just ended and 35mm film was like gold dust. Only pan black and white but the next year colour film made an appearance.
Three years later I got a Leica IIc.
But I got a bigger thrill out of my first camera than even my beloved M8!
Three years later I got a Leica IIc.
But I got a bigger thrill out of my first camera than even my beloved M8!
I learned to shoot on my father's Nikon F and later on his F3. Then, when I was 14 I got my own camera, a beat up Pentax K1000 with a 50mm f/2. When I asked for other lenses, he told me to master the 50 first. It is still my preferred FOV to date.
I spent my first day with the camera at my school between classes taking pics of "stuff I'd seen in magazines." After school when I went to work (in the family photo lab of course) I developed the roll and printed it myself. The next day I passed the proofs around to classmates. They kept asking to buy prints, and I ended up selling 30 8x10s at $5 a piece from my very first roll. I was hooked. Of course, I had to print and color correct all the enlargements myself but I certainly learned a lot about shooting and printing.
I saved up my slave wages from the lab (child labor laws don't apply to family business, apparently..) and my photo sales and about a year later bought a Nikon F4s. Still have the camera today. Sadly, I traded the K1000 for a set of Audioquest interconnect cables (which I still have in my audio system and do sound great).
David
I spent my first day with the camera at my school between classes taking pics of "stuff I'd seen in magazines." After school when I went to work (in the family photo lab of course) I developed the roll and printed it myself. The next day I passed the proofs around to classmates. They kept asking to buy prints, and I ended up selling 30 8x10s at $5 a piece from my very first roll. I was hooked. Of course, I had to print and color correct all the enlargements myself but I certainly learned a lot about shooting and printing.
I saved up my slave wages from the lab (child labor laws don't apply to family business, apparently..) and my photo sales and about a year later bought a Nikon F4s. Still have the camera today. Sadly, I traded the K1000 for a set of Audioquest interconnect cables (which I still have in my audio system and do sound great).
David
Daniel
New member
mine was a nikon f4 (or maybe it was an f3) and i gave it away to a budding photographer back in 1980-something. i miss it, but i have no regrets giving it to him. funny thing is that he's no longer pursuing a career as a photographer. he's now a professor of astronomy and astrophysicist in colorado springs, colorado! but he still enjoys photography just for the fun of it. like me
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glenerrolrd
Workshop Member
1964 Black Paint Nikkormat and Nikkor 105/2.5. This was after I dropped Dads M2 and knocked the rangefinder out. Sold the Nikkormat it in 1969 took my first real job pay check to Altman s in Chicago bought a black paint M4 ...I had to borrow my lenses . still have it.