Saw a similar post at the photo.net site, and thought it might be interesting to see how some of the folks here got started in their photography hobby/profession.

My first "real" camera (after a few plastic lens fixed focus Kodaks)was a second series Fujica ST 701. I saved my money all summer to buy it back when I was 17 years old. Fuji had just upgraded the camera by adding a 1/1000 speed, a hot shoe, silicone blue cell meter chip, and brighter split image screen-advanced features in a $150.00 camera back in 1975. I was so excited when I finally got it, I spent hours reading the manual and just looking through the camera focusing the "Electron Beam Coated" Fuji normal lens. I wanted an SLR so I could do close ups and get a couple of extra lenses. I was fascinated that I now had the ability to capture clear images of the world around me. The 1/1000 second was something I couldn't get over, and me and my friends hurled frisbees all our might and ran as fast as we could, but the camera would just freeze everything. I ended up trading up to a Fuji ST801 a few years later that had a LED readout, faster shutter, and wide open metering, which ultimately was sold to finance my dream camera- a Nikon F2, a few years later.

I have thought about picking up one of the old Fujicas on Ebay for nostalgia as they go for practically nothing, but decided I didn't want to ruin my memory of that camera that I had as a young, excited newbie photographer.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), August 19, 2001

Answers

Well my first own camera was a Olympus OM10 but this only lasted a day, then I exchanged it to a OM1n amd a few weeks later to a OM2n (due to the TTL flash) - so I guess that I can say that the first real camera was a OM2n I chose Olynpus because this was recomended to me and I was very satisfied for quite some years. This was in 1979 in 1982 I was offered a M3 but wanted to give it a thought when I cameback the day after it was sold to somebody else, this spring I finaly bought one (at 5 times the price in 1981!)

Cheers

Kaj (From Denmark)

-- Kaj Froling (saluki@mail.tele.dk), August 19, 2001.

I got my first real camera (after a 126 Instamatic and some kind of Polaroid) in '79 or '80. It was a Sears brand Japanese rangefinder. If I recall correctly, it had a 40mm/f2.8 lens, leaf shutter, split-image focusing, aperture priority and manual metering (through a tiny little accessory lens right above the picture-taking lens). I think it's still lurking somewhere amid the chaos in my closets.

-- Mike Dixon (mike@mikedixonphotography.com), August 19, 2001.

Kodak Signet 35 (pretty fine camera) bought from a hock shop while I was in the Marines. It was replaced in a short time by a minty Contax IIa. A Rollei 2.8D replaced the Contax before I went off on a tangent with Bolex.

-- Bud (budcook@attglobal.net), August 19, 2001.

An Olympus OM1-n purchased at the fine photo department at JCPenny's in 1979.

This camera served me well for 12 years (loaned it to a friend for her university photo class and she dropped it too many times onto cement sidewalks).

It produced thousands of images and is easily the best camera 'value' that I have had.

-- Tim (tjkamke@exceliamging.com), August 19, 2001.

Mamiya 1000 DTL, purchased while on a college tour through Japan. It was the cheaper route into the Pentax screw mount SMC lens line. It had both a center-weighted and a narrow angle spot meter - learned a lot from those two meters. Traded it in on my first Nikon.

-- Ken Shipman (kennyshipman@aol.com), August 19, 2001.

First real camera at age 11 was a Kodak Vigilant 620 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 folder with guess-focus 105mm f/4.5 Kodak Anastigmat lens, leaf shutter to 1/200, and folding eye-level and waist-level finders. Found it in the attic in mint condition. Talk about a camera to really learn the ropes on! Used to make my own "wallet sized" contact prints on Panatomic-X or Verichrome-Pan film. At about 12-13 I inherited a pair of LTM's (IIIa and IIIfBD)along with 4 lenses, from an old friend of the family. Still have them today, recently CLA'd and working fine. During HS and college I put together M4 and Nikon FTn systems, and a used Rollei 2.8F Planar. I've still got those also.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), August 19, 2001.

A 2nd hand Nikon F2 when I was 16, which I had to work a year for part-time after school. I mainly bought it so I could remove the photomic finder and so use the camera at waist level for candid photography. Back in those days (1981), the Nikon F2 shutter "kerboom" wasn't the death-sentance for discreet shooting it is now!

-- Andrew Nemeth (azn@nemeng.com), August 19, 2001.

Observation:

Sure are a lot of young folks here. I already had a Nikon F for a decade when some of these were introduced. :)

Art

-- Art (AKarr90975@aol.com), August 19, 2001.

