What was your first camera ?

jimgallaher

jimgallaher

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It's a bit like your first girlfriend or first car I think. What was your first camera ? And do you still think fondly of it ? Mine was a Zorki 4K when I was 13. Cost me a small fortune, about £15 if I remember, but (to me) it was a fantastic piece of kit, it went everywhere with me, film, and d&p cost me a fortune, mostly in black and white back then. I sold it a few years later to upgrade to a Zenith B. I actually made a profit of £4 on the sale ! Was so excited about the Zenith, though the novelty of an slr was fantastic. Eventually I put myself I to debt and danger and bought my all time favourite camera, a Canon A1 which I used for over 20 years, the photography bug had me bad ;-)
 
jimgallaher said:
It's a bit like your first girlfriend or first car I think. What was your first camera ? And do you still think fondly of it ? Mine was a Zorki 4K when I was 13. Cost me a small fortune, about £15 if I remember, but (to me) it was a fantastic piece of kit, it went everywhere with me, film, and d&p cost me a fortune, mostly in black and white back then. I sold it a few years later to upgrade to a Zenith B. I actually made a profit of £4 on the sale ! Was so excited about the Zenith, though the novelty of an slr was fantastic. Eventually I put myself I to debt and danger and bought my all time favourite camera, a Canon A1 which I used for over 20 years, the photography bug had me bad ;-)
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I still have mine!!!! :D

Here it is...

IMG_8091-01c1.jpg


It's a Kodak 36 Instamatic.

I think I got it when I was 10 and I think it was £5 from Boots :D I still have it and and it's flash attachment and both are in perfect as new condition :D
 
the 1st camera i bought for myself was a Halina paulette.i was about 15 so that was 38 years ago.not a particularly good point and shoot but it was my introduction to photography.not got the camera anymore but still have lots of pics i took with it :)

funny how one can remember some things but not others


peter
 
My first camera was a polaroid camera. My father had done some work in Zambia one summer and he bought it there for me as a birthday present. I wasn't totally impressed initally as I'd wanted football boots! I can remember that film for it was really, really expensive.

I moved onto a Zorki about 5 years old, but really didn't like it. It's put me off rangefinders for life. At least I didn't buy a Zenith. :)

Moved onto a Pentax MX slr a couple of years later, one of the nicest manual slrs aver made.

Had a Nikon FE after that and it felt very crude compared to the Pentax.

Finally saw the light and moved to Canon in the 80s. First with the T90 and then a few years later into EOS system with the EOS5.
 
Not entirely sure, but I think mine was a Braun of some sort, taking a 127 cartridge film. Within a year or so I'd saved up £25 of my paper round money to get a new Zenith B which I used for many years. I still have it.

First digital was a Casio QV-7000 1mp for around £650 in 1997
 
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When I was a nipper I had an old Miranda that took those little thin 110 spools.

My first "decent" piece if kit was a Pentax Zoom 105R - with red eye reduction none the less! (I think that cost another tenner on top of the standard model)

My first foray into the SLR world was the Canon 1000Fn. An OK piece of kit but I was supremely jealous of my mates much older but much nicer EOS 600 so when I got the chance to buy a used one I sold my 1000 and snapped it up. Wonderful piece of kit and I still have it today. A few years later I added an EOS 5 to the line up but couldn't bear to part with the 600.

I had a brief fling with an APS SLR, I think it was an Ixus7 - not Canon's finest hour but they were going with the flow I suppose. Got rid of it quick smart and didn't lose any money on it so can't complain.

My first DSLR was an EOS 300D. The first "affordable" DSLR from Canon. I replaced it a couple of years later with the 20D and I added an EOS 5DmkII which I bought on Honeymoon in 2009 (the wife was not best pleased let me tell you!). Finally (for now) I sold the 20D and replaced it with a 7D. I think the 7D / 5DmkII combo is very nice and suits me well.
 
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As a child I had a polaroid, then something that took 110 film, then a Prinz Mastermatic V where the back had to be held shut with sellotape as the clips had snapped off.
 
The Kodak Brownie 44a, what a camera, had one and earlier brownies, my Dad was a colector of sorts so i had access to lots of very old cameras that I 'played' with. My first digital camera was the Minolta 7i, I had come from using Minolts SLR's (600 classic) and thought that 5 megapixies, 28-200mm lens was amazing, cost nearly £700 if i remember rightly.

Just realised that I have used so many different cameras, from 120, 127, 110, 126, 35, even a disc camera, i still have an old Comet 2, a Canon AE1 and Pentax P3. I must de-clutter :)
 
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Mine was a Kodak Brownie 127 that my Dad gave me. I would have been about 8 or 9. I then had a Halina point and shoot thingy and then an Olympus AZ200 superzoom!

I then went away from photography for several years until I got my Casio QVR40 digital compact camera about 8 years ago. Then the Fuji S6500fd for 4 and half years, and now the D7000 bought October 2011 :D
 
First camera I bought for myself was a Praktica BX20. Think it had a 70-200mm zoom, a 50mm and a 28-70mm. Was fantastic. Taught me lots about using cameras.
 
Kodak Box Brownie!

Kodak-Box-Brownie.jpg


Followed up by the standard Brownie, then a Zenit B and a few Asahi Pentax.
 
