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Author Topic: Your First Camera?  (Read 44445 times)

Gordon Buck

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Your First Camera?
« Reply #20 on: January 24, 2005, 12:19:48 pm »

Brownie Holiday Flash - 127 film format.

Kodak Instamatic X35 - 126 film format.  Even had a snap-on "telephoto" attachment.

Exakta 35mm, 50mm and 135mm lenses

Yashica 12 twin lens - 120 film format

Konica T2 35mm - for years had only the 50mm lens that came with it but in the past several years have bought several nice Hexanon lenses for it.  Still works and I use it on occasion.

And then the new stuff ...
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Gordon
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Robert Spoecker

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Your First Camera?
« Reply #21 on: April 24, 2005, 03:36:06 pm »

Argus C3, mid fifties.  Then a succession of SLR's that's still in progress.  I haven't gotten the lenses for the D2X yet, but I'm already looking forward to the D3X with 12 stop DR in a couple of years or so.
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Rich Pontier

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Your First Camera?
« Reply #22 on: January 26, 2005, 12:27:35 pm »

My first camera was a Agfa Clack , rolfilmtype box.
Didnt work properly however. The next one was a Praktica Nova PL1B with real glass lenses with screwfitting, 50mm and 135mm. I 've made my first picture with it and the magic began. I sold it(unfortunately) and bought a Yashica FX D quarts set, because of the zeisslensen it could handle.
At this time, after using every type of camera that could produce an image,I'm very happy with my Canon 1 D MII I bought a few weeks ago.
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Matthew Wilks

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Your First Camera?
« Reply #23 on: May 22, 2005, 06:55:27 pm »

First SLR was a Pentax KM.  A great camera to learn about photography with.  I used it for many years with only the 50mm lens that came with it.  Now my 12 year old son is using it.  I have moved on to bigger and better (read more expensive) cameras, but the lessons I learned with the Pentax are the fundamentals that I use today.
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jbuttel

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Your First Camera?
« Reply #24 on: June 01, 2005, 09:25:55 pm »

Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic circa 1964.  I worked all summer as a carpenter's helper to buy it.  It was wonderful.
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jdemott

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Your First Camera?
« Reply #25 on: January 22, 2005, 11:23:19 pm »

Maybe someone can identify this camera from the late 50s, which was my first camera.

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John DeMott

Eric Myrvaagnes

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Your First Camera?
« Reply #26 on: January 23, 2005, 11:14:13 am »

Hmmm.

Well, first there was a Baby Ikonta folding camera bought by my brother in a pawn shop. It took 16 pictures on a roll of 127 film (How many of you remember 127 film? How many of you even remember film??)

Then there was a wonderful Kodak Retina 3C rangefinder camera. Then my first SLR: a Pentax Spotmatic. I used a varety of Pentaxes for many years (generally kept the lenses and got new bodies when the old ones died). These included MX and ME, up to a couple of SuperPrograms (one for color, one for B&W).

Along the way I also played with Speed Graphic, Graflex (look those up in an archeology textbook), Rollei, and a few other miscellaneous beasts.

My first view camera was a Calumet monorail 4x5, which they could sell cheap because they had bought the dies from Kodak. I think it cost about $139 or so new, lenses much more. Eventually I added a (well-) used anonymous 8x10 view camera, and a nice Zone VI 4x5; but after a while I found that most of my best pictures were still taken with the Pentax, while the view cameras stayed in the trunk of the car.

A couple of years ago I suddenly realized that not a single camera, of the five or so that I then owned, had been in manufacture for over twenty years!

With old age creeping up on me, I finally sold the last of the view cameras and decided to go MF in a serious way: Pentax 67II, with several excellent prime lenses (45, 55, 135 macro, 200), as well as a Mamiya 6 (RF) with 2 lenses.

When friends persuaded me to stick my toe in the waters of the Digital Revolution, I finally got a Canon 10D, with zoom lenses (my first ever): 17-40/4L and 70-200/4L, plus a Sigma fisheye and a 100 macro. I have added a Canon Elan 7NE to shoot slides (I prefer Provia to Velveeta), but I have almost completely, but reluctantly, kicked the film and darkroom habit. ???

Of course, I develop all my digital images in a tray, in Pyro.  

Eric
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russwhe

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Your First Camera?
« Reply #27 on: January 23, 2005, 07:33:20 pm »

This will show just how young i am. My first camera was a EOS500 with 50mm f1.8. Now i have EOS 5 and looking to buy a medium format soon.

rrobinson

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Your First Camera?
« Reply #28 on: January 24, 2005, 12:52:18 pm »

My first 35mm camera was a GAF-LCM. My first "real" camera was a Fujica ST801, which I thought was cool because it used red lighted diodes, rather than match-needle, to determine exposure.
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dlashier

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Your First Camera?
« Reply #29 on: January 26, 2005, 01:12:24 am »

> I am slightly surprised to see Pentax mentioned more often than any other SLR brand. (Not to mention all those Argus's, which I have hardly ever heard of before.)

These were two landmark cameras that helped popularize 35mm along with the later Canon AE-1.

The Argus C1, C2, and C3 dominated the "popular" 35mm market prewar and probably thru the 50's also.

The Pentax spotmatic was probably the first widely popular SLR and one of the first cameras to include built-in TTL metering. It was and still is a nice little camera.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asahi_Pentax

Pentax history
- first instant return mirror
- first pentaprism viewfinder
- first TTL metering
- first auto exposure

Another camera that imo falls in the "landmark" class of "popular" 35mm is the Canon AE-1 which was the first camera with an embedded microprocessor.