My dad had a Canon Ftb that I used in high school to shoot B&W.

I didn't really pick up another camera until I bought a Nikon 8008s 20 years later.

-- Pete Su (psu_13@yahoo.com), August 19, 2001.

First real camera as a Yashica Lynx F1.4 (great lens) that I bought used in high school in '69. Used that until I bought the first Nikon F2As that was brought into Edmonton in '73. First Leica was a black paint M4 that I bought used in '82 (how I wish I still had that camera but traded it for a 300 Nikkor when I got a job shooting motorsports). Along the way I've owned a couple of Rollei's, an entire OM system, a Bolex and an Arriflex (tried my hand at film making - EXPENSIVE). For the last 5 years a IIIg and an R3. My wife uses a Braun Paxette.

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), August 19, 2001.

Asahi Pentax Spotmatic with 50mm, 135mm and 200mm Takumars. A year later, sold it all and bought a Nikon Ftn Photomic with 50mm f/1.4 and 200mm f/4 Nikkors.

-- Cosmo Genovese (cosmo@rome.com), August 19, 2001.

In 1970, for a high school visual studies class, I got a Canon FX to replace a Yashica Minister III rangefinder borrowed from my mother - The FX was like an FTb but with metering from an external CdS cell in front of the rewind crank 'sted of TTL. Canon's first body of the post-Canonflex/pre-EOS line.

I remember really noticing the humpbacked look of the SLR compared to the RF, and how different the image on a focusing screen looked compared to the window of the RF. 1/1000 impressed me, as did close, parallax-free framing and focusing.

50mm f/1.8 FL lens (even though the camera was FD-compatible) - had a little pin on the lens barrel that switched from M to A for depth-of- field preview.

Combo was about $120 at the local Sav-Mart, and was probably very old back stock since this camera was only made until about '66-'67 (!)

The Canon was passed around in the family until about 1987 or so - still working when it finally went in trade for an early Maxxum for my mother (the cosmic circle!).

First Leica was a $100 IIIc/50 Elmar 3.5 in 1973 - used it for 1 year in college and traded it for my first "pro" SLR - Nikon F plain prism. It had a shutter that faded out pictures above 1/125, but I don't recall having a lot of trouble loading it. NICE lens!

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), August 19, 2001.

My camera history: Seagull 203B (my first camera by default - it was just lying around in the house) -> Olympus 35 SP (dad's precious family treasure!) -> Pentax K1000 (elder brother's, my learner's camera) -> Nikon EM (gift from dad, dunno why I deserved it; came with crap Vivitar zoom lens - didn't like it, and was secretly glad when it got stolen) -> Canon FX (didn't even know I had it until it was swept out from under the bed!) -> AE- 1 (it just disappeared one day, still a mystery) -> Canon AE-1 Program (replacement for the AE-1; sold when I got my first AF Nikon) -> Nikon 801s (ahhh, my first 'real' camera, a 'friend' dumped it on me at twice the market value) -> Nikon F4s (things ain't the same no more once you've tasted blood!) -> Nikon F3HP ('backup' to my F4s, really just an excuse to buy another nice camera) -> Minolta CLE (the fateful step off the Leica cliff) -> Leica M4-P ('this is gonna be my last camera' - how many times have I said this when I see my credit card bill?) -> Kodak Retina IIc (it has my name on it!) -> to be continued . . . .

-- Hoyin Lee (leehoyin@hutchcity.com), August 19, 2001.

Polaroid 180. I loved Polapan -- still do, have to get those bellows replaced. Used it with a Minox meter designed for an f/3.5 lens and managed to get decent exposures. Beautiful rangefinder.

-- John O'Connell (boywonderiloveyou@hotmail.com), August 19, 2001.

My father was a photographer, and in the '60's he was always trying to get me interested, but being the typical rebellious youth of those days, I rejected his offers. He did give me one of his old Rolleicords, and had me doing B&W in his darkroom. In the very late 1960's, I got a Pentax Spotmatic. I still have that camera, although the mirror may or may not return after a picture is taken.

In the '70's, I went through a series of Nikons... F's, F2's (great cameras!), and my current F3. Bought into Leica in the early 1980's... M3's, M2 and M4, then in 1988, bought my first "new in the box" Leica M6.

Tried autofocus in the '90's, both Canon EOS and Nikon AF, but hated the plastic lenses, (broke three AF Nikon lenses in average use), and the lack of intuitive operations, (give me a shutterspeed dial and f- stop ring any day!), so I went back to the manual Nikon gear.

