Choosing a camera for someone just starting out can be tricky. Too complex, too expensive, too intimidating. This reflection shares stories, gear ideas, and first lessons for helping young photographers begin their journey. https://luminous-landscape.com/passing-the-camera-giving-the-gift-of-photography-to-the-next-generation/
Would love to hear what cameras you started with or what you’d give a young photographer!
My first adjustable camera was a Voigtlander Vito B. Bought it new and then a rangefinder to put into the shoe. It worked okay - as far as I could tell - but unfortunately, my love for headshots soon developed, and obviously enough, with its fixed 50mm, it sure wasn’t the right tool for the job. The next purchase was a new Exakta with a 135mm: perfect, once I’d bought a pentaprism.
That was how everything photographic followed: money, money and yet more money. Fortunately, it also managed to repay me. Then, Nikon F entered my life, soon joined by an F2, probably the best camera I ever had, medium format legends notwithstanding.
I would suggest you do not buy any camera for the offspring: let them finance one themselves, so that they learn quickly what involvement with photography really implies. Frankly, what comes too easily ends up having no real value. You’d probably be giving them an essential life lesson that way. Let them get the best out of an iPhone first; it’s a surprisingly good tool, as I have come to realise.
P.S.
Why are you so sure photography is a gift? I’ve done it all my life, and I can tell you, had it not been a very early obsession, there are many other paths I would have been smarter taking. I sometimes think of it as flypaper.
