What and when was your first serious camera?

My first ever camera, serious or otherwise, was a Zenit B, with the 58mm f2 lens.
 
Fuji S7000, which I still have and back in the day, it was Fuji nuts.

First DSLR was a Canon 350d, which I also still have, great little camera.
 
Zenit E with a 50mm in 1973, i dont think i ever got a a dud exposure with it , a great camera and lens to learn on, taught me a lot. It went to Brands hatch , drag racing, car shows , holidays, airshows . It had its limitations but what a tank.
I always wanted a Zorki though ?.
 
Practical mtl5b in 1984
There have been dozens in between then and now, film and digital.
 
The first camera I made money wiht would have to be considered my first serious camera and its the Olympus c2100 uz... or the UZI as it was reffered to .. as seen in my avatar.. July 2002
 
Mine was a Chinon SLR (forget the model) bought from Dixon's in 1974. I had just left school so bought it on the 'never never'. I used it intensively for 16 years until it was stolen one day in Amsterdam.
They were really good cameras, I had one at one time and all the working parts (shutter etc) were pentax apparently.
The Chinon shutter was almost certainly a Copal - they have been in all my Chinon cameras.
 
The Chinon shutter was almost certainly a Copal - they have been in all my Chinon cameras.
The Copal Square shutter was a really big deal when it first appeared at the end of the 1960s. The Chinon SLRs at that time were rebadged Ricoh cameras, which were also sold under the Prinzflex and Revue brands (among others). The clue is that only the Ricoh Singlex versions have the name on the prism cover engraved. The others all had labels stuck into a recess on the front of the prism cover.
 
praktica.jpeg
In 1975 a Praktica LB-2. for 60 quid. It had a selenium meter cell in front of the rewind knob. So it was similar to the Zenit E of the same period. Except it had a 1/1000s top shutter speed with a vertical metal shutter. And a shutter release button on the front at an angle. M42 lens thread and a 50mm f/2.8 lens. I still have it somewhere.
 
Mine was a Pentax ME super that I inherited from my grandad some time in the mid nineties, it spurred be on to setting up a darkroom in my parents spare room and taught me a hell of a lot combined with a shed load of books and the school photographic society. Happy days :)
 
My first camera was a Brownie 127 so that doesn't count as serious, or was it to an 8 year old?
Then a Halina 35X for my 10th birthday, a big thrill but perhaps it can't be taken seriously and then... a Zenit B, now you are talking.
Latterly still locked into film, in fact I gave my granddaughter my Canon 40D, lenses and bits a couple of weeks ago.
 
EOS 5 in 1990? Cost me loads...and even more in developing film..used it for many years though got fed up with film and scanning to digital wasn’t very good. Had some expensive sigma glass which I really enjoyed using at the time.
EOS 350D first go with digital, maybe 2006? Bit disappointing in resolution and the basic nature of it compared to my 5. Very disappointed the sigma glass was not compatible with the digital body. Felt cheated and vowed never to by non Canon glass again.
EOS 70D in 2014 where it rekindled my interest in photography, really is a great setup now, only thing that I’m tempted by is full frame and better low light performance of some of the better bodies. I do have @ couple of EF-S lenses though it won’t be the cost issue like the Sigma’s.

Have the 5 and 350 bodies in the loft still.
 
This Pentax Spotmatic. I bought it sometime in the 90s when I fancied trying some astrophotography. Not sure when exactly I bought it, but it was from London Camera Exchange in Chesterfield (which is no no longer there - the shop, not the town). It was before comet Hale-Bopp appeared in the skies, so that would place it around 1995-96. After years of not using it, I sold it about six months before I decided I quite liked the idea of shooting film again. :banghead:

Before then, all I'd had were compacts, 110 cameras, and an Olympus Trip 35 that my dad gave me but I didn't use ( :banghead: again). I still have the Trip, but the light meter has failed. I also have another working Trip 35 though, which is a great little camera, and I last used it a couple of months ago.


33/366 2016 - This was my first
by fishyfish_arcade, on Flickr
 
Last edited:
I bought my wife a Pentax ME Super in 1983, which I "borrowed" a lot, then in 1986 got myself a Monolta 9000, 35-70 and 70-200 lenses which I've still got.

I had a Pentax ME super as my 1st serious camera with a 135mm f2 lens- wish I still had it :)

Les :)
 
Prinzflex 500e?? From Dixon's
're badged , zenith e
 
My first camera was an Agfa rapid; my dad gave it to me which was quite a big deal and completely out of the blue; I still have it - maybe I should see if I can get one of the cassette that went in to it. Praktika SLR, Pentax SP1000 and then Canons. An AE1 and then an A1 which the very nice man in the independent shop in Ramsgate let me buy used for £20 a month. Next highlight - EOS 5.... I still have the body somewhere. Then digital came along... Canon DSLRs and most recently an Olympus mirrorless set up for lighter days.
 
Secondhand Nikon FM, bought in 1987. Still got it somewhere!

GC
 
Another one who 'started' with Chinon - a CP-7m, simply because I could not afford the Pentax P50 or Canon T70 at the time.

I already had been using a Boots 126 instamatic camera and a Kodak Retina ReflexS , but these were gifts. My father already had a Chinon CE-4 so I could borrow his lenses. 30 years on I still am using the K-mount system (P50, Z-1p, K-3 and K-1).
 
