1st camera

[bodi]

Forgive me if this has been done before but I thought it would be interesting to know what was your 1st camera.
You know, the one that started you on your (never ending) journey to have the next exposure that made it such a pleasure to have chosen this hobby/profession.
If anyone's interested, mine was a 35mm Bosley (1961).

Thanks Bob

[Derek G]

My first camera was an AGFA ISOLETTE ,which i bought in the eighties and the salesman must have been laughing all the way home, as was a camera buff friend when i told him what i bought, it went straight into a drawer never used still have it and far as i know still works,bought an EOS 10 in the nineties but lack of time forced that into a drawer as well, now i have the time and a Canon 450 which will hopefully see me through the learning stages.

[jimd]

My first proper one was a Zorki-4 rangefinder camera in 1970. A Russian copy of a Leica. Built like a tank with a very good Jupiter lens. It's still lying around the house somewhere

[jeeperman]

My first was a Pentax K1000 in the mid 80s. It was given to me as I started a high school photography class. I loved that camera.

[rpcrowe]

The first "real" (as opposed to box cameras or Instamatic cameras) camera I owned was the Mercury which was a half frame 35mm (72 exposures on a 36 exposure roll). It had no meter nor any integrated focusing control. It did have a f/2.5 lens which in the 1950's was exceptionally fast and it had a circular shutter (which is the reason for the half-circle bulge on the top of the camera) that allowed a 1/1,000 second shutter speed which also was very fast for the era...



The first professional cameras that I worked with were the Graphic Press (Speed Graphic with a focal plane shutter and Crown Graphic without the focal plane shutter) cameras. They used 4x5 inch size cut film (there were other size Graphic Press Cameras available but, I never used them) in two exposure film holders (shown in a pile next to the camera) or twelve exposure magazines. They also could use 12-exposure film packs but, I never liked processing or working with that film.



The first professional quality 35mm camera that I used (but didn't own) was a Navy Leica M-2 rangefinder. The Navy supplied kits with an M-2 body along with 35mm, 50mm and 90mm lenses. For some strange reason they also supplied a folding fan flash which no one ever used but we always were responsible for when our equipment was inventoried...



Although the M-2 was a fine camera and the first professional 35mm camera I ever used. I did not like it because it had a bottom plate which you needed to remove when loading a new roll of film. This meant that you had three loose pieces in your hand, camera, bottom plate and film spool. For a guy like me who cannot walk and chew gum at the same time, this was a PITA.

[Tygart]

My first was a Pentax K1000 in the mid 80s. It was given to me as I started a high school photography class. I loved that camera.

My first SLR was a K1000 too and I got it for high school photography.

But my first camera (For being interested in photography) was Sony Cybershot F717.

[Katie Mae]

My first camera was an old Kodak 35mm that was my grandfather's (circa 1940s/1950s). I never did much with it other than a few rolls of film.

In 1998 or so I got a Sony Mavica FD7 used to photograph "stuff" I was selling on eBay. Storage was 3.5" floppy disks!!! It took great closeups but really wasn't that great for distance.

About 6 months ago I found a Kodak EasyShare C143 bundle on sale for about $50 and I've been a point-and-shoot fool every since!!!

Someday a good SLR with a viewfinder.

If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead!!!

[thequacksoflife]

not sure what the first camera I owned was (probably some sort of instamatix) BUT the first I used was a 1950's Voigtlander Bessa II

I have a yearning for an Olympus Trip!!

[rob925]

My first camera was a Kodak Brownie (don't laugh) which my parents sold in their studio. Still have the camera and case in mint condition. My first real camera was a Canon AE1. Great camera with very intuitive controls and manual override.

[Stagecoach]

A Zorki 4K back in the 70s which I sold on ebay just a couple of years ago.

[DollyP]

1950s box camera. First proper camera was an Olympus Pen-D followed by a Practika SLR. I moved to Pentax ME and MX followed by a Nikon F801, then moved to digital with an Olympus E1 (what a camera) and E520 (nicked by my daughter). I have ME/CFS so can't carry much these days but a Canon S95 allows me to kid myself I'm carrying a serious system camera

David

[jcuknz]

My first camera was a Coronet Cub and like the Leica's of the time the lens retracted into the body :-)

Photo from BJ Almanac 1948
But what started my carear was not a camera but an Aldis film strip projector which an aunt owned and playing with it I fused an expensive projection bulb, best part of half a weeks wages as a postman in those days. My aunt didn't scold me but accepted it was the old wiring of her house at the time. She encouraged me and sponsored my early films of the organisation she worked for ... on 9.5mm Which we showed on a Dekko Dual 16mm/9.5mm silent projector. The audiences love them .... nothing like taking and showing pictures of people to themselves that they didn't have to pay for for approval of the camera person ... great confidence builder
Closest photo I have of that camera, second left in back row a Dekko, at times I also owned the Bolex H16 and the Pathe Webo 16mm reflex, first and fourth in back row. Later a H16RX. along with an Auricon Pro600 to be 'name dropping' :-)

Not sure where I got that photo from.

[Inkanyezi]

My first camera was an Olympus Pen that my father gave me in 1960, the original Olympus Pen. Today I took the top plate off and cleaned the viewfinder, that had become clogged with fungus. It has been ages since I actually used it, I think the last time was in the eighties.

[rpcrowe]

The Olympus Pen (series) of cameras were half-frame 35mm. A very neat thing about this series of cameras is that the long side of the format was across the film, the same way images for film strip projectors were set up. You could actually make a film strip right in the camera.
Of course, we no longer use audio-visual devices like filmstrips since the advent of the computer projector.
The bad thing about the Pen series was the same as my half-frame Mercury. It shot 40 images on a 20 exposure roll of 35mm flm and 72 images on a 36 exposure roll. Shooting print film with 40 or 72 exposures meant that the processing cost was quite high. People literally loaded the film into the camera at Christmas time and shot the final images around the U.S. Thanksgiving in November...

[Bill Yeung]

my first is Nikon FM2 at 1990. It is when I know that I will emmigrate to Canada. Considering the cold weather and thought that digital point and shot will have battery being frozen in the icy weather.
Not much using it and eventually turned to Canon 20D on 2005!!
Pretty young, is it??

Bill

[escoville]

Box cameras and Instamatics are 'proper' cameras. It's just that their flexibility/functionality is limited.

[geordie01]

Pentax P30 still got it and it works perfectly.

[Inkanyezi]

Actually, the Olympus Pen was not the first camera I used, although it was the first one that was mine. Some years earlier, my brother had found a thrown away 6x9 cm box camera for 120 film in a garbage container. Its limitations were that it had fixed focus and only one shutter time, although it also had B. And it had two apertures that were little holes in a small plate that could be set to two positions. I think that was in 1954 or 1955. I shot my first ever roll of film with that one, and I still have the photos in an album. Seven of the frames were OK, but one was double exposed. The release was a small lever that snapped once for each time it was flipped, either way. I was a bit envious of my brother for that camera. We didn't enlarge those pictures, but they are all contact prints.