So today, I am happily using twenty year old technology, Nikon and Leica cameras. Heck... I'm typing this on an old manual type writer ;-)

-- Al Smith (smith58@msn.com), August 19, 2001.

The first camera I took any serious pictures with was a Canonet RF of some description, with a bottom-mounted trigger wind. The pics were of the Paris student riots in '68. My first "serious" camera was an Asahi Pentax SV. I liked it so much I stuck with Pentaxes throughout my short pro career in the '70s - first Spotmatics, then MX's.

After I recovered from my photo burnout in the early '90s I went retro and bought a bunch of Nikon FTns - one with an F36, even :-) Then I went even more retro with an M3 and a DR Summicron, and the rest, as they say, is history.

-- Paul Chefurka (chefurka@home.com), August 19, 2001.

My first real camera is my father's Konica SLR (do not remember the model), then he bought me an Rolleiflex 35 after the Konica stolen. Nice father. About six years ago I bought my first real camera Nikon 6006. Don't like it. Then I bought F3, FM2N, FE2, F4, KIEV 60, four Rolleiflex TLRs, Fuji GA645, SL66, Hexar, then 2 M6. What I have now is two M6, and an Rolleflex TLR F3.5.

-- kenny chiu (amchiu@WORLDNET.ATT.NET), August 19, 2001.

My first real camera was a Hanamex Praktica with a 28mm 50mm 135mm and 2x converter kit. I won it in a poker game for around a $100 bet someone could not cover. I really had no interest in photography at the time, and thought I would sell it. After playing around a little with it I was hooked, and 23 years later and more cameras and money than I care to mention, I am still as hooked as ever.

Steve

-- Steve Belden (otterpond@tds.net), August 19, 2001.

Interesting to see the 135mm lens mentioned a few times. My first set of Nikon lenses started with 50/1.4 and 135/3.5, then added a 200/4 and a 300/4.5 (no teleconverters then). Eventually got a 35/2.8, then a 28/3.5 and a 24/2.8. With the Leica M4 I had the obligatory 50 Cron right away, then the 135 T-E, follwed by the 35/2 and 21/3.4. (Packrat I am, I've still got them all). Nowadays it seems people jump right in with wide-angles but back then (especially with SLR's) it seems the initial fascination was at the longer end.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), August 19, 2001.

After many years of squeezing the most I could out of point 'n' shoots, I got a Kyocera Contax G2 & Zeiss Ikon Contax IIa last year.

-- Chris Chen (furcafe@cris.com), August 19, 2001.

First an Agfa Isolette 120 roll film folding camera.

Next a Kodak (can't remember the model name) "miniature" folding roll film camera until it became too hard to get film for. It was the film with spockets on one edge, same as what went into Instamatic cartridges, 620 film I think.

Then a Canon rangefinder, which sold me on the 35mm rangefinder concept. After it was stolen, I got my first of very many Leicas, a circa 1936 Model 3 (not to be confused with III).

-- Tom Hemphill (themphill@visionone.net), August 19, 2001.

My first real camera was an Agfa Synchro Box, box camera that took 120 film. Inherited from my older brother, who got a Canonet. I sure took that camera seriously. One shutter speed, two fstops, built in yellow filter and two viewfinders (horizontal/vertical). Every shot in a roll of 8 (6x9s) counted on my meager allowance-a roll every 6 weeks-two months was about what I could do.

I don't think I've paid as much attention to composition since...

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), August 19, 2001.

Having read these responses, I feel a) old and b) like I'm from another planet. My first camera was an Argus C3 which I still have and occasionally still use just for ol' times sake.

-- Dan R. (roedj@juno.com), August 19, 2001.

Geez, I feel old as well, but, my first real camera was my next door neighbor's cast off Voightlander Prominent. I was only 10 (in 1963), but I expressed an interest in moving beyond my little Brownie. He had a ton of cameras, so he just gave me the Voightlander. Blew me away, as they would say later on in the 1960's.

It was (and still is) a great rangefinder camera, pretty easy to use, with a great Nokton 50 lens. I still love that sucker!

-- Steve Hoffman (shoffman2@socal.rr.com), August 19, 2001.

After a Voigtlander Vito B and the obligatory Pentax Spotmatic, I bought a second hand Leica M3 for night candid shots for a studio - commission on sales.