I had one replaced and the repairer told me it was a pentax.
I think Pentax (and other major manufacturers) also outsourced shutters to Copal or Seiko, so it might have been both a third party shutter and the same one used in a Pentax.
 
A side note for Zenit lovers. I read that Zenit resumed production of a Zenit-M digital in 2019 with a 35mm f/1.0 lens this year. Only 500 were produced. A new, fully redesigned digital model is scheduled to go into production in 2020.
 
Last edited:
The Zenit M is a real curiosity. It's pretty obviously a Leica M240 with a Zenit badge and styling. I suppose if Leica can rebadge a Panasonic compact as one of their own, then there's no reason why they shouldn't do the reverse with another brand, but who'd have guessed it would be Zenit?
 
My first camera was a plastic one from Woolworths, which took 828 film round about 1956. Followed by two box cameras (Coronet, 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 on 120 and a Kodak Flash 20, 2 1/4 square on 620). Then the first camera which had an adjustable shutter, the subminiature Mycro. A 35mm scale focusing camera with f/3.5 lens followed, and what I'd probably then have called my first serious camera was an Exa IIB in 1965, then an Exakta Varex IIB (which I still have) in 1967.

Nowadays of course, I recognise that no camera which uses film smaller than 10x8 is really a serious camera :D
 
The Zenit M is a real curiosity. It's pretty obviously a Leica M240 with a Zenit badge and styling. I suppose if Leica can rebadge a Panasonic compact as one of their own, then there's no reason why they shouldn't do the reverse with another brand, but who'd have guessed it would be Zenit?
The original attraction of the Zenit was its price point. I wonder if the new Zenit means we will be able to buy a Leica for a cheaper price than the Leica named camera.
 
The original attraction of the Zenit was its price point. I wonder if the new Zenit means we will be able to buy a Leica for a cheaper price than the Leica named camera.
The Zenit M apparently goes for 4000-6000 Euros, which is a bit more than the £30 they used to sell the Zenit E for. You do get a super-fast lens, though.
 
The Zenit M apparently goes for 4000-6000 Euros, which is a bit more than the £30 they used to sell the Zenit E for. You do get a super-fast lens, though.
Do you know how the lens specs out for sharpness across the frame, focus speed, etc? Yes, it looks super fast. But, that advantage may be lost if it can't perform the rest.
 
Do you know how the lens specs out for sharpness across the frame, focus speed, etc? Yes, it looks super fast. But, that advantage may be lost if it can't perform the rest.
I don't think anyone has tested it independently yet. It's a manual focus lens, large and heavy, which will certainly intrude into the viewfinder framelines (unless you are using an accessory EVF or the rear LCD). Unlike the camera, it's presumably an original Russian design.
 
I think mine was a Lubitel, as it was cheaper than the Zenit E, or indeed B. My first "decent" camera was the Yashica TL-Electro X, a curious beast with an electronically controlled vertical shutter.
 
Pentax ME super for me, closely followed by an MX. I still have the MX and it seems OK, so really ought to buy some film and make the effort to use it.
 
Olympus OM10 back in 1980. I got a bonus at work and my wife said I should get a decent camera :)
 
My first what at the time considered a serious camera was a box brownie 127. Must have not even reached the age of double figures. How I remember saving all those 3 penny bits over the weeks to buy it, The price was £1-1s-11p old money. I still remember going into the local camera shop next to sutton railway station in Surrey and putting all the 3 penny pieces on the counter.

like those in the link below

https://www.google.com/search?q=bro.....69i57j0l5.7405j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8


Since then it was the Voitlander Vito CL (still got not used for years owned from new for 53 years) until the first digital I got was the Kodak Easyshare CX4200 as a tryout into digital photography. Then onto several Nikons.

So at any one time each camera was a serious camera, so there was no actual "first" serious camera
 
Last edited:
Canon AT-1 inherited off my brother in late 1999. (It was bought so he could do GCSE photography in 1998) Prior to that, I used to have a boots branded compact as I was a rather destructive child. I also used to borrow mums A-1 and dad's T-90 under heavy supervision whilst out and about. Even with all the other 35mm film cameras I've added since, this is still my favourite. Lightweight, simple, tough and reliable.
 
Last edited:
Rolleicord Vb and THIS I STILL have I use to THIS day I bought NEW in the 70s, the one on the right, the Mk 2 I got last year and use for landscapes NOW



wm.jpgDscn0455.jpgwm2.jpg
 
Last edited:
My parents bought me a film camera which I lost on a school trip, told me they wouldn't replace it and they didn't.

Some years later, my Dad got a Sony 3.2 MP cybershot - but I never really give much thought to taking photos back then.

Many years later in 2010, at the age of 28, Louise and I went to Switzerland, I borrowed her Canon 1100D - using that caused me to consider photography a little more seriously. Not long after I bought my own camera a Sony A580 and became obsessed with fast primes, within a year bought the Canon 5D Mark II to get even shallower depth of field with it's full frame sensor.

The 5DM2 feels like a more "serious camera" than the Sony A580 - so I'm going to say that one! :)
 
Canon G7 back in 2007. Was bought to replace the family’s Nikon Coolpix. Learnt a lot on that camera thanks to its manual exposure mode, bought a Nikon D80 a year later.

DPReview’s description of the G7’s styling as ‘rangefinder’ like also led me to look up exactly what an rangefinder was, which of course led me to Leica, and the dream of owning one some day was born (and eventually fulfilled a few years later).
 
Back
Top