First camera? Kodak Disc, which I still have and I'm pretty sure still has an undeveloped film in it :LOL:

First "proper" camera Zenit EM, first digital camera Fuji DX-10, first dslr Nikon D80, all of which I still own, except the D80 which, err, drowned in a light shower of rain :LOL:
 
Halina 110.. long since dead and dismantled, but I still have the print of the very first shot I took using it.
 
Kodak 127 Brownie ( first version) given to me by my grandparents when i was a nipper.
Also remember playing around with a Box Brownie Flash IV but Grandad wouldn't let me keep that one!!.....I inherited it later in life!
No idea what became of the photos taken with them though...Perhaps my mother has some knocking about.....
 
Box Brownie No. 0.

Still got it somewhere.
 
My first camera was a Zenit E. :) I think mine was £25 too. :LOL:

That was followed by a Nikon FE and Nikon EM which I got as a present.

Then 12-13 years of no Photography. Oh the cost of film. :( :LOL:

Then in 2003 I thought Digital was good enough, and more importantly cheap enough, for me to get back into it. After being used to a SLR, rather than a point and shoot, I wanted a cam with a bit more control, and after a lot of research I chose a Fujifilm S602Z Pro, which for the time had some quite advanced features. And it had spec which some cameras now don't have now, like 1/10,000th shutter speed. :eek: Not that it was bright enough that often to take advantage of it. It also had dual card slots. (CF and Smart Media) :eek: I think it was a classic of the time. (y)

Since that I followed it with;

Nikon D70 (would have been a Canon 350D if it had not have been too small)
Fujifilm FinePix F31fd (again, another classic imho)
Nikon D200
Nikon D300 (a bit of an indulgence, but a big improvement on the D200)
Nikon D300S (replaced a stolen D300 :()
Canon S95 (I wanted a quality compact to replace the stolen Fuji S602Z Pro and F31fd)

It is quite scary when it is written down, :eek: but it's been an evolution for the most part, burglaries aside. :bang:

I'm at a point where the gear lust has stopped, thankfully.



But then that D400 will have..... :LOL:
 
First 'proper' camera was an Olympus XA1 that my mum got me for Christmas when I was a kid.

The first SLR I owned was my grandfather's Olympus OM1n (which I still own) but I progressed onto the OM2n and still own one of those to this day (as does my daughter). I've also recently got my hands on an Olympus 35RC too! :)
 
First camera was a Kodak 400 which I've still got, 1st SLR was a canon 500N 35mm
 
I owned a few of those rubbish flat things that took 110 film. Never owned a 35mm till my sister gave me her art-school Pentax K1000, which I still have and still break out occasionally.


First digital was a Sony DSC-P30 compact, which cost well over £400 with the optional Infolithium battery, which I recall was about eighty quid. Still got it, 2.1 megapixels, woo :)

First DSLR was a D40 which I sold on here last week, and sort of miss. Damn my hoarding ;)
 
I had one of these in red as my first camera. Ill have to see if its still knocking around at the parents house, doubt it.

Cant beat that 100% flip up view finder :LOL:


SupaSnaps "Snappit II" by 1980jp, on Flickr

il_170x135.272854853.jpg
 
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My first was a cheap plastic box taking huge roll film then an Instamatic 25 (well clunky compared to the OP's flashy 36!) followed by, approximately:

Olympus XA2
Canon Sureshot Supreme
Olympus mju 2
Canon Sureshot A1 Underwater
EOS 1000F
Canon Sureshot S30 - first digi to sit next to the 1000F
EOS 300D
EOS 7D
 
woof woof said:
I still have mine!!!! :D

Here it is...

It's a Kodak 36 Instamatic.

I think I got it when I was 10 and I think it was £5 from Boots :D I still have it and and it's flash attachment and both are in perfect as new condition :D
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That's very posh, I had the same camera inherited from my dad, but it used the old cube flash bulbs. Four flashes, then in the bin :)
 
My first camera I remember was a Kodak 110 instamatic, very cheap, plastic and small. The first SLR was a Kiev 4 as in the photo, and got it when I was 11 and used it up until I got my first digital camera.

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The first digital camera was the Olympus C-820L which I got in 1997 and was a massive 0.81Mp. There's a list of stats here http://www.olympus.co.uk/consumer/208_C-820L.htm and I've still got some of the photos backed up on discs. They don't look great to be honest.

Then I went through various makes and models of Fuji, Panasonic, Samsung, Kodak and probably others too, all compact or bridge type, until I finally jump to a Canon 550D in 2010 and haven't looked back since. Now got a 7D and a 5D2 and about half a dozen lenses.
 
Ricoh KR-10, circa 1980
 
modchild said:
My first camera I remember was a Kodak 110 instamatic, very cheap, plastic and small. The first SLR was a Kiev 4 as in the photo, and got it when I was 11 and used it up until I got my first digital camera.
Click to expand...

My dad still has his Kiev 4 :)
 
First proper one was an Olympus OM20 bought used about 1985 for £150
It came with the standard 50mm F1.4mm zuiko lens which is still very sweet on my 5D with adapter, but rather difficult to manually focus in low-light.

Did lots of slides with that, then had quite a spell more interested in playing with camcorders.
About 2002, got my first digital which was a Fuji A203.
Looking back at some of the pictures from it, they were not bad at all - but often seemed to have a blue cast and not much use in low light.

The great delight with it was the almost zero cost of taking an infinite number of pictures.
Learned more in the first year with that fuji than all the time with the film Olympus - purely because of the limitation of film and developing costs.
 
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