The Leica was great except that it gets a bit hot in Australia, and on a warm night, I would get a film of perspiration on my forehead. I was using an old Braun flash with the wet cell shoulder pack and when I held the M3 against my forehead to shoot, the flash synchro socket and cord was against my head. I would press the button and POW! trigger voltage to the forehead. Some people say I've never been the same, but then I always wasn't.

-- wayne murphy (wayne.murphy@publicworks.qld.gov.au.au), August 20, 2001.

I really wanted to learn how to use a camera so I got an FM2n. I later bought used 50/1.4 Ai and 24/2.8 Ai Nikkors. This combo lasted through college and grad school until a wave at Bar Harbour turned the Nikon into rust. Ten years later the M6 got me back to basics. I must say the toughest part about using the M is not dwell on how much these thing cost and just use them rough like the tools they are. It took me a year before I put away the white gloves :)

-- ray tai (razerx@netvigator.com), August 20, 2001.

When I was born, dad got a Contaflex from one of his uncles. Years later, I got to use it with the f:2.8/50mm and the f:4.0/115mm. (Again the tele!)

What a pity the greedy relatives cleared Granddad's closet while I wasn't interested in photography, some years later. Otherwise an M3 DS would be mine now :-(

-- Oliver Schrinner (piraya@hispavista.com), August 20, 2001.

Yashica rangefinder Electro-somethingorother. When it died I got a garage sale Exacta VX1000 with 3 cheapo lenses and three finders. Later I found a 1957 Pentax H2 at another garage sale and was amazed at how much sharper its f/2 Takumar lens was than anything I had for the Exacta (but I learned later that Zeiss made some nice lenses for it). I still have the Pentax and quite a few old screwmount lenses.

-- Ed Buffaloe (edb@unblinkingeye.com), August 20, 2001.

I was a freshman in high school and had just been bitten by the darkroom bug. I had an Instamatic that was hopeless for serious photography. I happened upon a well used Nikon S rangefinder with a 50/1.4 Nikkor at the local photo store. I snapped it up for $50 and then used it for 14 years. Great old camera, I wish I'd never sold it :-(

-- Dan Brown (brpatent@swbell.net), August 20, 2001.

"Real"? I guess a Yashica Electro35 at 13. Nice lens, OK rangefinder, real 35mm film, snazzy (and humming!) diodes on top of camera. Made a real difference compared to the pathetic Instamatics and 110s (yerk!) that ruled over family photography at the time... Used nothing else for 5 years and learned with it most of what I still need to know today.

-- Alan ball (alan.ball@yucom.be), August 20, 2001.

Zenit-B with f2 lens + Soligor 35mm. Then Canon Ftb with f1.8, 50mm Tamron 28mm, Canon 35mm f3.5, 85mm 3.5 and Vivitar 70-210 series I zoom. First Leica in 1984: Leicaflex SL with 50 and 90mm Summicrons.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), August 20, 2001.

I got my first camera, a Ricoh 500G, from my parents when I was 13 yrs. old. I really wanted a SLR, but I think my parents thought it was a little too extravagant, considering that I had never taken a photograph before. The Ricoh was however flexible enough for me to develop an interest in photography. It should take 5 yrs. before I eventually got a SLR; a Nikon FE w. a Nikkor 35/2.8.

-- Niels H. S. Nielsen (nhsn@ruc.dk), August 20, 2001.

Believe it or not my very first camera was a M3 with a collapsible 50mm Summicron that was given to me by my grandfather when I was 15. I wasn't even interested in photography until the M3. I'm 27 now and I still use it. When I went to my first photography class in high school we had to show the teacher the type of camera we were going to be using. He couldn't believe that an amateur teenager owned a Leica. Every class he would gingerly pick it up and look the through the finder. He used Nikon SLRs. (At that time I knew absolutely nothing about Leicas or their highly regarded status)

-- Erik Loponen (eloponen@hotmail.com), August 20, 2001.

Funny how the nostalgic threads keep being the winners.

My father was fond of photography. He owned an Exakta Varex said to be one of the first SLRs. When I was 12 he bought me the smaller Exa, waist level, times from 30 to 175 or odds... I soon started to feel the limitations. The first camera chosen by myself was an Olympus OM1 back in 1972 (!), soon after it had been released. I loved that small, lightweight and somehow sexy camera. And after 30 years I still keep an OM2n with a couple of lenses ready for shooting. When my daughter turned 13 just recently I gave her the OM1...