Most everyone (over 40 anyway  ) either owned one of these cameras or knew someone who did.

- DL
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wolfnowl

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Your First Camera?
« Reply #30 on: April 24, 2005, 09:36:04 pm »

Let's see... aside from Kodak 'Instamatic' and 110 film cameras, the first 'real' camera I used was my Dad's Argus C5 and an old Sekonic (?) light meter if I remember correctly.  First purchase was an Asahi Pentax Spotmatic F with screw mount (another one) then chose the Minolta XD-11 over the Canon A-1.  I've had a lot of Minoltas, including a couple of SRT-101's and 201's, the XD-11 and 2 X-700's.  Oh, and I still have a Yashica Mat124G and an old rangefinder.

Making the leap to Canon 1Ds Mark II digital now...

Mike.
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Frere Jacques

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Your First Camera?
« Reply #31 on: May 19, 2005, 09:22:15 am »

An AE-1 with 50mm lens bought second-hand for US$150. It was already 15 years old, but what a trooper! I used that camera for 10 years and on visits to 10 countries.  I had it completely refurbished in 2002 and now my girlfriend is happily using it!

I have since jumped to Nikon (F-100) & am reving up for digital and a D2X very soon!

Cheers!
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mythos

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Your First Camera?
« Reply #32 on: June 09, 2005, 03:58:13 pm »

Analogue times:               1. Konica T4
The digital experiences:     2. Canon G3
Now the DSLR:                 3. Sigma SD10
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BernardLanguillier

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Your First Camera?
« Reply #33 on: January 23, 2005, 06:17:05 am »

It was for sure an East German Praktika, but I don't remeber the exact type.

Cheers,
Bernard

larryg

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Your First Camera?
« Reply #34 on: January 23, 2005, 07:25:59 pm »

My first camera I purchased (I used the high schools Speed Graphic 4x5) was the Yashica D.  I was about 16  saved and made lay a way payments on the $49 camera.  Dreamed about this camera and couldn't wait to possess it.

Boy I would love to get this level of excitment back about photography.   Brings back some really great memories.
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Jonathan Wienke

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Your First Camera?
« Reply #35 on: January 24, 2005, 02:07:55 am »

Some really cheap Kodak Instamatic that took 126 film cartridges (which could be made into pinhole cameras with a bit of cardboard and duct tape), followed by an Argus C-four, a Pentax K-1000, Kodak DC4800 digital, then the 1Ds and 1D-MkII.
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howard smith

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Your First Camera?
« Reply #36 on: January 26, 2005, 01:14:15 pm »

The first camera I can remember was a Kodak Brownie.  I won it in a Cub Scout contest.

First real camera was an Argus C-3.  Then a Nikon F.  Thjrow in a Minolta rangefinder too.

When I moved to California and started hiking around the Sierra, I pick up a Canon AE-1, then an A-1, and my favorite, a Nikonos.

Traded all that in on a Hasselblad, an Omega 4x5, and a trip to photography school.  Still have and use those, and have added a Sony 707.
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BJL

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Your First Camera?
« Reply #37 on: January 27, 2005, 09:15:06 am »

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I had a Kodak Brownie box camera that my parents gave me when I went to summer camp back in 1957. I think it used 120 film.
While we are on history: according to a Brownie history web site, the first camera to use 120 film was a Brownie, the Brownie 2 from 1901, which used it in roughly 6x9cm format. However, the numerical specification 120 was only coined many years later; it was originally just called something like "Brownie 2 film".

It fascinates me to note how the 120 "sensor format" has progressed from its role in the genesis of "point and shoot" photography in over a century of existence. Now Howard Smith loads his Hasselblad with "Brownie 2 film".
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Roisin

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Your First Camera?
« Reply #38 on: April 24, 2005, 11:13:19 pm »

The first I used was my father's Pentax Spotmatic - a great camera.  My aunt gave me an identical Spotmatic recently, it turned out to be my father's backup body he had loaned to my aunt decades ago.  I love to use it.

The first camera I actually owned was my grandfather's Canon FTb-N.  He had just bought a compact Olympus, and gladly gave me the Canon which he hardly used.  It was in superb condition.

A few years later my FTb-N was involved in a fluke accident when a shelf in our bar collapsed - a chip of glass flying from a breaking bottle took a little chunk out of the pentaprism viewfinder.  I bought an old wreck of an FTb and sent them both off to have the pentaprism's swapped.  When I stopped in to check out the FTb-N's repair status, which had taken a lot longer than expected, the nice man offered me, by way of apology, the lovely original Canon EOS Elan (EOS 100) for $200AU.  Cheap, freshly serviced and in excellent condition to boot.

I marvelled at the auto-focus, and suddenly photography was more fun. With two basic EF lenses, I could leave a few kilograms of FD glass at home, joy!

I was happily plodding along with the FTb-N and the EOS 100 when I saw the Canon 20D last year.  Several thousands of dollars later (I *had* to have new lenses), it was mine.

Today the four cameras sit in a cabinet with the rest of my gear.  All three film SLR's are almost always loaded with film, and the DSLR is at the ready with a 2GB card.  They are all different, but all get used regularly!
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didger

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Your First Camera?
« Reply #39 on: May 19, 2005, 08:23:53 am »

Quote
until I married and had money
Doggone it, I must have done something dumb with my two marriages, as they didn't improve my finances all that much (rather the opposite).

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I wonder why mostly everyone jumped into the Canon boat...
Heh, heh, with the advent of D2X there's a few of us now jumping off that boat, though probably still not that many jumping on the Zenit (whatever that is) boat. :laugh:
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