-- Lutz Konermann (lutz@konermann.net), August 20, 2001.

I suppose my first camera was the Kodak Brownie my dad gave me around 1964, I was four then and don't feel too old now...The first camera I bought for myself was a Pentax MX that had a remarkably loud shutter and mirror slap, but it was reliable. I used it for 20 years.

In my early 20's I worked as a medical photographer. I got to use Nikon F's and Hasselblads everyday. I've never thought of going auto...Bought an M6ttl and 50 summicron 2½ years ago.

-- jeff voorhees (debontekou@yahoo.com), August 20, 2001.

Well, I must be dating myself here. My first REAL camera after a short stint with an Argus C3 and a borrowed Practina, was a Minolta SRT101 with two lenses; a 50f1.7 and a 135f2.8. I bought the Minolta, because I could have only afforded the Nikon F and a half of a lens at the time. Live and learn. Anyway, had it for years, and did a lot of photography with it. And was it high-tech too -- Match-needle center-weighted metering, a 1/1000 shutter speed, a 1/60 flash synch, combo split-image/micro-prism focusing screen and a bayonet lens mount for quick changes! No, I don't miss it. At all!

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), August 20, 2001.

I got interested in photography in college after borrowing a friend's K1000. After college, I found an old Perfex Speed Candid at a swap meet. I actually used that camera for quite awhile. I really miss the way that camera could do low light work. (Hmm, cloth shutter, no mirror to vibrate, why does that sound familiar?)

I still have the camera, but the lens has gone fungusy on me. Haven't used it in years.

-- Steven Hupp (shupp@chicagobotanic.org), August 20, 2001.

Got a Pentax Spotmatic in high school (ker-thwack!), traded for an M2 and 35/2 a year later when I left for college in 1970. I learned the basics with the Pentax, but never connected with it. I think the used M2 was about $225 and the 35/2 about $100. Seemed like a fortune then....The M2/35 combo turned out to be just the right one for me, and I knew it from the moment I picked it up and looked through the viewfinder at Webber's Camera in Santa Cruz, California. It was a personal connection like a musician feels with just the right instrument. I felt liberated from the tunnel vision of that SLR! The M2/35 has been the heart of my photography for the last 30 years, although I added an M3 a few years later, and 21, 50, 90 lenses, and more recently an M6. No side trips back to SLR's, though. I've never been a pro whose work required them (except to document things on copystands or microscopes at work), and never felt the need for longer telephotos or extreme close-ups in my personal photography. For me, my M2 was my first "real" camera, with which I made photos I felt were my first "real" photos. It was the real beginning for me.

-- Tim Nelson (timothy.nelson@yale.edu), August 20, 2001.

Pentax S1a with 24/50/ 200(f5.6) and 2x converter, given to me by my Dad when I was 15.

At sixteen I proved how brain damaged sixteen year olds are (or at least I was) by trading it all plus some cash for a Canon T50 with FD35-70 and the anemic flash which belonged to this set. Yuck!!!! I hear these things found their niche bolted to skydivers helmets- that figures :)

Amazing how much smarter you are by 18, when I traded the whole lot plus cash for the 300TL to go with the T90 I'd just bought.

-- Mark Wrathall (Wrathall@aon.at), August 20, 2001.

Finishing college in the late 80s, I wanted to get an FM2. But that year or thereabouts, the yen was devalued, and I was hard pressed to cough up 500 clams for a body. So I decided to get the cheapest SLR I could find, and my officemate, during my summer job in Washington, DC, couldn't stop raving about her Pentax K1000, w/photos to prove it. So it was a K1000SE (split image VF) with me for years with its 50/1.7, 100% reliable and unbreakable. Life was simple with one body and lens.

I'm hoping to recapture that simplicity, and know that 9 times out of 10, the shots will only get better b/c of me, not the eqpt.

-- Tse-Sung Wu (tsesung@yahoo.com), August 20, 2001.

First "real" camera? The M6TTL I just got this Saturday! Just kidding, of course. It was a Nikon FM and a 50mm 1.8 Series E that I bought in 1981 when I was in 8th grade with my lawnmowing money. This started me down the Nikon road, though I never owned a "professional" body. Had an FE2 for a few years (hated the match-needle metering) and did a brief stint with a Nikonos III (wish I still had) and a Nikkormat FT3. Traded the latter for my current FM2, which have hardly used since I bought a Yashica T4 P&S for my wife and found that it generally produces superior pictures. A big eye-opener for me, since I've always been Joe Nikon. Anyway, the T4 got me interested in German glass and downsizing the weight and bulk of my gear, hence the M6TTL.

-- Ken Geter (kgeter@yahoo.com), August 20, 2001.

Konica C35 "automatic" rangefinder with fixed 38mm lens. Carried it all over europe in 1976. Took lots of great kodachrome pictures.

-- David S Smith (dssmith3@rmci.net), August 20, 2001.

I started developing B&W Kodak Instamatic cartridges (126, I think) in 1970 in my dad's darkroom. Then I got a Canon QL-17 which was my first "real" camera (still have it; still works perfectly except for the 625 Merc. battery requirement). In the early 80s I moved to a Canon FTB with a 50mm lens, and I started using a Minox 8x11mm format. It wasn't until the early 90s that I was turned onto Leica. I've been broke ever since.

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@mail.com), August 20, 2001.

Olympus 35RC, purchased when I was 12. Was then, and still is, an excellent design, with its shutter priority automation, bright rangefinder (the secondhand one I bought has dimmed now), and shutter speeds and aperture info in the viewfinder. Great fun for producing my own B+W prints, and I couldn't see why people needed hefty cameras. Lens is nice, but doesn't have the resolution or tonality of Leica I think. A disadvantage compared with the M construction is the need to replace leaky light seals. I have produced many pleasing pictures with SLRs and find PSs handy, but perhaps because my first serious camera was a rangefinder, this is still my preferred design. I also have an old 35RD but don't really need it so may sell it.

-- David Killick (Dalex@inet.net.nz), August 21, 2001.

The trophy Leica III in black has been gifted me by father at my sixteen in 1963. Now it is in great condition, my father at his eighty too.

-- Victor Randin (ved@enran.com.ua), August 21, 2001.

A Konica S3(http://www.cameraquest.com/kons3.htm) when I was 12, my mom gave it to me and told me it cost her a month-pay to buy it when she got her first job as a high school teacher. I didn't pay much attention to it and used other fancy P&S more often. After being a P&S guy for awhile, I bought myself a set of Canon EOS with all big guns lenses. After trying & error, I bought my first Leica M(an M6TTL), I realized how good rangefinder is, but I couldn't find the Konica S3 any more in the storage. After taking a look at the pics taken by it long ago, I found the images are so good and don't understand why I didn't listen to my mom at that time. I know it won't cost a fortune to buy another S3 on ebay, but it's not the one my mom handed to me.

-- Fred Ouyang (yo54@columbia.edu), August 21, 2001.

A very old Leica screw mount with a 50mm 3.5 elmar. I had to quess the exposer because I did have a light meter at first. all my pictures were in the daylight with tri x.

This camara gave way to a M2 which was traded for the first M4 I saw the first time I saw it. After 25 years the M4 was stolen. I was not able to afford Leica's when I replaced the M4 and bought (this is the early 90's now) a Nikon F with no light meter built in. It's OK it work well and does things a Leica RF could never do or at least could not do well.

As soon as I hit the lottery I am buying an M4. Nothing I have ever pick up fits my hand as well.

I still pick up every Leica I see and play with it.

-- Tom Hipple (elizabethmmg@msn.com), August 21, 2001.

A nice invitation for a stroll down memory lane! Apart from the usual Brownie Boxes, which certainly seemed like real cameras at the time (e.g. late models had a slider to adjust aperture), the first real one was a Voigtlander Brilliant - a TLR on which the upper lens did not focus but served only as a viewfinder: you focused manually by guestimation. Exposure calculation was with a hand-held extinction meter. A quantum leap into realness was the Ensign 820 Special: Compur shutter, I think, f3.5 folder giving 6cm by 9cm pictures. A nice-looking piece of engineering, unfortunately mislaid somewhere, together with a Weston Master 2 meter, and grieved for ever since. There followed: Olympus 35mm RF; Leica IIIA; Nikkormat (first foray into SLR and very expensive at the time); Rolleicord; Rolleiflex T; Mamiyaflex; Leica IIf (fabulous camera; in my mind's eye I still judge my latest pictures by my memories of what it produced and really do not find - subjectively, of course - that I do any better now, or want to. Then a very heavy Leica phase: M2, M3, M4 until a pressing need to engage in sports photography took me into what I regard as my first real SLR, the Nikon F2A, a beautifully made camera which gave very good service. Then the arrival of fast and reliable AF and motordrive led to a Nikon 801S which transformed my sports photography - hockey, rugby, cricket, athletics. At the same period I also owned and used Mamiya 645, Fuji 670, Minox 35GE; Ricoh GR1; Yashica T4 (it travelled round Papua New Guinea with me for 4 years), and like the FM2n and 801s which also went never gave a moment's trouble in an extremely humid climate. Having retired (I was never a pro photographer, incidentally, just a keen amateur) I now have just the M6 and the Ricoh GR1. Having well and truly taken advantage of the opportunity to reminisce (thank you, Andrew Schank) I will get to the point and answer the question. My first "real" camera was the Leica IIf because it so perfectly did what I wanted it to do - candid, informal, close-up pictures of people and children in action in their daily activities or socially. In equal first place are the Nikon SLRs, but especially the 801s, which did exactly what I wanted them to do. So, as keeps being said in this excellent forum, it's horses for courses. My courses needed both RF and SLR. Anothe point often made here is about regret at having sold Leica equipment. "Never sell your Leica stuff" is very good advice and I only wish I had had the resources to follow it. But if you do have the resources, it is absolutely sound, both because you may regret it when you find that you need it again, and also probably you will get more for it later. I think it was Agatha Christie who once said "It's nice being married to an archaelogist - the older you get the more interested he becomes in you!" Best wishes. James Harper

-- James Harper (drjh@btinternet.com), August 26, 2001.

My very first camera was a Kodak Instamatic 100 (126 format) which had belonged to my grandmother; I made a lot of snapshots with that camera, until I dropped it one day and it quit on the spot. My Dad had a Nikon F, so I learned photography on that and then bought my own F, with the 50mm f/2. After that I was hooked and went through a series of Nikon models: FG, FM, N6006, and N8008s, with lenses including 20mm/3.5, 24/2.8, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 105/2.5, 105/2.8 Micro- Nikkor, and various aftermarket lenses. I switched back to the Nikon F when I got tired of autofocus. For awhile I had a Pentax Spotmatic with the very sharp Takumar lenses, and would not mind having that camera again. During college I graduated to medium format with a Yashica 124G, then a Fuji GS645s rangefinder (a truly great travel camera with a very sharp lens). Eventually I found myself the proud owner of a Calumet 4x5, which I kept about a year. Lugging the large- format camera and equipment around is just not my speed. At the moment I have a pair of Olympus Infinity point and shoots, which mostly ride around in the car or brief case as "just-in-case" cameras, and a Yashica 635 TLR for more serious work. What I want most is a nice Nikon F with a few older manual Nikon lenses. Out of all these cameras I think the Nikon F has everything.

-- Richard Thomas (rjthomas@email.uncc.edu), November 14, 2001.

My first real camera was an Agfa Synchro-Box a 120 box camera. Got the technicals out of the way in 15 minutes and concentrated on composition (like all box cameras, it was waist level). I took some pretty good pictures, IMHO, for a 6 year old.

The first real camera I bought in a store was a Nikon FM. I spent the next 15 years thinking about the technicals and not thinking about the pictures. Modern camera advertising and self-help books have that effect.

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), November 14, 2001.

Was 15 in 1957. Had a Kodak Brownie 127. Took rectangular negs. While at a summer camp, a counsellor showed me B&W prints from his Argus C-3. I asked him why he thought the C-3 made such sharper prints. He explained that the lens had three elements that corrected the light path to the film, wheras my Brownie only used one element. With money from odd jobs, I picked up a Kodak Pony 135, my first "real" camera. I used to drool over a Signet 35 on a dealer's shelf at $75 1958 dollars! Later, I got one. Great camera!

-- Frank Horn (owlhoot45@hotmail.com), November 14, 2001.

My first one was a Nikonos III, having turned out for me, too, to be the best underwater camera there ever was, especially after the Nikonos IV appeared. 15 mm of course too, the best thing here being that I never had to focus it. The hardest part was all those flash bulb changings, and for that reason we developed special neoprene suit arm holders to hold all 36 used and unused bulbs. Out of the water I started off with an F2 and then unfortunately got an F3 instead. Oops, don't want to get back into history and promote all those who say "the older, the better".

-- Michael Kastner (kastner@zedat.fu-berlin.de), November 14, 2001.

A friend of mine had a Minolta XD11 that impressed me mightily, but I couldn't afford it. So, in late 1978, I bought a Minolta XG7. I ran it hard, shooting hundreds of rolls of mostly b&w, until it broke down in 1984. Then I discovered older cameras, and now I have perhaps the best ones ever made: Leica M3, Nikon F, Rollei 3.5F, and a Pacemaker Speed Graphic. This is like being married simultaneously to Jennifer Lopez, Sophie Marceau, Princess Caroline of Monaco, and that blond teenage Russian tennis player.

-- Robert Byrd (rbyrd@stfranciscollege.edu), December 07, 2001.

Thirty years ago, my Dad gave me a Nikkormat FTn w/50mm f/2 for my 18th birthday. It was stolen 6 years later with a brand new 105mm f/2.5 Nikkor attached. Never saw any film from that lens. The insurance company replaced the Nikkormat with a F2AS body. I still have the 50mm lens and the F2AS, along with a handfull of Nikon glass. I had a Kodak 290 digital for a few months until it broke (no great loss) and after much research bought a 10-year old NIB M6 Classic with 35/2 pre-ASPH, 50/2 tabbed, and 90 Elmarit current version. No regrets with any of these cameras. Even the Kodak taught me how much I hate auto-anything cameras. This experience will be sure to keep me from buying any Leica AE or Digital versions. For me, it's not just the prints, it's the tools and the process also.

-- Hil (hegomez@aol.com), December 07, 2001.

I always wanted an SLR as a kid, but my Dad insisted that a good photographer could shoot with a shoe box camera. So I started with his "shoe box," an Argus C-3. Looking through that viewfinder was like looking throught he wrong end of a telescope, but it was tough and functionaal and required a lot of thought to use. It was a great learning experience and made me appreciate more modern equipment.

-- Peter B. Goldstein (peter.goldstein@us.cgeyc.com), December 07, 2001.

My first “real” camera was a Kodak 35. Then an Argus rangefinder that belonged to my father. Then, in the early Sixties, my dad bought me a Konica FP with a 50mm f/1.4 Hexanon lens. A couple of years later I got a Nikon F Phototomic (non-TTL!) and a 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor. I went to RIT with the Nikon & a Calumet 4x5 with red bellows. In my last year of school I bought an M2 with the idea that I could get into photojournalism. But I never meshed with the Leica and I was far too shy at that time to even think about confronting people with my camera. Still, a few years later, the M2 long gone, I bought an M4 w/4 lenses. I never meshed with that Leica either so, you guessed it, I sold it. (That outfit would be worth a small fortune today!) In the mid Nineties, I bought another M2. But I didn't produce much with it so I sold that one also. Then, earlier this year, I bought a beater M3, which I dropped a few weeks later and essentially destroyed. So I got an M6, but, although I loved the camera and finally produced a lot of good work with it, I found it very difficult to focus reliably. So now I have an R8, which I love and which seems to fit me and my style of shooting much better. It's a perfect compliment to my Hassy 2000FC/M.

Of course, no one on this forum has to ask why, if I didn't mesh with the Leica M's, I would keep buying them. But, I must say that the R8 has the timeless feel of the Hasselblad about it, and I predict that I will be keeping this Leica for some time.

Strange, but a few months back I bought a beautiful Nikon F2 w/standard prism that my dealer had in stock, but I returned it because I couldn't focus it well, even with a f/1.4 lens, a diopter and the focusing screen of my choice. But I have little trouble focusing the R8.

I've also had 5 AF cameras: N 6006, N 8008S, EOS 3, EOS-1v, Elan 7--the latter I still own. But whether it's the Leica optics, or my obstinate desire to focus the camera myself, I have no plan to go to AF again--or, for that matter, to any Japanese camera.

-- Peter Hughes (ravenart@pacbell.net), December 07, 2001.

My first "real" camera was a Canon 1Vsb that I purchased when I reenlisted in Korea. Since then I have had several including a Pentax S3, Mamiyaflex twin lens reflex (don't remember the model), a Rolleiflex Model T, an Olympus OM1, and I now own a Olympus OM2, Canon A1, Yashica TL Electro X, Asahi Pentax S1a and an Olympus Pen- EE. I have a digital camera but still prefer the feel and operation of my film cameras as well as feel that they do a better job.

Mike

-- Mike Moffet (mmoffet@neworld.net), April 07, 2002.

My first "real" camera was a Pentax Spotmatic that I used during my college days in the early 70s. I think that the reason I turned to a Leica M6 and 50mm Summicron in the 90s was an attempt to return to photography the way I remembered it with the Spotmatic.

Joe

-- Joe Buechler (jbuechler@toad.net), April 07, 2002.